For this challenge, I chose to shoot photos of my maternal grandmother, who recently moved to West Vancouver from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. She is my sole remaining grandparent, and she moved to be closer to the rest of her family- 3 out of her 4 children all live around the Lower Mainland, including my mother. For all of these photos, I took advantage of natural light while outside on the balcony of her apartment, but it was a cloudy day so I couldn't have the best settings in terms of ISO, but I feel like these photos turned out well anyways. In two of the pictures she is featured with my dog, who for her is just another one of the grandkids. This shows my ancestry in that most of my immediate family is connected to the matriarchal side, just due to close proximity to each other. In these images, I wanted them to feel sort of soft and serene, as she is finally closer and connected to family. My favourite image of the series is the first one, mostly because it has the best lighting out of them and my favourite facial expression. In terms of what I would do better next time, I would want to be able to do a better variation of images, or possibly combine these ones with images of my mother to have more, but this all depends on the time available of the person. I didn't want to intrude too much. so I didn't end of with many images. Overall, I feel like I successfully completed the assignment and managed to make these images work together as a series that shows a simple view of a person.
This challenge was one that I struggled with, as it became surprisingly difficult to shoot once Vancouver descended into its rainy winter season and I completely missed out on all the sunshine that I think I remember having over winter break. I especially struggled with the self portrait portion, as I remember that at the time the light was constantly changing with clouds, and I faced the challenge that my backyard at home is surrounded by massive trees in neighbour's yards on either side, so usually there is only a slim chance for sunshine to actually reach the yard between 11am-4pm. Also, I had tripod issues and generally worries in self confidence with having a picture of myself.. I feel that this portrait fulfills the requirements, even though it isn't a particularly good or interesting photo. However, I really like how the other two photos turned out, and I was pretty surprised by it. These pictures were spur-of-the-moment going out somewhere and suddenly being shocked by perfect sun rays, and proceeding to screech at my sister to "stand there" while everyone else impatiently waited for us to get in the car. Both of these pictures were taken on my phone, and then minimally edited in Lightroom on my computer. My favourite image is the centre one that fulfills the rays of light challenge, as I managed to get my sister to be in focus with a surprising amount of depth of field due to the blur of the rest of the background. Overall, I managed to somewhat successfully complete this challenge, even though it was a wildly different times. In the future, I think that I would try to coordinate my timing better in terms of taking advantage of sunshine the immediate time I notice it.
*Scroll through slideshow for all pictures- turns out 15 photos in a "gallery" looks pretty terrible in terms of formatting.
For this challenge, I chose to go with a less literal route than just having my photos be of West Vancouver, or of my house. I wanted them to convey more of a lived-in, decaying feel of nostalgia as a set. They more communicate the passage of time for "where I live", with the juxtaposition of faded childhood memories and the wet greyness of Vancouver that is usually forgotten amidst sparkling mountains and brilliant summer sunshine. I've lived here all my life, even in the same house, and now the places around me are steeped in memories. A bundle of things that now make up an introspective part of me; another viewpoint on where I live. Things like paint flaking off of a wooden playhouse in the yard, leaves covering a tennis court all but forgotten by the municipality, the glitter of broken chain on a basketball hoop. A sign promising to change hiking trails into suburbs, and it's been there as long as I can remember. Yet also the little things, forgotten by all during the stereotypical brilliance of fall colours, when all the bright colours are now brown but this is just the Vancouver winter, in which the dull colours don't get the covering blanket of snow. Like water dripping from evergreen branches and into puddles, mist covering the mountains, broken tree branches and pine needles on the roadside after storms; dull morning light strong enough to have the lights turned off but not to wake sleeping cats. All in all, they bring together a feeling that could be described to most as a 'Sunday Haze". It's part of where I live, and therefore is part of me, but it doesn't make up all of it. Just a lesser explored part. Overall, I think I was successful in creating a set of photographs that conveyed a feeling, while not having the literal representation of the challenge. I think my favourite photo of the group is the one of the basketball hoop with the metal chains, because in the midst of the "dirty" brown-ness of the rest of the photo, the metal seems to sparkle. For this challenge, I headed down to Lighthouse Park with my mum and my dog, mostly because my sisters were unwilling to help me and they were going on a walk anyways; so I could sneak in some pictures if I came. I chose this area (specifically the beach) because it provided the look of an open space with just rocks, sky and the ocean depending on the angle of the photo, which gave ample opportunity for "small human" pictures. My favourites of these are the first two rock photos, even though they are very similar. I love their simplicity, and how they almost work together in being similar, and how they show that they work in either black and white or muted colour. I wouldn't have originally chosen to have my dog accompany my mum in the photos, but he was adamant about not leaving her side. I feel like in the first photo, this adds a little bit of depth to it, as they seem to be looking at each other and communicating something. I definitely think that these two were successful in fulfilling the challenge, but I am disappointed in that I didn't give myself enough time to have more different photos, and if I did this again I would love to have it as a series in set in an urban environment, to show the how large humanity's achievements have become and how we usually don't notice them.
On a different note, the third picture was thrown in because I needed a third picture and the others became too similar- this one was accidental, when I was checking my settings. I only noticed that it kind of fit the theme while editing the others. It could use some work and doesn't fulfill the challenge to it's full potential (i.e. not full body), but I feel that it does still fit in some way, with the large trees surrounding the (kinda) small figure. For this assignment, we had to shoot 4 photos showing the 'look' of fall. For me, when I think about the look of fall, I associate it with leaves, and with rain. Fall is known for all the leaves changing colour and falling to the ground, and if you live in Vancouver, it's an abrupt end to the warm weather and sunshine of summer. So for my photos, I chose variety of different leaves as the subject(s), mixed in with aspects of rain in a few of them. They explore the different colours of fall in each photo. My favourite ones of this set are the top two: the first one for it's colours and texture, and then the second for it's blur and depth of field. I chose these ones to work together as a set because they all featured a different leaf and colour, and they each show the textures of the leaves. As well, I chose two vertical photos and two horizontal ones so that it would balance when posted. Overall, I feel like I was successful in capturing the colours of fall, but I feel like the fourth photo doesn't click with the set as much as the first three do. If I were to do this project again for a longer period of time, I would want to try and capture different photos of the horizon with the different weather of fall: from the occasional blinding sunshine, to the usual rain and mist
For my choice of assignment / theme, I chose to do architecture, specifically that of Old Montreal. While I was away on a trip to a storytelling convention and then up in Montreal and Toronto to visit universities, I had about one day to shoot pictures while staying in Old Montreal. This consisted of a couple hours aimlessly wandering around this part of the city and taking in all the beautiful old architecture. This turned out some pretty interesting pictures, especially with a focus on the windows and upper parts of the buildings, mostly shot from below on the sidewalk. I feel like most of these pictures successfully captured the complexity of these buildings, and I edited them in a mixture of black-and-white and slightly desaturated photos, to draw one's eyes away from the colours to focus on the details of the buildings themselves. One of my pictures in particular that turned out surprisingly well was the middle photo in the top row, due to its use of negative space and black-and-white. Originally, the bright blue of the sky was overbearing and distracting, but in b&w it brings focus to the building without it having to be in the centre of the photo (rule of thirds!). Other techniques I found myself using were actually similar to the macro leaves project, in cropping closely to the subject. This can be seen in the first and third pictures, where I cropped the edges of the building(s) out to focus on the windows. Overall, I chose these six pictures to represent the theme because they felt connected together, like they belonged in a set, due to their focus on windows and the top edges of buildings. I feel like I was successful in representing the style of some of the old architecture while still having the pictures be connected together with more than just being pictures of Montreal. The two pictures below represent other favourites I had from the trip, but I felt that they didn't connect as well with the other pictures as a whole, so they're just tacked on at the end as a little extra.
Thankfully it did rain this weekend, allowing for everything to be suitably spattered with raindrops enough for this assignment. (or maybe it was the sprinkler system). Photos 2 - 4, the water droplet photos, were all shot using a macro lens. I couldn't decide on which water droplet photo I liked best, so I picked a couple of them. The first water droplet photo is one that I'm especially proud of, because it features raindrops on a tiny spiderweb that I found nestled in grass. It makes the water drops look as if they are suspended in midair, like perfect little spheres. This one was definitely hard to get sharp focus on, but I think I achieved that pretty well. The other three water drop photos all feature leaves, as they had accumulated the largest amount of water (although probably due to the sprinklers and not the rain).
For this panning challenge I made my way down to the highway overpass near my house to photograph cars. This allowed me to have ample opportunity to try the panning technique with the amount of cars, but I only had enough time to take 1 - 2 pictures per car. To my utter disappointment, I missed the chance to shoot a an old, classic car that had passed by. I found that most of my photos had only one half of the car frozen for some reason. The three pictures selected I consider to be most of my successes, with the best one being the first one with the red car. Although, what I did find with shooting on the highway was that many of my pictures looked identical aside from a different car in the centre, and as my sister commented it "looked like I was some sort of strange car enthusiast". This is also partially due to most of the cars being the same colours, with the typical whites, silvers, blacks, and the occasional blue or red. Leading me to be very proud and excited over successfully capturing the third picture of the yellow motorcycle. In doing this again, I would like to try the technique with something other than cars, and preferably be at a better vantage point: being above the highway makes the cars seem a little to far away, but just shooting on the sidewalk was a little too close (e.g. pic 1 vs. pic 2.). However this could be solved with a different lens, like a zoom/telephoto lens for the highway or a wide angle for the sidewalk (as I was only using the standard kit lens). In terms of different subjects, I would just have to find somewhere else with a similar volume of moving objects, like maybe Stanley Park in the summer for cyclists, or a cross-country/sports event might work. In general, it could also be a good technique to remember for capturing moving animals (pets or otherwise). I do really like this technique, because it brings focus to just the moving object, unlike just using a fast shutter speed.
For this cliche assignment, I of course used one of Vancouver's most prominent landmarks: the Lion's Gate Bridge. The first/top three pictures in the gallery are the cliche pictures, and the bottom/last three are the non-cliche ones. First off, I have the cliche of the bridge against the background of downtown Vancouver. The other standard cliche ones include one with a cruise ship passing underneath and a full-bridge black and white shot. I feel like these adequately meet the needs of a cliche photo, which almost made it hard to feel good about taking them. I've spent so much time trying not to take/post cliche photos on my own time that it just felt... wrong, to have these open in lightroom. However, it was incredibly easy to take these photos, in that you basically find a good viewpoint, point and shoot. Timing was needed just to allow people (or dogs, as these were taken from the Ambleside dog park) to get out of the frame, and a nice stroke of luck for the cruise ship to be passing underneath while I was out there. Although, It's easy to see why so many of these pictures are taken. They're still pretty to look at, no matter the cliche, and are nice tourist pictures. Most tourists would probably not want my dog as the focal point of the picture instead of the bridge they came to see. I tried to take the non-cliche photos in-between/while I shot the cliche ones, as once you got in the mode of shooting cliche ones it was very hard to snap out of it. It was like going from shooting for an amateur "places of B.C. calendar" to being the weirdo taking pictures from behind a tree. I do like all my non-cliche photos, with the focal points being focused on things other than the bridge: rocks, dog, tree. My favourite is the tree, as it takes away the beach/water aspect that it common to most of the "cliche" pictures you find of the bridge. Overall, I feel like this was a good exercise to do in the beginning of the year, to be able to really think about our photos and what makes them stand out. Something like this might be needed for portrait photography as well, since there's only so many "smile and fake laugh" pictures one can take before they all feel identical. Student flickr pages during a portrait unit should not strive to look like an amateur stock photography page.
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MoniqueRemember, the camera is your friend. Archives
February 2016
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