Architecture

Final assignment!  I picked architecture as my final assignment.  I shot all of the pictures in downtown Ann Arbor.  I walked through by all the big college buildings and some of the stores.  It was really hard to get a good angle sometimes because you are restricted by the sidewalks, roads, and people.  Luckily, there was plenty around to shoot so finding interesting buildings was not a problem.  I enjoyed walking around to take these pictures and I even met some nice people who showed me cool spots to shoot.  The picture I'm choosing to highlight is of a hallway to the law courtyard.  Someone happened to be sitting there and the light was coming in from the side.

ISO: 200

Aperture: unknown

Shutter Speed: 1/40

Visual Pun

Here was another assignment meant to demonstrate some Gimp skills and use a little creativity.  I had to make three visual puns using pictures off of Creative Commons.  I had a hard time at first thinking of some good puns, but after a day or so I came up with some that were pretty creative and not overused.  Can you guess all three?

Fruit Fly

World Wide Web

Seasons Greetings

Color Pop

I chose to take an open assignment this week for color pop. This is where I would take a picture and highlight certain colors or objects by desaturating everything but the what i wanted. I had a lot of fun with this assignment and it was really hard to choose my best one. I really like the effect of color pop and it can make some pictures really interesting.

ISO: 80
Aperture: f2.7
Shutter Speed: 1/30

Visual Dictionary

The purpose of this assignment was to demonstrate some of the photo editing skills I learned during this trimester. First I picked 5 words and found related pictures off of Flickr Creative Commons. Then I had to blend and put them together in a creative way. This assignment was pretty fun, but it was sometimes difficult to find good, related photos.

Still Life

Still life was the theme this week.  This is typically the type of photos you would see on ads.  This was probably the hardest and least interesting assignment for me.  However, I learned how different lighting changes your shot, and sometimes you have to play around with it for a while until it looks good.  The picture I'm highlighting is of a perfume bottle, and I used some scrapbook paper to give it a nice, solid, yet fun background.  I used a desk lamp to give the gradient effect on the background.  The thing I like most about this picture is the bright colors.

ISO: 320
Aperture: f2.7
Shutter Speed: 1/30

Portrait

This demo was to learn how to use different lighting to take pictures of people.  The photo on the left uses a 3-point lighting system where there are multiple lights set up around the subject.  The photo on the right uses window lighting where most of the light comes from a nearby window and a shiny paper (bounce card) is used to reflect from the other side to get rid of some of the shadows.  Now I know how to take nice pictures of people in different lighting situations.

Black and White

Black and white is the assignment I chose this week.  I went out and took normal photos and then desaturated them.  Black and white is a fun thing to shoot, but it can be very difficult to find something that has enough contrast and looks well without color.  Finding subjects to shoot was the hardest part, and it forces you to think differently to find objects with contrast.  My best photo is one of some flowers laying on a bench in my backyard.  I really enjoy it and I hope you do, too.

ISO: 80
Aperture: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60