Snapshots around Baltimore

May 7, 2016
Snapshots around Baltimore

Ventured out to the Kinetic Sculpture Races, put on by the American Visionary Arts Museum, and brought my 28mm all the while wishing it was a 35 or 50. So to work around that, I decided to play around with shooting with an in-camera cropped frame, as if I had a cropped body sensor. The difference in quality was immediately apparent when I began editing the photos, but still it was fun to pretend I had a more moderate length lens and try to frame a little differently today. Certainly didn’t master it, a lot of images had to be thrown out because I chopped off key bits of my subjects. But as always, fun to play around with composition in a casual setting. 

CP Editing

January 27, 2016
CP Editing

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but I wanted to examine how my photos were used in the paper. The designers chose to place text over many of my photos, which gives them a whole new look. 

Some of these compositions have a lot of negative space that accommodates the addition of text quite well (the farmer photograph, for instance.)

Some (like the sports portrait) were cropped in a way I didn’t like as much because what they took away was essential to the photo (I’ve included both, you can make your own conclusions)- I had composed it to include the athlete’s shadow against the stadium wall, which was truly the only strong part of that image. As glad as I am that they ran in large, it took away from my intended impact. 

At some point, photographers have to give up control of their images to those putting them into context. And I’ve always found it interesting to see the two different takes on the same image. Regardless whether I agree with the edit or not, it’s always a rush to see a photo I’ve taken run so prominently. 

Wrestling

January 15, 2016
Wrestling

I used to shoot the majority of my high school’s games - all sports- because we simply had no one else to cover them and I had a cheap offbrand 75-300mm, which at the time as if I was brandishing a real telephoto. I wasn’t that bad (aside from the appalling overediting) but once I got to OU, I was intimidated by the increase in rules limiting photographers and stuck to other assignments. 

Apparently ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away and my portfolio was sports-less for a while. Right now feels like a good time to get back into it so I took a couple assignments for The Post shooting wrestling and women’s basketball. And I’m relatively happy with the results, looking forward to shooting more!

Still struggling with focus and reaction times, but I believe I’ll get those back with time.

It was a new experience for me to wait for the checkout room to open to make certain I got the lens I wanted- a 300mm f/2.8. This lens is comically large, and honestly a workout to shoot with, but the results were worth it. 

Review of Weekend Shots

January 25, 2016
Review of Weekend Shots

I was going through my old work on this blog, when I was posting primarily personal shooting with an old cropped sensor Canon and Helios 58mm (manual focus!) film lens. I really missed the old soft and grainy look and the dreary, understated mood. So I tried to revive that look for my second shoot of the weekend- cropping my photos to an aspect ratio of 16:9 and toned in a muted way.

My future-housemates and I went hiking at Ash Cave in Hocking Hills to see the giant “frozen waterfall’ that forms each year. A fellow sightseer came up and asked if I had ever seen it when it connected all the way to the top, which apparently happens only every 10-15 years. I’d love to see that sometime- I feel like I’ll have a longtime connection to this area.

I’m now looking to purchase a mid-length film lens to continue to continue to refine the look of my personal work. 

Stay POSTed: Episode 1

January 26, 2016
Stay POSTed: Episode 1

This is the first in a series of entries that highlight work that ran in The Post, the student-run publication I work for as a photo editor. I hope to showcase work I’m proud of, my thoughts behind how I approached assignments and whether or not the idea worked. 

For the portrait: my original idea was to take the portrait where the incident occurred to show just how public it was, and how in the daylight, it looks so average, so pedestrian. Trying to convey the idea of her feeling unsafe in such an common place. I didn’t get that but we did shoot in her apartment I loved the neutral and subdued soft light from the window.