Here is a little video I made, of my classmates trying to construct the wall in our Holiday Portrait waiting room. Sorry that the video isn’t that great it came from my phone.. but I thought it was cute anyway!! ENJOY!!
The holiday season has now begun, so why not come and get a head start on your holiday greeting cards?? Come allow myself or one of my talented classmates to create a beautiful holiday image of you and your loved ones!!!
A friend of mine posted this quote on Facebook today, and I can’t help but to agree. I am currently going through some changes, as far as, at what point do you step out on faith. I have been told from childhood, that if you step out on faith, that God will take care of you, and not to fear, or doubt, because fear is not of God. Now if you are not a spiritual person you aren’t going to get where I am coming from, but don’t shut me out just listen. I have always been an artistic soul, I have never fit into any specific mold of what people perceive me to be. Now almost 30 I feel that I have FINALLY found where I am supposed to be, but where my problem lies is that people around me, my family members (who only want the best for me) keep saying to just get a job, with good benefits and settle down. Now for me I have always had an issue with that phrase “settle down” because in my mind why would I SETTLE for anything? If you truly want the best for me, why would you want me to SETTLE for a mediocre existence, which to me is a death sentence. If I am unable to create, and imagine and explore I feel as if I am suffocating. What is worse, is that I am not the only one going through this. I am sure there are hundreds of millions of children, teens and adults living the life that those around them would rather them to live. All the while living in their own private prison. Well NOT ME, I refuse to be put into a box, and I refuse to settle for a life anything less than the life I believe that I can achieve.
So as of recently I have been coming in contact with alot of people interested in me photographing things for them. I was fortunate enough to be chosen by instructor along with another classmate to photograph an event for a teacher at the school, as well as being asked to help out with assisting a professional photographer! To be honest both of these were humbling experiences for me, on one hand I am honored that these people think enough of me that I will do my very best at whatever job they send my way. I tend to look at referrals to volunteer like a referral for a paying a job, that person’s name is on the line as well as the possibility to be asked back for a second time. Well I am happy to report only good things from both opportunities I received a wonderful email from the teacher, and the photographer offered me an internship next semester. I can’t help but to say things are beginning to happen for me and I can’t be more excited!! I have got to keep working hard and STAY FOCUSED!! Below is the link to the extremely talented photographer I worked with his name is Danny Acres, and I learned so much from him in the few hours that I was able to assist him.
I love, love, love this video and song!! While in our multimedia class we saw a video where just about 90% of it was computer graphics. It reminded me of this Michael Jackson video!! Enjoy!!
So we were assigned to do either a high key portrait or a low key, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I will explain. A high key portrait is a photography where the entire background is white and evenly lit, and preferably you subject is dressed in all white with a splash of color, so quite naturally a low key is a the complete opposite.. ALL BLACK EVERYTHING! I chose low key, initially I wanted to do a shoot with a female friend of mine, but circumstances did not allow and I had to quickly revamp my vision and shoot a male friend of mine who came to my rescue at the last minute. Honestly I was a nervous wreck, because not only was I photographing someone, but I was being phot0graphed also!! I agreed to pose for my classmate and friend as her high key model. Well my shoot with her went without a hitch, but I hadn’t heard from my model, so I was freaking out, long story short my model showed up and rocked my shoot!! When I took my 1st image and saw how he seemed to bathed in light (just how I imagined) I wanted to jump out of my skin!! I had finally gotten to the place where I could translate the image in my head to the image in my camera. Take a look at some of my favorites.
I knew that would get your attention!! What I am referring to is more so about photojournalism, instead of Ms. Finch. I am currently taking photojournalism and we turn in our images for critique and on one occasion we had a student “mix up” the name of a person photographed, who just so happened to be the cousin of a classmate. On another occasion a classmate decided to do selective coloring on an image. Needless to say Ms. Finch was a little more than aggravated, considering that she is a Photojournalist.She began to speak of journalists that have lost their jobs over making “small” adjustments. As a journalist it is our job to document the news, and potentially history. As a journalist the public has to know that what we shoot has not been photoshopped. Overall the lecture lead to our integrity as a photojournalist, she stated that as a photojournalist your integrity all you have, without it you won’t have a job, and your career/ reputation will be ruined within the photographic community. So to those of you who would like to pursue a career in any type of journalism, be sure to never compromise your integrity, because in this industry that will follow and precede you more so than your reputation. 
Our first real assignment for photojournalism, was sports photography. I found this assignment to be challenging, mostly because I am the most inactive person you will ever meet. Which is ironic since I am surrounded by people who are sports fanatics. Needless to say I am learning to love it.. slowly. When I initially went out to shoot, I shot little league baseball, which was interesting. Fortunately for me my husband came along with me to direct me towards where the action was happening, or was about to happen. Unfortunately for me those pictures didn’t return a positive response. I went to my instructor and asked what exactly she was looking for, and she stated “action”. She wanted us to depict the struggle between the two teams striving for victory. So armed with this new information I went and shot little league football, which proved to be much more action packed. Once again I was fortunate to have my husband to direct me and I think I came up with some good images..
Every year the photography department at GTC is commissioned to photograph a potential Holiday card that the school will mail out. I envisioned two snowmen playing in the snow, with a crisp blue sky behind them. In case you haven’t noticed, I love the colors blue, silver and white for the holidays they symbolize {to me} winter. Below you will see my concept, I hope you enjoy!\
My next assignment was child portraits, once again me and my bright ideas… I knew I wanted to use my little cousin Malia, because she makes the cutest faces, and I knew I wanted alot of color to make the photos feel vivrant and full of life, (like a child). So I browsed the internet for unique child portrait ideas and came across an image of a little girl with a Japanese parasol, and I melted.. So of course I just had to have that for Malia. Once I finalized my main prop I ran around looking for other factors to really make my image pop. I finally decided on a textured cream rug with green rug (of the same texture). To use the parasols as the background, with a seamless white backdrop and a purple or pink gel to pop in a little extra color. So the big day arrived and I was ready to go, but like my teacher says photography is all about problem solving. My shooting partner and I had a miscommunication (or really I just plain forgot) that she was shooting first, which through me into a panic because Malia was on her way, but I just set up a little waiting room for her in my class streaming Dora the Explorer onto our projector to keep her occupied. Once the time came for Malia to shoot she did very well even though her cousin had her waiting for almost 2 hours, which meant by the time she got in front of the camera she was a little ball of energy. So all the practicing in the world meant nothing by this point, so what go me through.? My classmates and my cousin, since Malia was so ready to go, it became hard to direct her, so my classmates and her mother stepped in to try to corral some her nervous energy. I ultimately got some really cute shots ofher that Iam very pleased with.. Take a look and tell which is your favorite?
