AAW: July 27-Aug 3, 2026: Abstract
View allAll Photos Tagged Assignment
Here is the lantern photo that the text book team decided to use. It was really fun to have an assignment and find different ways to illustrate their theme,
The comment has the book design.
I don't think this is exactly what my instructor wanted when he gave us our assignment for this week. I love it!
Photo taken through a dirty window looking into the bathhouse at Coe Hall. The purpose of the interiors assignment is to learn how to adjust the camera for the various types of light encountered indoors. Used the polarized filter here.
I don't think I'm ever going to make page 1 of Explore...... sigh......
Dark, mysterious....... I'll take many more photos for this assignment!
I love stairways. Especially the winding, marble stairway at the New York Public Llibrary.
This assignment was about the choice and use textures and backgrounds to complement or contrast.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AcfKFjgMJ8 - "Wherever You Go" - Brian Simpson
In shooting this plant, my first concern was "trying to tame the chaos." This plant possessed a fierceness to it, with petals and shapes going every which way. I found it seductive but extremely busy. Did I want deep DOF with front to back sharpness, or did I wish to go soft and romantic with shallow DOF focusing on the some petal edges closest to me? (I went deep.)
The vibrancy and color of this plant is always a troublesome one for me (and my cameras). Do I go for auto white balance or custom? (I went both.) I shot against a white background under soft, natural light (basically northern sky) to eliminate shifting color-of-light temp issues.
After shooting was done, I picked the image I liked most and started to process it. I often work fast as I process. Music sometimes sets my mood and pace; other times it reflects it. When working fast I tend to work more intuitively (feeling) and not consciously (thought), although I'd be uncomfortable trying to put a % to that mix.
Periodically I stop to see if the image is looking as I want.
Oddly enough, if an image isn't "making it," I seldom start over from scratch (raw file). I don't know why. I just make corrections as I go, usually by adding layers (sometimes I label these layers, sometimes I don't; I wish I always did. I get lazy). In my younger days I studied painting (oil and acrylics). You don't chuck a canvas when something isn't working, you just paint over it (the Mona Lisa is about 30 layers deep. Yes, 30!) That attitude still lives for me.
Image done. Then to the assignment. Pick a texture - again, a mainly intuitive process. Apply and process it. Adjust color (hue, saturation, contrast), blur, sharpen, depth to suit. Process more. This can often take as much work or a long to do as processing the image. Most times I use only one texture (repeated as desired. On occasion, two. Seldom more).
Now the process feels more purposeful. Analyze the image with a conscious eye, looking for what's working, what's not, what do I want? Make changes; sometimes really itsy-bitsy ones that no one will ever see or note, and I probably won't remember having made.
Finally I get to, "Enough. I'm done. It's done."
The great, New Wave film-maker, Francois Truffaut is reported to have said about film-making, "You you start a film, you want to make a truly Great Movie. Halfway though, you're working to make a Good Movie. By the end you just want to get the damn thing done and not be ashamed of it."
Yep. Sounds about right.
Texture: my own.
One of Conrail’s former Erie/EL E8’s escaped the fate of its roster mates, who gave up their prime movers to the DeWitt Geep RS3 re-engine program. Shortly after the consolidation, Conrail’s management elected to institute a business train, and the motive power department chose former Erie/EL 833 to be the streamlined face of the corporate conveyance. Several office cars and the 4022 emerged from the paint shop in Conrail blue, and remained that way until the office car train was expanded and painted dark Pullman green in the early 1980’s. Between OCS assignments, the 4022 frequently spent time on the New York & Long branch commuter line in New Jersey. Here the blue streamliner descends the ramp to the South Amboy engine house.
Assignment 52 -- "Fine Art" -- what might you hang on your wall?
This assignment inspired me to experiment with HDR, to attempt an "old masters'" sort of glow to a still life. Amazingly fun & addictive!
(Shot in natural light, late afternoon sun.)
The assignment was to use Photoshop's Vanishing Point filter to wrap a banner or sign around a building. I decided to use a picture of the girls. I could have put more time into this. But, I had to get it done in a hurry. Using the filter was easy. The only work involved was making sure the light pole was in front of the banner. I should have darkened the right side of the banner a little as the light source is hitting the building on the other side. But, once again, I put this together quickly. I also should have created a crease going along the corner of the building. I'll probably fix these issues and replace this image at some point soon.
My favorite shoes. I have worn them twice, they are dove gray and look very tuxedo-ish to me. They are shiny and peep toe. They make me want to drink my tea with my pinky finger in the air. I never wear them. I am afraid I will ruin them. G.G. was very interested in them as well.
EXPLORE! May 28, 2009:#353 Awesome!
Assignment 7 - Shoot in A, S, and M Modes.
This was shot in Shutter Priority Mode so I could lock in the long exposure time needed to capture the car lights as a blur.
I ended up changing the Shutter speed a lot before I was able t find what would work for this environment. To short and the cars ended up frozen. To long and everything got very confusing as to many cars came by. In this case 3-4 seconds seemed to work well
This was my first assignment with my Olympus gear.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lighting: Camera off-flash using a Canon 580 EXII
Triggers: Pocket wizard X and Plus II
One flash at One O'clock.
(Would like to see a BTS, go to my pool).
This is a pano from 5 vertical shots. We dont get much cool weather here in SoCal, so I was happy to see these clouds, which were actually a different shot from later in the day.
Strobist: bare 550ex about 6 feet from subject on camera right, and another on camera left.
I took out a tree in the background, but you can still see the reflection...
I've now moved on from DPS assignments(more's the pity) You can follow my blog as I explore New Zealand here-
Believe me, this was way harder to achieve than it looks. I had to do two trips to the beach as I just could not get the angles right on the first day. The angles of the vertical lines changed depending on how far the camera was from the box, what the POV angle was and how wide I had my lens, and not being able to clearly see my screen on my camera didn't help either. I had to enlist Mr FKG to help me draw it today, it took over an hour to get it right(and it could have still done with some tweaking) but we were running out of light.
"Best of the Year 2012"- Sand Box
This was orignally submitted for the Forced Perspective assignment. I chose this shot for my "Best of Year" mainly because of the planning and the time & effort that went into creating it which included two visits to the beach (as I just couldn't get the angles right the first time). While it might look simple enough it was a tough challenge to draw, I had to draw around 10 large "boxes" before I finally got the right perspective.