As the school year comes to an end, so does the photography class of 2024. This means that this blog will be my final blog and will summarize the year and what has happened.

JOURNEY:

The year started off with me being excited about everything and as time progressed, I became overwhelmed and burned out from all my classes and not seeing things as fun anymore. In the beginning of the class, we were asked how we thought of our skills in photography and where we thought we needed improvement in, I found myself thinking that I had no skills only good angling with a selfie. Now, my skills have vastly improved in all areas of photography. I can confidently take photos of people and objects to portray the ideal image in my mind. Overall, my journey in photography has helped me with things outside of it too, like my patience, understanding, and listening skills as a person.

MENTION:

Some favorite moments in class were creating the staple cities and taping the backdrops because other parts of their personalities came out and it was hilarious listening to their comments. Some of my best works of this year were the experimentation final for rules & composition along with the long exposure for the Blind Photography unit. These were my best as I had more freedom with the photos and more interaction with others.

FINAL PROJECT:

Our final project involved capturing an object/person using the reflection of the lights onto them utilizing our exposure and shutter speeds. Our inspiration came from a blind artist named Pete Eckert, who used sound and touch to visualize his subjects. In part 1, we had many labs that had us adjusting our exposure triangles to accommodate and shoot fast and slow shutter speeds of different objects (cars, balloons, and mini windmills). We quickly learned that with each change in our triangle, we would have to adjust the other two to achieve the balanced image we desired. Our biggest challenge was to maneuver around while blindfolded (closing our eyes) and taking the perfect or desired shot. We blindly grappled at our cameras, adjusting what we assumed to be our exposure triangle and walked around with hope that we would sense the image we wanted.

I was following my sense of touch and smell along with memory.

After weeks of channeling our inner Pete Eckert, we moved on to Part 2. This is where things get tricky. Our goal was to have two of our best images displaying long exposure and light painting. Long exposure was adjusting our shutter speeds to as small as we needed to capture the movement of someone or something. Light painting is similar in process but using the movement and remnants of light from a light source.

The hardest obstacle for me was to achieve the perfect exposure triangle for my images and having enough time to execute it. I spent about half the week of labs just trying to adjust every aspect of my camera to capture the ideal shutter speed, ISO, and aperture for the photos that I planned to take. Then when I finally got them, I had less than 3 days to achieve it. The first day I had accomplished the light painting fairly quickly and completed my task for the object. The second day, we had a classroom issue and weren’t allowed to use the cameras that day, so I quickly formulated a plan for the next day. On the third day, I began my process for the long exposure which involved another person, I chose Jalah because we both needed time for our projects and could hurriedly get it done. Too many ideas that were not going to work took most of our time, so I quickly went with the fastest and safest option, to outline the person and draw makeshift wings on them while showcasing the difference in the lights and its movement. After about 30 minutes of trial and error of trying different ideas, I had found the most compatible with my mental image and switched places with Jalah for her turn to shoot.

Throughout this entire process I felt rushed, nervous, and even angry. I felt super frustrated with the project and how difficult it was to find every exact setting, position, angle, and how much time it took to achieve it. When I accomplished my final shots, I quickly looked through them all for my best ones and chose them as efficiently as I could. I hurriedly edited them and put them in my one drive for later on.

Long Exposure

Light Painting

In the long exposure image, I wanted to show the person with essentially a makeshift imagination of things further than reality near them. I found it best to outline the person and draw wings, for it showed the unrealistic sort of energy that surrounded the person while adding an even more unrealistic feature, the wings. The way the light moved around Jalah was hypnotizing, you could see the rings of light and essentially the past that left traces of light around her.

While in the light painting image, I wanted to give the image of an aura. I chose the white queen, and it provided more reflection of the light along with its significance to the chess board and even real life. The queen is the most valuable piece, besides the king, for its lack of restrictions, freedom, and power on the chess board. The light represents the aura of what I assume the queen has, a bright almost wrapped sort of energy around the piece. The orange-red color represented the freedom and power while the lack of other light represented the lack of restrictions. I waved the light around the queen to give the light a chance to sort of cocoon itself around the queen and brought it out to fade away when hidden by my hands, this effect transferred onto the camera with the way that the light is brightest near the queen and faded while getting further away from it. The final images definitely captured what my mind saw, and I am very satisfied with my project.

THE END:

Finally, the end of this blog has come. The school year ends and so do these assignments. Over the course of 9 months, I have studied, cried, fixed, and succeeded over the assignments given, most only appearing to my eyes as mindless tasks that needed to be taken care of hurriedly. The blogs that I have made in the past 9 months helped me formulate my images into words that would’ve never left my mouth and articulate my feelings and thoughts in a way that is understandable, later I will look back on those blogs and see the improvement throughout the past school year realize how much of an impact it had on me. These past months have given me insight on myself, others, and how I should view the world and all it offers us, and I’m glad that I was able to see ways others see it too. I will always remember these projects fondly, even with the amount of stress they have given me, and always smile when I remember the effect they had on me and others.

Thank you for reading my narrations,
Janine Royal

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What was your initial belief when you were first assigned the project?

My initial belief was that I would take forever to assemble the staple city and not have an inspiration for the project. It also occurred to me how unsteady my hands are and how detailed I needed my city to be, in addition to having difficulty keeping them standing up.

What was your inspiration behind the city?

My inspiration was Staple City by Shannon Louder, she has clustered building while also having medium ranged ones that I took inspiration from and articulated into my city.

How did your city differ from Peter Root’s City of Staples?

My city differed in the fact that it’s not as massive and intricate in the designs, and instead about 3×3 inches in size while also encapsulating the image of a city in it. My images also were in the background of a sunny and bright sunset that reflected light off of the staples.

How can one tell a difference in aperture setting? What did you notice about the different aperture’s within your own work?

You can tell the difference in aperture based on how the background looks, whether it is blurry or allowing details in the background to be shown. On the top left image the background is a more blurry along with the buildings on the periphery are fuzzy, showing that the aperture was a smaller f-stop. The top right image displays a far front view where the background allows a little bit of detail to be seen meaning that the aperture was larger. The bottom photo showcases an extremely blurry background and only showing the details on the closer buildings that were in focus in the city.
I noticed that my aperture consisted of mostly smaller f-stops rather than allowing detail to be seen in the background which can take a viewers attention away from the building.

What do you think is most successful about your work? What could you have done better or how can you grow as a photographer?

The most successful this about my work was being to to photoshop a few buildings to fill in any blank or empty looking areas without having too much of a struggle or rebuilding the city. I could have added more lighting to the image to really bring out the buildings details and taken a better over head shot as that only really counts as a slight upper angle.

Are you overall proud of you end result?

I am genuinely very pleased with the outcome as I can see how much I improved in my skills, while also seeing where I need to improve at the same time as I produced a satisfactory image that one can fall in love with.

Invite people to come visit your city where you have things like A, B, and C.

If you like sunsets, night life, and a place to belong, you should think about coming to Aurentis. The city will always welcome you with welcome arms and a soothing sense of place. The night life will lure you in and show you all the wonderful things in music, clubbing, and the night market. Aurentis can enrapture you in its luxury and authenticity with its citizens. In the city you will be protected by vigilantes that help hone and protect their home and even occasionally appeal to the masses appreciation of them. Here, in Aurentis, you can find a safe haven and a family that will hold you lovingly.

On February 5th, we began a project called “ABC Photography” where you hunt for images that that look like letter of the alphabet. Each photo had to be different and couldn’t be an actual letter but one that looked like one. This project was to span a little over a week or less if used time diligently, it would consist of two lab days and the rest was for editing and final works made.

Unfortunately for me I missed a lab day that I had to make up for and thus was cut back on my editing and final shots. Letters that were the easiest to find were O, V, C, B, H, E, L, Y, I, and N. Some letters that I struggled to find were Z, M, K, R, Q, A, J, P, and T. By the time of the project I had found the rest in my home, the hallways after class, outside my house, and else where, but some letters that I still couldn’t find and had to make were S, D, U, G, X.

The word that I created suing these letters was just one I was able to put together in a short moments notice. It was easy and simple and I’m satisfied with the outcome. I most likely would’ve gotten to create my name had I had more time, but it is what it is and I can’t take that back.

This project was kind of crazy and very messily done for me. I wasn’t able to shoot some things that I would’ve liked but I still felt very satisfied. In this project we had to really look from all angles to capture some letters and it made me dizzy after a little while. I needed breaks from shooting as everything was getting to much for me, but overall it was a fun but taxing project that made me realize every second mattered.

╰┈➤ The very weird alphabet.
The most interesting letter to me is the Y, because it looks almost like a snout of an animal

╰┈➤ The simplistic word of Joy.
It was short and easy while also describing my moods when I’m eating.

On January 24 of 2024 we began a project called “Book face.”

The idea was to create an image that matched a book to a persons face, either side by side or even just features in order to complete the face shown on the book cover. This was to help us see other sides of photography that melded life and the art of image capturing.

Personally I had a somewhat of a hard time finding a grasp on this project as I missed some crucial days but I was able to make a comeback and edit my image within the shortened amount of time I had. It was mostly a struggle finding a book that had a human face on it that was drawn, already fully there, or covered. I ended up going with the concept of a man and his younger days along with a young girl and her side profile. My experience throughout this project was that it was a tedious activity as I had to arrange and pose my model in certain ways that wouldn’t project onto the image the exact way I wanted it to, additionally it was hard finding a person who resembles them exactly. Overall, it was enjoyable just a little frustrating when finding the resources.

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Model: Rylee Louque
Book: Blood of My Blood by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (The lost first novel)

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Model: Elijah Kilpatrick
Book: The autobiography of General H. Norman, It Doesn’t Take a Hero by Peter Petre

The in-between

The past year has been a journey. Many times I contemplated quitting everything and starting anew, but I pulled through. Photography has taught me valuable things like managing your time properly and not wasting a single moment, because you could use that while editing. I learned that I have little patience sitting in a chair and staring at the same screen for an hour, which is weird considering I stare at my phone a lot. I learned a lot of new concepts that I would have never looked at otherwise, and saw myself open up to more ideas as time passed.

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Throughout the year, we had some assignments like elements and composition, rules or compositions, and my favorite, self-portraiture. It opened my eyes to brand new techniques and how to use seemingly “discarded” photos in the most unique and interesting ways. Mostly it allowed for me to expand my comfort zone and abilities in poses and editing.

This is a favorite photo of mine as it allowed me to go into detail of the lights and make minor adjustments to it without it being obvious.

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2024theplot

In the new year of 2024 I hope to discover more memories and peace with myself and uncover the more intricate thoughts and processes of life around me while still being happy.
Aspirations I have as I continue to study photography, is to be able to fully be happy with my resulting art piece and to successfully edit to my best ability while still creating beautiful photos.

A few short term goals I have for this year is to journal more, clean my room more often, and to get used to driving. This is to help me get the new year started with accomplishments and further my success to fulfilling my more long-term goals as to bring in a new chapter into my book of life.
Some long term goals I have for this year is to attend the Armed Drill Nationals and have fun while doing my utmost best during our performance, get back into writing poems about anything and nothing, and finally getting a job again. These goals are my healthier objectives to encourage more happiness, prosperity, and contentedness with my life.
Other intentions of mine are reading more philosophical books as I wanna think more deeply about things and sticking to a schedule to help me be more organized as a person. This will also help me in my goals in photography as I will be better and managing my time wisely.

This year, I want to make myself happier than the previous year. I want to attain the enlightenment that my grandmother preaches and the enjoyment of life without being so down and in the dumps. I want to be happy.

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These are some of my goals on my vision board:

What is self expression?

Self expression is the expressing of one’s thoughts and feelings, and these expressions can be accomplished through words, choices, or actions.

Why is it important that we self-express? What would life be like if you were not allowed to?

It is important that we self-express because it can help us relate to others, be more open, form a personality, and be more true to ourselves. Life would be incredibly monotonous, dull, and insipid without self expression. The limitations on expressing ourselves would lead to a more isolated and non-evolving society that isn’t very welcoming to change and difference which can lead to a stunted and artificial likeliness in a person.

How do you self express?

Self expression can be shown in many ways. My way of portraying self expression is through my way of speaking, writing, and finding different ways to interpret meanings and symbols. My speech and tone helps me convey my meanings and messages in the way I need them too while also being directly from me and my ways and opinions. Writing helps me translate the world from my eyes and ears into words that others can understand, relate to, or form opinions on. Finding different meanings helps me relate to others and be able to see the world in all its different point of views.

The song that matches my mood right now is:
Isa lang by Arthur Nery

When you hear this song, what comes to mind?

For context, “isa lang” means only one, meaning that the song is about being in love and the artist goes on to state what he’s looking for in a relationship. When I hear this song, the first thing that comes to mind is the feeling of being in love and being able to call someone your only one and being incredibly infatuated with them.

How does this song make you feel?

This song makes me feel both nostalgic and very sentimental as memories of me being happy and in love goes through my brain. Additionally, it also makes me understand his want for a stable relationship and for his one and only to be faithful in their relationship.

Which part of the song is most important to you?

The part of the song that is most important to me is when he sings,

ikaw ang pahinga ko mahal

Lumiliwanag aking ngiti kapag kausap na kita pasensya lang kung

Babalik pa rin sa atin

Kahit ‘di mo ‘ko hanapin

This translates to “you’re my rest, my love, my smile brightens when I talk to you, excuse me if i’ll-, I’d still go back to us, you won’t even have to look for me” This is important to me as it’s the longing of the familiarity and the remaining love from that past relationship and wanting it back while being stuck on it that I relate to. It just makes me very nostalgic and reminds me of similar moments that he sang about.

END

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
-Noam Chomsky

Lab:11/13

We did a self-expression lab that encouraged us to show many different emotions on our face. As we explored the campus grounds, we would continuously take selfies that showcase our varying expressions.

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This post will stand as an end of a project. For the past six weeks, the class has worked on capturing images that pertain to the Elements of Photography and Rules of Composition. Now one must wonder, what exactly are those? Well, the elements of photography are understood to be 10 things: line, line to create movement, color, distinguishing shape, overlapping shapes, contrasting through light/size, contrast through texture/color, and emphasis through positioning/framing/focus, texture, and space in order to portray a message or meaning through their art. Rules of composition are made up of the rule of thirds, balancing elements (symmetrical), balancing elements (asymmetrical), leading lines, viewpoint, inclusion and exclusion, and finally experimentation; all of these are used as a guide to make you pieces more pleasing to the eye and interesting. All together these rules and concepts help create a wonderful image for the world to see.

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Now to the fun part: my favorite images.
One of my favorite images from the elements of photography was the contrast through lighting as the bright blue cloudy sky was a huge contrast to the darker tones of the street sign and put the focus on the lets and silhouette of the elegant frames of the sign.

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Another favorite in the rules of composition was the formal balance as it was extremely symmetrical and pleasing to look at. It also captured you attention with its triangular body instead of the normal square and was perfectly centered. It gave off a neutral, sleek, and metallic vibe that gave it it’s cool tone.

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The one that was popular with my peers was the rule of thirds from the rules of composition. According to feedback, they liked the simplicity and effects of the purple lighting on the glass jar and how the eyes naturally drawn to the subject due to the rule of thirds.

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JPEG is a format in which it compresses when the moment is captured and so you lose some of the quality. A benefit is that it a much smaller than the other formats like TIFF, and you can store up to thousands of JEPGs on a single card while being universally accessible to a lot of devices.

HEIF stands for High Efficiency Image Format and was recently designed in 2015 and used by Apple. They are akin to JPEGs but off much higher quality and take up less space than JPEG but is not as wildly compatible to social media and some pieces of technology.

TIFF, or known as “Tagged Image File Format” is one that is commonly used in the world of photography and are easily converted to JPEG. TIFF are mostly uncompressed so they are of immense quality and viable for further post processing, but they take lots of space and not all cameras offer to shoot in TIFF and are of high quality.

RAW is a file that stores all information originally captured by the camera and you have to apply further edits on an external software. Unlike most of the others, RAW is not able to be displayed on computers or other browsers and one must view them through Lightroom, Capture One, or ON1 Photo RAW. It is only preferable if you want to create the highest quality files.

DNG stands for Digital Negative, is a way to provide a standard RAW file that can be used by all manufacturers and cameras, while also offered as a main RAW file format or an alternative. A con is that it takes extra time to convert RAW files into DNGs.

PNG’s are the improved version of GIFs and are relatively high quality and small, so they are the perfect type to display on desktops and browsers while loading quickly. They also allow partial transparency which is perfect for overlays and logos. The only downside is that it is a bigger size than a JPEG, but they retain good quality even when compressed and isn’t ruined when editing.

GIFs are similar to PNGs in the instance that although the file is tiny, the quality is not terrible. While it does support transparency it isn’t the best for graphics. GIFs are also wonderful for graphics but only have a maximum of 256 colors.

BMP is also another lossless type of file that was invented by Microsoft for Windows, and are on the larger side as data for the colors are saved for each pixel. This produces a superior image that is great for printing but not so much for displaying and sharing across the web. It also occupies a lot of space on the card but can be worth it.

PSD is the file format that Adobe Photoshop uses to store data and keep edits in layers instead of compressing them into a single image and allows you to edit the original image in Photoshop. With PSDs you can manipulate all the layers and edit individual ones or in groups to your liking at any moment without affecting the original image. A downside is that once you flatten all the layers or compress it all together into one image, you cannot undo it and saving the file takes up a lot of space.

The day the world paused and held it’s breath.

September 11, 2001, was the day when society erupted into a panic as they watched the seemingly indestructible United States suffer a terrorist attack that killed 2,977 citizens.

An event becomes impactful on our lives when it continues to affect our lives and incites emotion in us. An image can capture the moment and how it captures the effect it had on the situation and the world around it. Even with no memories of it happening, there is a certain way on how the event can influence the life after wards, you could look back on it and still feel and see the emotions in that second.

The day began relatively normal; there were no foreboding feelings; voting was going to happen soon; and the routine was mundane and repetitive. The sky was a vibrant hue, the birds chirped, the kids giggled, the cars sped past, and the world was at relative peace. A rumble shook New York. The blast had caused a few stumbles, but it was relatively calm. People, curious beings they were, looked up at the sky in wonder. Red, orange, grey, and black. Fire. The sky was lit aflame. Alarm quickly spread, akin to an infectious disease, among the citizens of New York. Panic and trepidation swelled in their hearts; the feeling of worry was grasping at their lungs and making them freeze in terror. Two beams of intense burning light were above them; the World Trade Center was on fire. Smoke permeated the air, and many took to standing and staring in shock. It was unexpected, sudden, and heart-achingly damaging. Time felt as if it slowed, and the sky was overtaken by burning heat. The twin towers had been hit by two planes that were hijacked by the terrorist group al-Qaeda. News channels hurriedly reported news about the situation and informed others that two other planes had hit the Pentagon and one had crashed in a field to prevent another attack on the government. All of this caused by 19 hijackers, four planes, and one diabolical leader, Osama Bin Laden; they had chosen to spill the blood of the people of the mightiest red, white, and blue.

The impact of 9/11 on my life is that when I was immigrating here, there was an extensive and very rigorous security check in order for us to even get on the plane, even more so when we arrived in the US and had to go through more than 5 hours of customs and immigration agents and questions about why we were coming to America. The documentary photograph portrays the way in which people stood in anguish and dread as the towers were engulfed under all the flames and soon collapsed. The feelings that we can depict from it are ones of distress, angst, and heavy concern, coupled with their actions of stupor and unease with the situation. An event can be impacted by imagery due to its ability to convey emotions in a way that words cannot, along with the view of how it was during the time. Photographs can take our events to the next level of storytelling because they provide a setting, mood, and context to the story or experience being told while also letting us picture events from the image.

Utter hysteria occurred when people discovered that terrorists had attacked the United States of America. The attack left others feeling hopeless, despaired, and afraid. How did terrorists even get into the country? Why? Many had questions while others wanted retaliation, but they were unified in the instance that they needed to help each other and repair the damages done because, at the end of the day, they were all citizens of the United States of America.