Intro to Photo Class

[sbianchiphoto]

This week, we had the opportunity to work on another individual project. I chose to explore the macro lens more. On the first day, I took photos of flowers very close up in order to really capture their detail. I like the red flower because the macro lens lets you observe the unique texture better. On the second day, I photographed miniature objects like these Lego people. I tried to make sure the focus was solely on my subject, and I think these final two photos demonstrated that pretty well. The first photo is of two Lego bikers escaping some cops in a car chase, and the second one is of two girls in matching outfits. After I took all these pictures, I edited them in Lightroom in order to highlight their strongest characteristics. It was a really cool week because I was allowed to focus on what I was really interested in working on.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we were allowed to work on an individual project. I decided to focus on portraits, more specifically portraits with greenery backgrounds and outdoor lighting. I learned that in order to produce an optimal portrait,  you need even lighting. it was challenging to adjust and get good lighting outside, but once I did it I realized how much more effective it was. Something I could have done better in my pictures was to switch up the angles more. It would have been interesting to have a greater variety of both close ups and further away photos, as well as using rule of thirds more. But, I think my portrait photos turned out pretty well in the end. I’m glad I focused on this type of photography because I learned a lot and its really useful.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we got to work with our iPhones. It was really cool to learn about because we use our phones every day already. We took photos around campus and attached special lenses onto our phone cameras. My lens created a wider view. Afterward, we used an app called Snapseed to edit our photos. This was a really useful app to learn about because it has similarly powerful tools like Photoshop, but it's not as complicated. Having an app accessible on our phone with such advanced editing tools is nice to know about since we probably most commonly use phone photography already in our daily lives. Overall, it was an interesting week!

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we had the opportunity to work on an individual project. For mine, I took pictures of lots of blooming flowers around campus and made a collage of them in Photoshop. After I edited them in Lightroom, I exported them to Photoshop and used 6 different flower pictures. Then, I cut, copied, and combined all the flowers into a single piece. It was a great project because it helped to solidify and make me feel more comfortable with basic tools in Photoshop such as selected cutting, copying, painting backgrounds and rearranging each copied flower. I think the final product is pretty cool, I’m glad I chose this idea as my project for the week.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we compared raw files to jpegs. In this photo, I applied the exact same edits to both files, but as you can see they came out pretty differently. The photo on the right is the raw file, and although I used the editing sliders pretty aggressively, the photo still appears pretty realistic, simply with enhanced coloring. But, on the left, in the jpeg, the same edits look lighter and more artificial. I’m really glad that I learned about the raw file because the editing can be more drastic while still keeping the photo realistic. But, a downside to the raw file is that it takes up nearly three times the storage. There are pros and cons to both files, but I’m overall glad to be introduced to the raw file because the editing is more maliable and flexible in comparison to the rest of the ones we’ve learned in this digital photo semester.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we worked with HDR.  We learned how to take photos with the mode dial on our camera, where the camera created the effects manually for us. But, we also learned how to take three bracketed exposures with a tripod. The other easiest way to fake HDR is to take a normal photo and use aggressive editing in Lightroom. I really like HDR photography because we can enhance the quality of our photo and alter the exposure in order to get more feedback of every color. I think these effects make the photo more powerful because its eye-catching. HDR could turn out even better if we had more interesting settings to photograph because they could become more “magical”. My favorite method of HDR is with the manual camera setting because it’s quick and we can also still edit the photo for specific things in Lightroom. Overall, with HDR and preparing for our show, we had a busy but really interesting week!!

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography, we worked on three different mini projects. The first project is my first three photos on the blog. We were instructed to pick a theme, so I chose trees. I took 25 different photos of trees around Menlo campus, and then I edited my favorites by altering highlighting, shadows, temperature, saturation, and many other features of Photoshop. The second project instructed us to go on a “random walk” where we took 25 photos, each 25 steps apart from each other. Mr. Z assigned this project in order to help us be more creative and realize that art is in everything. After I took 25 photos, I edited my favorites in Photoshop again. I used similar features as before, but this time I also altered the levels of black and white within the photos in order to make them “pop” more. For the last project, we were assigned to take 25 different photos of a singular subject. To switch things up, I took photos of just here feet as well as some of her climbing in order to make each photo more unique. I edited my favorite pictures in Photoshop again, and used similar features such as highlighting and exposure. Overall, it was a really busy but creative and fun week in photography.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we covered many different types of images. We created double exposure portraits, where we photographed a picture of a personal subject and then layered on different textures using the opacity tool in Photoshop. We also took a series of action photos which we compiled into a gif. To do this, we used animation frames in Photoshop and altered the time in between each photo. Lastly, we copied the outline of our subject into one photo, resulting in multiple different poses of the same person within one photo. Overall, it was a really cool week and I learned a lot about Photoshop and shooting in sport mode. My favorite project was the double exposure portraits, because we combined our photographing skills with Photoshop, and we could also use internet images to add detail to our final portrait. For example, in my colored portrait, I combined a side profile picture with both galaxies and ocean waves to create interesting layers on Brooke’s hair. I can’t wait for our next project!!

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we worked with a concept called surrealism. This concept uses “dreamlike logic” to create an impractical fantasy world. We mainly focused on using the liquify tool to warp the images that we transposed. We also used different tools within layering to alter the opacity, color and contrast level in our photos. The top photo combines ocean creatures with partly transparent clouds and a rainbow. I altered the size and shape of each creature using liquification. In the bottom image, which I completed first, I mostly worked on transposing each image on top of each other and making some of the figures more transparent than others. Overall, it was a really interesting week in photoshop!!

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we worked with editing in photoshop. We did’t get to take any photos, but instead we selected ones that we liked off of the menlo flickr site and haiku. For the sandwich, Mr. Z put photos of ingredients on haiku, and then we layered the different items to appear as a sandwich using copy pasting as well as warping, shadowing, and erasing tools. For the smiley face, we did not pull a photo off of the internet but instead used the shapes and coloring within the photoshop application. The last photo is from the menlo flickr and we copy pasted one individual’s face onto another’s. We worked with masking to make the skin differences more subtle, and used warming and flipping to align the sizes. Overall, it was a really cool week!

[sbianchiphoto]

This week we used our photos to make magazine covers. First, we edited them in Lightroom and then imported them into Photoshop. Since most of our camera roll was taken in the trees, I used nature magazines for my first two photo templates and then layered it onto the original photo. For the last photo, I used Time magazine, but then used Photoshop to add my own text. It was a really fun and creative project. 

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we worked on portrait style photos. In partners, we chose some mostly neutral backgrounds that we made have a shallow depth of field, which helps highlight the subject.  We also used a different style of sense to create this effect, it worked really well. After, we used Lightroom to edit the photos for aspects like exposure, highlighting, and temperature. It was a really fun week! 

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in photography we worked in the dark room again! While the lights were off, we flashed one or mutliple times, depending on how many images we wanted to be frozen in the motion, and then while it was dark we created drawings with glow sticks. We changed the exposure time to be around 8 seconds so that we had time to draw and make poses for the flash. We switched up roles between being the model, artist, photographer, and flasher. It was a really fun project because it was really different than anything we’d done with digital camera yet. 

[sbianchiphoto]

Today in photography we worked to create land art. I chose to create art inside instead of out in nature today, because the goal wasn’t specifically to make something outside it was simply to create something interesting, beautiful, and temporary in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. Yesterday we took photos outside and temporarily changed the nature, but I only showed the photos from inside because I wanted to create a theme. With my first photo, we gathered splattered paintbrushes. For the second, I organized mannequins into interesting positions. For the last, I color-categorized colored pencils to create a circular rainbow with them, and used a tape roll in the middle to keep the shape. We edited all of our photos in Lightroom to highlight the features we were proud of in our photo, and also to fix any imperfections that distracted from the subject of the photo.

[sbianchiphoto]

This week in Photography we worked on creating abstract photos. We learned about the abstract spectrum, and attempted to take our photos close enough up to an object that it was hard to decipher what it actually was in reality. Another way to make a photo more abstract is to take it an interesting angle, and also edit it in Lightroom. This was our first week we have used Lightroom to edit our photos, so we experimented with many of its controls. I altered the exposure, vibrancy, and highlights and shadows of my photos, to name a few. I also found the cropping tool very useful, because it helped me to zoom in further to objects that we can't get that close to with our camera lens. This also contributed to making a photo more abstract. It was a very fun week, we learned a lot about the new digital cameras, Lightroom, and abstraction. 

[sbianchiphoto]

[sbianchiphoto]

This was my favorite photo I developed today. For my individual project, Brooke and I went to SF and took photos in the Mission District. This art is on the door of a tattoo parlor. Next time, I might work on dodging and burning the left arm to make a more even contrast. After a couple test strips, I decided it took 11 seconds to develop it but I might add on a few seconds to dodge and burn the left arm more. Otherwise, I think it worked out pretty well.