it's been a looong week

It really has been a long week, a very long week, and it's not over. BUT... I made the new header for my blog, as you can see, and I like it :) I haven't made final decisions on all the pictures but for now it is done. Just one of the perks of having photoshop on my new computer :) it's so exciting! So anyways, this week was pretty much a research and redevelopment week in the project. Hopefully this weekend I will get the lights all figured out in the gym/pool and then next Thursday I believe I'm doing a diver and a basketball player, yay. That'll be a long day but oh well, I realized I don't have as much free time as I thought I did this semester. And that plus trying to coordinate with models' schedules is going to be wonderful. But it'll all work out, I'm convinced. I've decided that no longer really want to shoot in the studio though, the black background was going to be dull compared to the ones one the field/court/etc. So I'm going to try to do all of them "on location" now. Sadly, that means most of the outside ones have to wait till at least after spring break and I'm really hoping then the fields will be clean. It was funny because that's what I told Sean Sullivan, the new athletic director, when he asked if he could do anything to assist with this project. He said he's working on it though, so that's good news. And the models I have so far are being very agreeable and helpful which is more than I was expecting I guess. But there's a big difference between working "professionally" with someone and being friends with someone so we'll see if I can accomplish both. That's my personal goal for the semester, to be confident as a photographer and to branch out. I need to be more comfortable with directing models (for this project) and I need to believe in myself more in general as a photographer. In addition, I'm hoping to become actual friends with the people I'm taking pictures of too. So I have a lot to do this semester as you can see :)

First Studio Portraits :)

Hi again! Twice in one week, that's definitely a change. So I have (almost) officially started my project for this semester. My idea is to take sports portraits, mostly of athletes at Clark, in the studio or hopefully on the court/field/etc that they play on. This Wednesday, I had my first actual athlete model, Joe, he's a cross country runner here at Clark. I had a bit of lighting help though from Frank and Michael, they showed me a few tricks and then I took some photos. I'm not really sure what I want at the moment, which is the problem. However, I'm trying to figure that out and in the meantime I'm just kind of going with it. So here are a few shots from Wednesday :) I attempted to show some different poses (or the same poses with different lighting) and then my favorites too I guess.

So these are just a few, I mean I only edited about 30 or so images out of the many I took. But this first session was about experimenting with lighting. So I am aware in some of these photos that the black background isn't actually behind him as I wanted but I'll figure that out later on. I just need to try different ways to light someone's face or body using the lights in the studio and various reflectors. But he was very patient and wonderful throughout the whole... I think it was around 2 hours. And it definitely gave me renewed hope in this whole experiment. However, at the same time, I still have a long way to go before I'll be really happy. Because while I can now adequately use the studio lights, I'm still very limited (both in the space itself and with the lights available). Ideally, I think I would like to take pictures on the court, field, in the pool, etc. However, that poses the problem of that lighting and finding a time when the space is available as well as the model and everything else. But it would add a lot more dimension to the images, make the more interesting and give me a bit more freedom in terms of poses. But who knows, I have a lot of ideas running through my head in general. Like if I were to put this in book form, if I had an action shot of the athlete on the right page and their portrait on the left. Or just in some way incorporate the two halves as a whole. It'll come to me eventually. What I'm trying to focus on now is coming up with ideas for poses and looking into how plausible location shooting would be. So until next time :)

I'm baaack!

Hiii! I've been feeling a bit inspired lately (and I've been missing this) so I decided I should start posting again. Plus, this semester is certainly going to be an interesting one. First of all, I'm still working for the athletic department and that is going great! Secondly, I have two pictures in the ARTSWorcester show this year (the same show my soccer was in last year)! The first one here is from Midnight Madness at Clark. And the second is of Karissa during the huge snowstorm we had at home over break - the night we got snowed in. This picture is obviously very out of the ordinary from my usual style, or at least what people are used to seeing in class and whatnot from me.

Lastly, this semester, I am embarking on a sports portraiture journey. That's going to be the interesting part, I'm still in the testing stage at the moment and it's proving to be much more frustrating than I had anticipated but hopefully I'll make the desired progress this week. I had never realized that studio lighting could be so difficult. But I have a decent list of athletes so far willing to pose (18ish I believe) and I am determined (as usual) to make it work. I mean, I've come to realize, when I started out taking action shots freshmen year with a film camera I felt the same frustration I'm feeling now and look at where I am at the moment with that. So I won't lose faith! And I intend to keep my blog updated throughout the process, which I'm sure will come together shortly, I already can't wait till Wednesday, haha. I've clearly been thinking about this too much lately.

That's all for now :)

I'm sorry I haven't been around the entire summer, so much for that idea - haha. But this is a short post. Big exciting news! I got a job with the sports department at Clark :) YAY! So these are my first few games.

http://www.clarkathletics.com/sports/wvball/2010-11/releases/WCT_Recap

http://www.clarkathletics.com/sports/wvball/2010-11/releases/WPI_Recap

http://www.clarkathletics.com/sports/wsoc/2010-11/releases/WSU_Recap

http://www.clarkathletics.com/sports/wten/2010-11/releases/POW2_Suriano

http://www.clarkathletics.com/sports/wten/2010-11/releases/Emmanuel_Recap

I'm kind of frustrated with my camera/lens though. I really want to make my pictures better but everything is just so expensive. But that's the only way I'm going to get better, I don't know. I'm looking into a few things so hopefully I will be making a purchase soon :)

Hello everyone :) So it is getting close to the end of the semester, wow. But make sure to keep checking over the summer because I'm sure I will be posting! I'm not sure what but I will be, haha. I'm sure there will be some of Ange and Taylor and the Pioneers at least. And in the next week or so I will try to post some of the better dance ones, but the lighting on stage is so sad and ugh. But I submitted lots of pictures to the Clark yearbook, who knew we had a Clark yearbook? Lol. But Liz, from dance - I don't talk about myself in third person - looked at my book the other day and said that the yearbook was looking for pictures so I sent them some sports ones, dance ones, and other random ones. And then I was like oh well you probably don't really need sports because you have the athletic department for that but they said they don't have any sports pictures from them yet because they're refusing to cooperate so mine might be in it! YAY! With my name and everything. Fun times :) We will see I guess. But I thought that was kind of exciting. But yes my book finally came in! It's so pretty. I'm thinking about getting another one printed on better paper so it's all pretty. This one I have now is to show people because people aren't very careful with it :/ grrr. But I anticipated that so I planned ahead. Anyways, I need to get going. I'm packing more stuff for tomorrow because I'm sending lots home hopefully. Mom, Dad, Alex and maybe even Ange (:O surprised face) are coming to my show tomorrow night along with Kate, Noreena, Caren, Claire, and Jenna. Then Saturday Laura and Karissa are coming and I believe Kate, Heather and Dave are as well. It'll be fun. I'm taking the solo shots for that tonight. We'll see how that goes. We're going to do them outside by the pretty tulips, haha. Yay :) So to sum this entry up - I am going to keep using this blog for the future so keep checking :)

some random photos :) lots of dance - our group shot and some from last night. I haven't edited them yet so don't judge them too harshly. the light in the kneller is difficult to work with. ugh, it's very frustrating. but I tried. I wanted to get some cute ones for the slideshow and just in general. I started going through them last night and they're kind of dark but on the back of the camera the little color bars reached all the way to the right so it should be good? we'll see I guess, not that I know when I'm going to edit those. and then there's the picture of my little mouse friend! I know last semester Rick also took pictures of the small mouses but I couldn't resist, haha. and then there's Alex and Kate and Noreena, yay. the wonderful portraits I took of them. so that's what I've been up to :)

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1291111

so this is my book, yay! sorry I didn't get around to posting it earlier, don't look too much - I don't want you to ruin the surprise when it actually comes in. so I made it so you can only see the first 15 pages, haha. anyways, it looks really cool - I'm very excited to see it. and I edited it millions of times so I'm really hoping there aren't any mistakes :/ I hope there aren't. but I'm so much less stressed now that it's done, now I just have to wait for it to get here with our stupid mailroom, ugh. oh well. what else is new... yesterday I took lots of dance photos - lots and lots. so I have to edit those. and I also have to go back and edit all my friends/family pictures so I can print them for people. I'm so excited to have pictures to print that people actually want, haha. no one ever really wants my sports pictures. except Kate, she said we could hang them on our wall, haha. but we chose the big e one instead, I like it there. it's so pretty. moving on - tomorrow I am also going to Marcus' tennis match to take pictures, hopefully I can get inside the fence. and then I will be taking more dance pictures tomorrow night and throughout hell week next week. fun times. I'll be good though, I like dance pictures. everyone asked if I counted those in the sports ones and put them in but I didn't. I felt like they didn't really fit, sadly. and I didn't really have that many either so it was kind of odd. but everyone at dance wants to see it so I'm hoping it comes in soon so I can bring it one day next week. I really just want to see it, haha. I'm so excited. so I think that's about it that's been going on. I'm just going to post a few photos, yay. but I'm going to put them in a separate post :)