Shane & Jerome's Engagement Photos

Yesterday we did a first shoot of Shane and Jerome's engagement photos!  Yay! Due to a long wait time at Burgatory, we were in a rush for the sun, but we managed to get some really great ones! I'm a pictures person, not a word person, so here they are!

One Light Images

I didn't have time to line up a model for these so I shot objects.  They were all shot with a small softbox.  

Studio Hotlights

While I enjoy experimenting with lights, especially things like Christmas lights and flashlights, I wasn't a huge fan of this hot light assignment.  I had a hard time getting bright enough lights to expose the photos the way I wanted, and even when I did the colors were really wonky!  But anyway, here are the 6 that I ended up liking.  I am counting my triptych as 3 images :).

Eyes - Two softbox modeling lights at full power, one work lamp illuminating background.

One softbox modeling light at medium power from above left.

One softbox modeling light at medium power from above left.

One softbox modeling light at medium-high power from above left.

Documenting Place: Simmon's Farm

My assignment for this week for Documentary Photo was to photograph an interesting place and the people in it.  I tried to think of an interesting place that was going to be visually appealing and have people around it.  After tossing around a few ideas, my sister helped my come up with the one I really liked: Simmon’s Farm.  It is a farm in McMurray and this past weekend it opened up all of its fall activities.  The farm itself is set on a larger piece of land, surrounded by a few of McMurray’s larger homes.  It features a hayride, a corn maze, a petting zoo, pumpkin and apple picking, and a variety of other events for the fall season.

For pumpkins, they offer pick your own.  I didn’t see where exactly they had this set up so I just browsed the pre-picked ones that they had.  They had a bunch of different little pumpkins along with miniature gourds.  They had regular old orange pumpkins in all sizes and a bunch of strange looking ones, some of which I had never seen before.

The next interesting event we stopped at was the butterfly tent.  It was sort of aplastic greenhouse where they had hatched hundreds of butterflies.  They had some larger Monarchs, and similar looking Painted Ladies.  The young child working in the tent showed us how the Painted Ladies looked like Monarchs with their wings open but when they were closed, they looked like moths to protect themselves from predators.  You can also feed the butterflies nectar from your fingertip or just pick them up if you wanted.  This would be a great place to bring kids!

After the butterfly house, we decided to pick apples, since it was something we hadn’t done before.  We got our bag, watched a short instruction video, (err…or not.  We decided to skip this) and headed out to the orchards.  They had a few varieties that could be picked, the only one I remember they for sure had was Jonagold.  It was interesting to go out and try to pick the “perfect” apples – or just pick them at all! It is definitely harder than it seems like it’d be!  We were a little unsure of how many apples we were getting, and it seemed a little pricey ($10.50 for a peck), which turned out to actually be a lot more apple than we expected.  We also had a fun time trying the different apples out in the orchards (probably not safe…) and figuring out which we liked best.  Who knew there were so many varieties of apple and that they all have different tastes.

Last, they also had hay rides.  We didn’t go on one, but they were pretty crowded.  I would like to go back and go on one to see how far the farm actually goes and see the great views.  I wish I would have gotten more photos of people, but I am shy, and people have a tendency to assume you are a creep if you start taking photos of them and/or their kids.

Final Portfolio and Statement

Since I first picked up a camera a few years ago, the first thing that I was inclined to photograph was nature.  Everything I could find, I would shoot, extremely up close and personal.  It amazed me how just looking at a different angle or getting up close could change what you see.  I was drawn to the little worlds that could be found in the center of a flower or a drop of water on a leaf.  

I believe that often, we are too busy or careless to take a moment to stop and look around us.  If you look from a different perspective, you’ll find that there are many beautiful things around us, especially in nature.  I like to take a step back, or in this case, a step closer, to see what might be hidden in different places that we wouldn’t always stop to see.  In this body of work, I hope to showcase these little places of wonder in hopes of inspiring others to stop and look at them as well.

These images are unplanned, not-posed scenes.  I have no idea what I might find once I’m out in some sort of nature.  The images are simply of what was there – the little things that already exist.  I like the use of depth of field in this work because it isolates out the noise.  It removes all of the craziness in the background and leaves only the little world that is there.  Zooming in close on the objects helps give them a sense of isolation, which is important since some of these images were not taken in full wilderness.  Some were taken at Point State Park, just feet away from downtown Pittsburgh.  The goal though, is to isolate these moments of beauty, and show them without all of their ugly surroundings.  It’s amazing what parts of nature can be found, even so close to a big city.

I decided to center my images on the smaller corners of the world because I feel that the world is such a huge place that we lose our focus.  We get so caught up in the bigger things in life that we forget what it is that keeps us grounded: nature, and more specifically, its beauty.  I want my images to inspire others to take stop taking these little moments for granted. 

Graduation!

My older sister Shane is graduating this spring from RMU!  I took a photo for her announcements.  Congrats on being probably done with school forever! 

Abandoned Turnpike

For our last trip of the year, we went to the Abandoned Turnpike.  Apparently, Pennsylvania built a nice chunk of road – a couple miles, 3 tunnels, and then decided they wanted to go a different way.  The result: a post-apocalyptic stretch of road abandoned and overgrown. (And covered with profane graffiti…)  The Turnpike was pretty cool, kinda creepy though.  On the roads, it was a little lackluster in photo opportunities – Similar to the turnpike.  There’s nothing really around.  There are a lot of cool things in and around the tunnels though, of course the issue there is that tunnels are dark….really, really dark.  So anyway, I got some nice shots of butterflies as there were a million honeysuckle bushes everywhere.  I learned pretty quickly though, that butterflies are extremely skittish and do not want you closer than 10 feet!  I found a lot of tent worm nests too.  They’re kinda creepy little guys, I don’t like how their nests look like spider webs.  There was definitely a lot of “urban” nature out here.  Nature has started to reclaim its land in the past 50 years and there are plenty of plants growing out of the roads. It’s doesn’t seem like those roads will last for much longer.  The tunnels don’t have as much nature, but they’d be pretty interesting to see in another 50 years!

I have no idea what Laura was doing in this photo but her silhouette looks crazy.  Her heads on the left and an arm is raised to the right. Weird!

Hello, ISO 12800, your look horrible noisy.  On the other hand, YAY Sparklers! Not sure what the orbs are floating above each though.  Ghosts in the tunnel....Or a probably a lens malfunction.