Portraits

Existing Light

glamour

rembrandt

rembrandt

split

Studio Lighting

glamour

glamour (captures her personality)

rembrandt

split (also incorporates rembrandt)

I'm a person who generally prefers to be behind-the-scenes with everything I do. I like to see the benefits of my work, but I don't care to be recognized (in photos, on camera, etc) for the work I do. With that being said, it was anything but typical for me to model while others took photos. Even as an amateur photographer, I know how important it is to capture candid moments, but I have a hard time being candid if I'm on camera. This assignment reminded me of when my husband and I had our engagements taken; the photographer kept asking us to be serious, not to smile or laugh, and those are our worst photographs because they weren't candid. But, while having my photo taken for this assignment, I kept thinking about where my eyes needed to look, where my face should be positioned, so on and so forth, and I wasn't giving Patrick many chances to capture that candid moment. 

credit: Patrick Peteete

And then it was my turn to photograph Ashley. She has such a fun personality, and that laugh of hers is so contagious, yet she has an ambitious and determined mind. While I photographed her, I tried to capture both of these traits. My favorite shot of her from above is under the studio lighting glamour shot where you can see that she's laughing. My next favorite shot is the second one above under existing lighting, where, again, you can see that she's laughing. I also really love the last photo from above, where I captured her just after she laughed and was settling back in, the best of both of her worlds.

Exposure

I'm posting these photos to help illustrate how to properly expose, something I finally learned when I asked Eric yesterday. I didn't notice how blue my photos were until I had a properly exposed photo in comparison.

Tungsten setting

Properly exposed

What's also neat about these two photos is they help set precedence for my post before this. I thought it was interesting that our campus security officer walked right past the table full of smokers, since our campus is now tobacco free. After seeing him stand beside the paramedics, it was apparent why he didn't stop to enforce the new policy. He had bigger fish to fry. 

Shoot Tight

I was in Eric's office getting help with the ins and outs of my camera, when I spotted an ambulance and two paramedics walking into the McDonald building with a gurney. I tried to snap a quick photo through the window but missed my chance when my camera was off and I thought it was on. Truly, in the time it took to put my finger on the shutter-release, the paramedics had moved out of my frame and an opportunity passed by. 

I was hesitant to walk into the McDonald building, not for fear of what I might see but for fear of what the paramedics might say when I tried taking photos. As soon as I opened the door to the building's main entrance, there stood campus security alongside two paramedics and the male patient, who, another student told me, had just had a seizure.

I didn't even have the camera up to my eye, but it must have hung around my neck like a flashing light because the three officials instantly turned my way and stared. At this point, I decided I was better off to ask for permission than just start snapping photos. I told them I was a student and needed to take some pictures for class. They told me it would violate patient privacy. I said I wouldn't include the patient in my photos, but they politely asked me not to take the photos, so I obliged. 

They said I was more than welcome to take photos of the ambulance, so I did. I didn't have much else, did I?

At this point, one of the paramedics said to me, "I can put a red blanket over this, and it'll look like there's a body." I replied, "You could, but would that be ethical?" Now, this experience had ethics written all over it.

And so I continued taking photos with my telephoto lens, as the ambulance drove away.

To help better tell the story, I thought I'd take some barren photos of what could have been great coverage. This is where the paramedics stood with campus security, while the victim sat on the bench. 

I've debated with myself all day: Should I have just taken the photos anyway? Was it legal? Would that have been ethical? What would the officials have done, anyway? If I was on an assignment for a job and came back with the photos I had, would I have lost my job? Did I even get the story? 

What's more frustrating than anything is that if I had only known the rights, ethics and laws a little better, I might have been able to capture this story.

Shoot Wide

close up, blurred action, framing

The wood pallets help establish context. The photo also portrays a shallow depth of field, with the pallets in focus and the people in the background out of focus.

frozen action

blurred action

The wide shot helps to set the context because included in its frame are the people and fire in the foreground as well as the buildings and trees in the background.

shallow depth of field

The table in this photo seems to stretch from side to side, while it was actually a standard rectangular size. The wide shot also includes the amphitheater steps, as well as the building and trees in the background.

This wide shot also establishes context because the wood pallet, fire and students are included in the frame as well as the campus buildings in the background. 

This photo is similar to the one above. There is framing going on in this image, as the students surrounded in a circle help focus the attention to the fire.

Well, there's nothing better than an awesome and totally accidental picture! The fire illustrates blurred action while the boy's legs simultaneously illustrate frozen action. The long exposure captured students in the background to appear on the boy's leg in the image, and the marshmallow on the stick helps to, again, establish context. 

The only downfall I have with this picture is that it doesn't include the fire, which would've helped with... yeah, you guessed it - establishing context.

foreground/background

Although it looks like the lens might need a cleaning job, this wide angle photo is great at telling the story.

This shot includes a larger area of the physical context, such as the grass and buildings. 

foreground/background 

The sidewalk acts as a vector, leading the viewer's eye to the students by the bonfire.