POV assignment

I took my photos for this assignment at a chapter meeting for my sorority. The lighting was kind of weird, because it was in the lecture halls behind the BSC, but I ended up with some pictures I really like. I kind of forgot what it felt like to feel like a total creep photostalking everyone- although it makes it a lot easier when you can say “it’s for class!” I had trouble deciding which 5 to use, because the assignment was so broad.. I’m better with ‘stories’ but tried to balance it between zoomed in/subject matter/etc, Idk. I’m happy with them, in general.

The photo I’m going to critique is one that I like for its color, but have some problems with:

I like how the blue really pops in this photograph, and becomes the focus. I underexposed a bit to get it like that, like we were told in class, so it made the desks seem more yellow than they are (is that why? ha).. and I would have preferred them to appear more white.. but I think the blue is more important than the white. I wrestled with whether or not to crop the left side of the photo just a bit, to take her a little more out of the center, but at least for now I would prefer to leave my photos as they are. Makes it harder to justify just ‘snapping’ them in the future. I do think a different angle would have produced a better photograph, possibly a little more from her front, so the chairs weren’t just straight with the side of the frame. If it had more of a sideways angle.. I would like it more. I do prefer her face to not be showing in this case, so that is a positive. Anyway, I decided to use it because it is different than the other photos that I made, so I guess to avoid turning in a one-note assignment. And I’m happy with it overall, just with I would have gotten more of a dramatic angle!

Anna

Silwanus–Feels good to be behind a camera again.

It felt really good to have a camera in my hands again, after nearly two years without. Though, my last three and a half years in the military I didn’t do a lot of photography.

However, with the point of view assignment, I was really interested in photographing a person on a treadmill, running. I realized that I did not want to be the creepy guy in the gym walking up to college students saying, “Hey, can I take your picture?” I chose to go with the safe option of archery with friends.

I ended up with several images that I am happy with. The one I would like to critique, however, is one that came out okay, but not what I wanted. This is the photo:

Overall, I feel that the composition is pretty rough. The viewer has to look past the largest element in the photo to see the focus. Its a little distracting, and the fact the focus is on the targets.  If the subject were shorter or if I had elevated the camera, I may have gotten look I was going for. But I didn’t and he wasn’t.  Eliminating the big blue elbow would be one of the first changes I would make in camera for another shoot.

Another element of composition that I would like to try for another shoot, is to move tighter to the ‘over the shoulder’ look and attempt to see more ‘down the sights’ as the subject was seeing. The point of view right now is what a person would see standing behind the person shooting. I was more looking to photographically display what the archer sees.

I would like to see what this photo would have looked like if I had metered for the light behind the targets. I would possibly have lost the targets and some of the elements in the garage, but it might have looked neat to see the cloudy sky and grassy field behind the targets.

The image is relatively quiet in background distractions. There are a few elements on the right, however, they aren’t drawing the eye away from the focal point as much as the blue elbow.

Overall, while not an award-winning photograph, this is a decent image that conveys a point of view.  I do believe that a more close crop in the view finder and possibly a different metering position would help to make it better. While there are things I would change, I have to say it was a lot of fun to make.

point of view assignment

This was the first usable picture I took. The previous pictures were trial and error with aperture, shutter speed, and all of the other multitudes that go into taking a picture. It is not very straight and I think it was clear that my body position was at an angle. This was the moment that I decided to really focus on Mollie’s hands. She is Italian and I never realized how so much of her expression comes through from her hands.

This photo was the last one I took for this assignment. My main goal with this shot was to show the as much of the space I was shooting, but still keep the majority of the light around the subject. Mollie was a really good sport and let me as she said, “stalk her” with a camera. The main issue that I have with the photograph is the way that I framed it. I like the overall effect, but I wish I would have shut the door to the bedroom and moved closer to the kitchen table to center the shot a bit more.

This picture is the one that I chose to end the photo story with because it was a culmination of the time I spend shooting Mollie. Both of us were ready to drink our tea and eat our cupcakes without the sound of the shutter interrupting our conversation. As I stood on her couch to get a high angle, I used the zoom because without it I would lose the concentration in my subject. Every part of her is individually focused on something. I really liked the way the chair opens up in a way to frame her and point the eye towards the coffee table, which is where so much of the action is occurring. But I have the same problem here as I did with the previous shot, I should have shut the bedroom door because it detracts from the overall look of the picture.
She just decided to make us tea and serve the two of us some cupcakes while I followed her around her apartment with a camera. Had she been sitting the entire time, I think I would have been very nervous. I hate stiff photographs and even though these may not be particularly beautiful, I like them because her personality is in the shots. I may be able to see that because we are close friends, but does that really matter?

Project 1 Nick Shackelford

 

So, this is my first post, my first time taking pictures that were not from my Iphone, and my first time using manual settings. I had already submitted a set of photos but apparently they were sub-par to Erik’s standards, but that’s okay, striving for perfection is not just a journey I’m on in life, but now it’s a goal in my photojournalism class… great. I had work last Monday and decided to take advantage of the slow night by capturing the most valuable thing I own at the moment, my scooter. I had it with me in California and I shipped it here. It has allowed me to have a life outside of this shallow SLU campus. As far as the photographing went, it went as well as a first time photographer can expect. I ended up taking around 25 photos. Majority of the photos were either obscured by driving cars, people, or not bright enough, but I choose five that I feel will be able to grab me at least a B. The photo I chose for this post was by far my favorite, mostly because of the angle I captured it at, I was sitting on the asphalt was able to capture the nice line of the curb that stretches from foreground to background, it allows you to see the horrific parking St. Louis folk perform, and the negative space to the right of the photo, to me, emphasizes the emptiness I felt that night. The trees, lighting, low-end cars and overall setting takes away from the fact that this location is in the nicer parts of Central West End.