JEA - The Lost Art of the Photo Story

This was my absolute favorite workshop to attend. I got SO much out of it and how to approach my photo assignments.  It also gave me a lot of ideas for photos to do myself. The photo stories that they presented were both very, very sad! VERY sad! But I really appreciated what I learned there, and I think it would be incredibly helpful to share this with Jr. Photogs next year.

What I Learned in The Lost Art of the Photo Story

"The greatest myth in photography is that every photo tells a story."

Things To Ask Yourself:

• Does every column/chapter in a story tell a story? Of course it does.
• Is there one story in a story, or many?
• Where does the story begin? End?

Photo stories are not about structure. They:

• are interactive
• engage the participants.
• change their participants, not always for the better, but often.

"If you're going to be in someone's life, KNOW you're going to be in someone's life."

Photo stories are not objective. Good photo stories are about RELATIONSHIPS! No drive-by photography. Good photo stories introduce us to characters, they have a conflict/hurdles to jump, and they have a resolution.

In order to take a good photo story, you need to build trust with the subjects. They capture emotions. They make you feel something/feel a connection with the subjects. Trust makes intimate pictures/intimate words.

Ultimately, photo stories take TIME. You need to make time to be with these people and connect with these people.

How Do You Approach a Possible Subject?

• Be kind, compassionate, and understanding.
• "Being shy is disarming."
• Express why you're interested.
• Accept that not everyone will want to participate.
• Understand that you're asking to actually be in someone's life, not just to take their picture.

JEA - Light It Up & Portfolio 2.0

I got some really good advice from these two workshops and I wanted to share it here. :) Casey and I have been considering making workshops for the juniors next semester based on this information.  We would get together with Rush/Caroline to see what else they learned and have a few workshops over a month or two. We'll have to see how to do it ourselves first, but that's the idea!

What I Learned from Light It Up! Workshop

• About Ambient Light: Use the ambient light to your advantage! Use it for fill light! Golden hour is a great time and the best time to take photos using only ambient lighting. It creates nice colors, flattering shadows, and interesting lighting.
• White Balance:  Arrive at your setting early and check which white balance looks best or creates the feeling you want to achieve. It doesn't matter if its "technically right." Whatever looks best to you!
• Theatre Lighting:  A tip to take clean, focused photos when you have a really slow shutter speed is put your camera against the door frame and push against it firmly so it won't move.  Look for Rembrandt lighting - triangles of light under one eye. It's very flattering!
• "Shape the Light" - Look for "twinkles" in the eyes! If there's no twinkle, you're looking a "zombie eyes!" You always want light in your subjects eyes! You don't want harsh shadows on people, they aren't flattering! In a dark hallway, point the flash at a white wall instead of at the ceiling! It creates a much more flattering, soft side lighting.
• Gym Lighting - In a gym, he suggest using a large studio light instead of the little flashes. While clearly that's impossible for some of us, it created REALLY great lighting in the photos he showed! If there was any way we could do that, it'd be awesome.

What I Learned In Portfolio 2.0

"A portfolio is a living, breathing beast!"

Questions You Should Ask Yourself:

• Do you know your strongest image?
• Do your images look the same?
• What is the story? The theme?
• What is the purpose? College, job, etc.?

For art colleges, you may be looking more at a thematic, artsy portfolio.  In photojournalism, you'll be looking at the widest variety of your BEST photojournalistic images.

Photo Placement: Lasting impressions are important. You want the viewer to remember your photos, so always START your portfolio with your absolute strongest image. Put your weakest in the middle somewhere, and then put your second strongest image LAST. You're only as good as your weakest image, so use your strongest images and make it count! ALWAYS use the absolute minimum amount of photos allowed! It's better to have a strong, small portfolio than have a strong portfolio that was ruined by an out of place image or several weaker ones only put in to use space.

Variety: Use different subjects, camera angles and points of view. Demonstrate your own style and the best of your skills. DON'T use random collections! Things to watch are: colors vs black and white, feature/sports/etc., and mood.

Ask MANY people before presenting your portfolio! Use a trained eye rather than someone who doesn't understand the technical parts of photography. Take their advice into consideration, but realize that you have the final say. Use criticism to your advantage!

Time Exposure Fountain

ISO: 1600  f/9.0  SS: 4.0

I have always, always, always wanted to take a rushing water time exposure. This wasn't like my dream shooting experience or anything, but it was a challenge. We spent nearly 30 minutes taking photo of this fountain!  I was, for one, really proud that I figured out how to expose for how dark it was over there. I think that shadows are really cool and harsh and it creates a really creepy, mysterious look!  I wish I lived near it so I could use it for some kind of photo illustration.  I need to find somewhere in town to do this, but it gave me an idea! There's a spot at Spring Lake Park where there's an opening with a tree and a street light. I would love to try to make a "magical" type photo using colorful gels to make a "fairy field" type photo. I don't know how I'd pull that off yet, but I know I like the harsh shadows and the side lit look. I'm going to try it when it gets warmer!

ANYWAY, about this photo. I wish the light would've been dim enough so I could've kept the shutter open longer and gotten more motion. I love that you can see the reflection in the water. It helps the mysterious feeling. It definitely help you see how lighting can create a different feeling.

High Key

ISO: 400  f/8.0  SS: 1/250

Learning high key with the new studio equipment!  Casey was trying to set up for a basketball photo and asked Kenzie and I to model for her.  We realized we could make microphones out of coffee mugs, but anyway!  We learned that I'm too white to even take a picture on the lowest setting with a large softbox. But basically, we spent an hour trying to set up a picture for a bunch of black guys with two white girls.  It was incredibly difficult, but we eventually figured that if we just flashed them at the lowest power, considering I was horribly over exposed, it should've been decent for all of them. We used two lights against the background to create a perfectly white background.  I don't actually know how the photo turned out later, but I learned it's incredibly easy to do high key photos!

Basketball Headshots

ISO: 160  f/4.0  SS: 1/80

You helped me with these, but I was pretty glad I got the experience.  We set up two lights - one in front, to the right and a bit above, and the second one was behind them to create a rem light. I didn't realize how important it was to watch the background, especially when it's such a dark background, but you were really specific about keeping the Texas seal and the basketball hoop in view to create the story.  Since then, I've payed way more attention to my backgrounds. The only challenges that came from this was when Aaron Jones came over because the camera was set for the darker skin tone. The difference was only one stop, being f/5.6, and we changed the power on the flash. That was something I took note of. This assignment was best for learning the flash for me, because honestly, using the 580' and 430's still confuses me. I hate using off camera flash for that reason.

So, note to self: I need to relearn how to use the flash.

Skylines

ISO: 100  f/22  SS: 13.0

ISO: 100  f/22.0  SS: 13.0

At JEA, Casey and I realized that we had a really great view from the seventh floor! I was inspired by a workshop I went to , to try different things with Time Exposure. It was just getting dark, and I realized that the colors were fading, so I thought I might try time exposure to capture as much color as possible.

What was actually a very dark sky turned into a beautiful sunset photo with a lovely silhouetted city.
I had to try this shot several times, and I had to figure out how to improvise putting the camera on a still surface. I ended up having to move the hotel furniture just to get this shot, and setting the lens on top of my makeup bag so I could get the angle I wanted! One of my favorite things is that if you zoom into the parking garage, you can actually see car lights from cars that drove through.

Funny thing, these photos were taken about ten minutes apart, after they turned the lights on, on the skyscraper.  I focused more on trying to get the building as the center of interest, rather than the sky. I tried time exposure so that the sky was still visible, and the shapes of the buildings were still visible. I was really pretty happy with the way it turned out. It's not anything exceptional, but considering the only view I COULD have was the one from my window, I think I made due.