Still Life, Mason Jars

ISO: 200  f/4.0  SS: 1/250

While this picture wasn't actually hard to take at all, I had issues setting it up because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TAKE STILL LIFE PHOTOS! I am a photojournalist. That's it. I take photos of people, doing what they do. That's what I enjoy. So this was REALLY hard for me to just come up with a concept.

It started out as different seasons in a jar, but none of those turned out well at all.

I just kept telling myself "Foreground, middle ground, background." But I couldn't figure out how to do that either. This was pretty much the closest I got. I don't have a whole lot against this photo, but it's definitely not the black and white glass either.  :c Grrrr.

The editing was difficult too. Getting the jar to contrast the background apparently didn't work so well. The background was actually white at the beginning, but now it's purple. Weird.

EITHERWAY, it turned out okay. I think I should rework this photo again sometime.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

 Photo by Claire Norton

I didn't take this photo, and as a matter of fact, I wasn't even supposed to be here for this photo.
But Casey and I were walking around the park and saw flashing, and wanted to see what was going on... BUT it was a good thing we did, because it was our photographers, and they were having trouble with the flashes. c:

So we actually had to help set up the lighting on this one.
I can't remember their original set up, but once we got there, we had MacKenzie move behind the tree, moved the angle of the front light, and put a third light to the right of them. We learned how to use Master and Slave settings on the lights because we had no Pocket Wizards. It was really difficult because we couldn't figure out to set them all separately, but we got it! :)  The hardest part of this photo was just figuring out how to set it up. But we were proud because this photo is almost entirely out of camera, and we were proud of the lighting.

Still Life - Black and White

ISO: 1600  f/11.0  SS: 0.4

This was a really easy photo, honestly. I took a large black piece of paper and put two white pieces on the page to block out the black.  I put a glass of water in the middle and positioned them so that I could see the colors switched in the glass.  Originally, I'd wanted a smooth glass so that the colors would just switch, but the textured glass ended up adding something to the abstractness of the photo.
I lit the glass from the left with an Alienbee. It started out really yellow and dim, so I brought up the power up until I was getting the actual black/white colors.

On Lightroom, I made the blacks REALLY black, and the whites REALLY white, but that was about it! This was actually a photo I'm pretty proud of. :) I love it.

OOooOOOooOo...

 ISO: 800 f/5.6  SS: 1.0

 ISO: 800 f/5.6  SS: 1.0

This is a photo I've been wanting to set up since I bought my star projector!
This was a pretty simple set up, and the only difficulty I had was figuring out how to go about exposing us and still getting the starfield in the background.  It turned out to be easy enough.

First, we set it up so that the projector shined onto the black paper from the side. We positioned ourselves out of the way of the lasers. After a few shots with a shutter speed of 1/250 and a flash to expose ourselves, we decided to try with a longer shutter speed. We moved it up to 15 seconds, which made the star field totally white and overexposed. So we moved it down until eventually, it ended at 1.0.  We put the Alienbee on 1/32 power so that us ghostly white ladies would be visible... When the flash went off, that exposed for us properly and allowed for us to not have any movement, and the 1sec exposure made it so that background was still visible. So horray! Here they are. :)

I am a T-BOTS slave.

ISO: 800  f/5.6  SS: 1/160

I'm going to start with the technical part of this photo because I have to, but this is not the purpose of this blog.

They asked me to take their 2013 team photo. The only difficulty with this photo was that they pull ranks in T-BOTS. Therefore, Mr. CEO had to stand in the front. And Caleb is ridiculously tall. Plus, the pole in the middle was obnoxious, and they wanted the robot. They are PICKY! But I basically put this here so I could complain about.

However, the real thing I want to talk about is that I am a T-BOTS slave. I take every photo they need now. I am called for team photos, member honors, competitions, parties, you name it. My lesson with T-BOTS is not anything technical. I feel like the lesson I'm learning from working with T-BOTS is more of a personal lesson, but one very vital to my growth as a photographer. Up to this point, I have been a photo-taking robot. No pun intended. Emotionless, uninteresting, non-story telling, and just not very good. But my T-BOTS photos, though they may not be award winning, are the set I am most proud of from this entire year. That spawns from the experience I got from working with them. I've built a relationship with this team. It's not just a head-nod in the hallway because I talked to that one guy that one time and I feel obliged to acknowledge him. No, no. I've become good friends with the members. I hang out with them outside of school. I talk to them every day. I'm invited to their meetings. I'm invited to share their special moments and special occasions. I even have a shirt with my title of "Honorary T-BOTS Member/Photographer" written on the back. They are grateful to have me around, and I love being around them.

That's really helped me in my photography. I get to celebrate with them, and grieve with them. I get to tell their story and give them memories for years to come. And by gaining a relationship with this team, it's bettered my photography. I have insight into how to tell their stories. I have insight into how to present each member in their own unique way, and I'm really proud of that. They may not be the best photos in technical quality, but I have captured each and every one of them in their essence, be it Caleb's professionalism or Hannah's attitude, and I'm proud of that.

So actually, I'm not a slave. I'm a friend. And that's every bit worth it. :)

Oklahoma City Regionals - TBOTS (Photo story)

Senior T-BOTS members test the robot before competition.

T-BOTS members Hannah Klopper and Krista Petty

A member makes final adjustments before competition.

T-BOTS members send the mascot to coach their first practice match.

T-BOTS members "Dougy" when they are announced in their first match.

Matt Crawford and Christian Pennington control the robot during a qualifying match.

T-BOTS drive team celebrate after seeing the score from a qualifying match.

T-BOTS members problem solve when their robot failed during qualifying matches.

T-BOTS team members cheer on the drive team from the stands.

T-BOTS drive team celebrate placing 3rd in qualifying matches.

T-BOTS CEO Caleb Strutton "proposes" to an alliance team.

CEO Caleb Strutton stands with the team's alliances during alliance selection.

T-BOTS drive team converses with their alliance teams.

T-BOTS plays a match in finals with their alliance.

Christian Pennington panics after the robot stops functioning during finals.

T-BOTS drive team returns the robot to the pits after losing in finals.