Andy Goldsworthy

I was a bit worried about this assignment, but it ended up being fairly simple and very fun! After a lot of thought, I decided to name my artwork "Fairy Tower". I chose to create this piece in my front yard because I knew that I wanted to make some sort of rock pile and my yard has plenty of stray rocks! Once I got outside I decided that these flowers would make a fun background. My tower is made out of different rocks, some leaves from my yard, and the petals of one of the flowers. It's about 1 1/2 feet tall, simply because I couldn't get it much taller without it falling over. It can't be interacted with at all. If it is touched it topples over. While creating this piece I used the surrounding stems and flowers to make a little circle around the rocks. I think that my piece conveys a feeling of fun and happiness. It looks like a little fairy could pop out from behind it at any moment!

Me, Myself, and I

My self portrait photo essay

I was really excited for this assignment because I tend to take my fair share of "selfies". I did however struggle a bit with this assignment at first. I had some ideas in mind of what I wanted to do, but none of them really worked out. Once I started to just relax I was able to get much better results. Overall I learned a lot from this experience. If I'm not comfortable taking pictures of myself when I'm super posed and trying to get a very specific thing, I don't know how anyone else could be. I'll definitely take that into consideration the next time I'm on a shoot. For now, here's a little photo story about me. I hope you enjoy my self portraits. :)

I'm quiet and shy most of the time...



...but once you break through my shell I'm a little ball of giggles.


People always tell me that I'm kind and loving, and I sure hope that's true...

Sometimes my very strict and scheduled days need a little pop of color and fun. preferably purple because omg fave color

My hair expresses who I am that day; ballerina, student, reader...

Through the sweat, tears, pain, and long days of rehearsals, dance will always be my life.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

This is by far my favorite assignment of the year. Portrait photography is my absolute favorite and I had the opportunity to takes photos of two of my gorgeous friends, which only made it better. I mostly was doing formal portraits, but there were some great candids too. We went up to a park by my house a little before sunset and just wandered around finding places we liked. I brought a stool with me, which was really helpful, but not because I had them sit on it. I stood on it for most of the shoot so that I could be above them. It helped a ton and I was much happier with the outcome of the shoot because of it. I probably took way too many photos; it was honestly so hard to narrow down my favorites. Paige and Pauline are both ridiculously photogenic so I loved them all. I did eventually decided on 10 to post up here though, so check 'em out and let me know what you think!

♫ Meet Pauline ♫

♥ Meet Paige ♥

Didn't I tell you that they are beautiful!?

if you say it with your hands

We had a few different options for this weeks assignment and surprisingly I didn't struggle with choosing one. I have a bit of an obsession with taking photos of hands and feet so when I saw that hand photography was an option I knew I had to do it.
I decided to take photos of all of my family members hands in a setting that specifically related to them. Each photo had a different kind of mood and tone to it, so you'll have to pardon the fact that editing is all over the place. It was actually a lot of fun to grab different family members and decide what exactly to do with them. Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment and I'm super pleased with the outcome of the photos. :)

this is a state of grace

The truth is, I absolutely love taking landscape photography. My family is pretty big on camping and whenever we go I always come home with loads of photos of the area we were in. I was ridiculously busy with dancing this past week so I didn't have much of a chance to find "the perfect place" to take photos, but I'm still really pleased with the outcome. I woke up super early this morning and was able to drive up to the golf course by my house and snaps some shots. It was 30 degrees out and my hands were almost frozen off by the time I was done, but I had a lot of fun. The sun was just coming up over the mountain and the morning light was gorgeous so I was really trying to capture the essence of that. Comment and let me know what you think! :)

some nights . . .

So I did find this assignment pretty challenging. Not only was it hard to find the perfect subject, but since I don't have a tripod, I had to find a way to set up my camera as well. Once I was able to get all of that fun stuff worked out, it wasn't too horribly hard. I mean, I just had to press the shutter button and wait. Even though it took a lot of time and I think my hands almost froze off from the cold night, I really enjoyed this assignment. I felt like I learned a lot just going out and taking the photos. I'd never tried taking photos at night of things other than people, so it was a very different experience. Anyway, enjoy! :)

NATURE

LIGHT MOTION

MANMADE

MONOCHROMATIC

RANDOM

it feels like a perfect night

AAAAAAAH! PROM!

So, OHSU's prom was yesterday and I was fortunate enough to go with my wonderful brother and his date, my best friend, Jizelle. The entire night was an absolute blast!

The prom was held at the state capitol building, which is BEAUTIFUL. We got there quite a bit early so we decided to take some photos! Michelle, Jizelle's mom, has a fabulous camera and was kind enough to let me steal it from her for a bit while we took the photos. Some of them are pretty dang cute so I figured I'd share them with y'all on here. Let me know what you think! I felt like I was taking engagement photos, tbh :)

I think I'd have a cubomani-attack

So this week we learned about cubomania photos and had to make our own! I actually found this assignment really fun and challenging. I decided to use a photo that I took of my friends at ballet because I thought that their tutus, legs, and feet would make a super interesting photo. It was definitely a big task to try and cut up the photos (I used color and black & white!) and put them together to create the effect that I wanted. After a little while I got more comfortable and was able to find the perfect place much easier. To begin with I was lining up each piece, but then I decided to try mixing it more. I ended up doing tons of different shapes and sizes of squares and rectangles.  I personally really like the finished product, but please let me know what you think in the comments! :)

BEFORE

AFTER

food, glorious food!

It was actually surprisingly easy for me to find food that I wanted to photograph this week! My mom brought treats for her cute little class on Sunday and she made extra for our family, so lucky for me I had the perfect subject for this assignment!

While I was taking photos this week I came to understand how important the lighting and angle is for food photography. If there was any kind of shadow on the food something looked off and if the angle was too straight the photo simply looked boring. I really grew more of an appreciation for food photographers as I realized how hard it actually is. I did enjoy myself, though! It was fun to see my younger brother's mouth water while looking through the photos and I liked being able to "play with" my food. ;)
 I chose these five photos to upload because I thought that they were the best portrayals of this particular treat. I liked that some of them had funky angles, while others didn't, and that some had a more shallow depth of field than the others. Overall I just really liked playing around with my camera for this assignment and seeing what I was able to create. I hope that you saw something that you liked (if you're nice I might let you come over and have some of these lovely treats with me)! Give me some feedback in the comments! :)