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! :)

all those SHADOWS almost killed your LIGHT

This week we had to take photos of "creepy shadows". Obviously, that is not something I generally take photos of, so I was a bit skeptical of my own abilities going into this assignment.

When I started taking the photos I tried to not let my natural instincts take over, which helped a lot. I will admit, I took a ton of photos that I hated, but after awhile I did start to get more comfortable and I was able to create images that I actually really like. So I hope you like my not-so-creepy, but very oddly lighted shadowy photos! Let me know your thoughts in the comments! :)

This is actually a glass of hot cocoa that I thought would be interesting to photograph. Lots of people take photos of the foamy part of hot cocoa or coffee, but I wanted to see what would happen if I turned on only a small light in my kitchen. The shadows that the glass created by having only the one light are very different and have a unique look to them. I focused my camera on the glass and ended up with this image, which I actually really like.

This one is almost funny to me, because this little cat is a cookie jar that my grandparents have had for years and my cousins and I are always discussing how creepy it is! For this photo I turned off all of the lights and aimed a flashlight at the cat. The light wasn't directly pointed at the cat, so it created a ton of shadows and I think overall this photo definitely has a "creepy shadow" feel.

I used the flashlight again for this photo and I thought it was amazing how completely different this photo was compared to the other. In this one the light is shining almost directly on the photo, which gave it much harsher shadows. Whereas in the other photo the light wasn't hitting the cat at a direct angle. I thought it was interesting how different the shadows in the two photos were just by changing the angle of the light.

Look! I finally figured out what to take photos of! Because of the lighting for this photo, I wasn't able to focus on the flower as easily as I had hoped, but I think it actually worked better because of that. The flower is in focus in areas, but as it gets closer to the edges it begins to blur. I thought this gave the photo a more dark feel and I ended up liking it better that way.

I like that this one has much darker shadows, so much to the point where they almost take over the photo. It's the exact same flower as the photo before, just a different angle and a slightly different perspective. Comparing these two photos really helped me to see how much the cameras perspective can change the photo.

This is possibly my favorite photo out of them all. Again, perspective. Instead of standing in front of everything and looking at it directly, I stood behind the vase and focused only on the sparkly purple twig thing. Since the light is coming from below everything around and behind the twig is dark. I love everything about this photo. The color (it's my favorite color, oh my goodness), the line of the twig, the way that everything is so dark, and how the sparkles catch your eye because they are so bright. I just love it!