Passion Project is a Success!

Well I am officially finished my Passion Project! I just thought I would blog about a few couple of things.

Class Presentation

Yesterday I presented my project to my class. I thought that everything went really well. I talked about how I got my Nikon D3200, how I really enjoy this camera and I feel confident on how to use my camera after this project.  I talked about how I completed my goal by learning 15 different types of photography and how I took 5 different pictures for each type of photography that I learned about, and how I posted all 75 of my pictures on my Flickr account. I also talked about some of the biblical through lines that we have been learning in my bible class. I haven’t talked about the through lines on my blog yet so I thought I would talk about them later on in this blog post. After talking about the through lines, I showed 15 of my pictures. I got a lot of compliments from my friends, which I was very happy about! J  I then summarized what I learned through this project. I learned more about the rule of thirds, what to focus on in certain pictures and what to blur, how to edit my pictures, to always take a lot of pictures and to always have fun when taking pictures! Obviously I learned WAY more then that, but only had 5 minutes to present so I couldn’t explain everything. On each of my blogs I wrote in point form about all the things that I learned about the type of photography that I focused on so if you’re interested in all that I learned about photography you should check them all out! At the end of this presentation I talked about how this successful this project was. I talked about how happy I am with my camera, how I learned how to take some nice pictures and that I honestly had a lot of fun! It ended up being a lot of work, but it was all worth it. I’m excited to use all the stuff that I learned through out this year with my camera.

 

Biblical Through Lines

The biblical through lines is something that my grade 11 bible teacher has been talking to my class about. There are 10 different biblical through lines. They are God worshipping, idolatry – discerning, Earth - Keeping, beauty creating, justice - seeking, creation – enjoying, servant – working, community – building, image – reflecting, order – discovery. I picked 2 of the through lines to describe my project. I chose Beauty Creating and Creation – enjoying. I think that both of these through lines have something in common. They both talk about reflecting on the beauty of the earth and appreciating everything God has made and created for us humans to enjoy.  Many of my picture projects involved taking pictures outside. Even though it was freezing most of the time I went outside, I really enjoyed this part of the project. Sometimes I would just fall into the snow and look at everything around me and think how pretty everything looked around me. And I got to capture all of those pretty things that God has given us with my camera and that was a huge part of my project. Without everything God has given us my pictures would look pretty awful! This project allowed me to appreciate and really see all the beauty that God has made and for this I am grateful.

Mentor

I was supposed to have a mentor for this project. I talked to my computer teacher Mr. Toews and asked if could help me out if I ever needed any. He agreed willingly. I never ended up needing him for anything though. My main help was the Internet. I learned all of my facts about the types of photography that I learned about through different photographer’s blogs and websites. I would kind of consider my sisters as my mentors as well though. They helped me decided on what pictures I should take and how I should take them. They also helped a lot in setting things up, being my models and holding things into place while I took pictures. A big shout out to them couldn’t of done this project without you guys! 

Resources

At the end of each blog post I put a link to the websites I used to research that type of photography. I suggest you check them out; they are really cool and helped me a lot!

Flickr Account

I was hoping to get a lot of feedback from people on Flickr. I was hoping that people would give me suggestion on how to make my pictures look better, but all I got was a bunch of compliments. Which of=f course was nice to get! But it wasn’t exactly what I was aiming for. If you have a Flickr account please check out my account! My account name is raychel.algera@gmail.com. Please leave comments and tell me what you think of all my pictures! If you don’t have a Flickr account but want to look at all my pictures here is the link to my account. You should be able too view them all without having to make an account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/108981174@N05/sets/

Frozen in Time Photography

Things I learned about Frozen in time photography

- Type of photography where you try to capture a moment on camera

- This type of photography is mainly taken at events.

- Don’t get subjects to pose for you; you actually hope that the subject doesn’t notice you taking pictures of them.

- Shouldn’t use flash so that your subjects wont notice you

- Should try to get picture of people moving, laughing and looking genuinely happy. If your subjects don’t look happy you’re picture won’t turn out to be as nice.

- For beginners you should try taking pictures at family gatherings

- Take a lot of pictures!

I had one major problem with this project. My plan was to take pictures at my last Christmas family gathering. But my family gathering ending up being canceled so I no longer had any events to take pictures at, which is a big thing for frozen time photography. And since this passion project is very close to being finished I couldn’t sit around and wait for the next big event to happen in my life. So I had t make my own event… I took pictures of my sisters playing Just Dance on the wii! I figured since the wii game keeps my sister moving and they enjoy doing it I could get some good frozen in time pictures from it.

For taking pictures I ended up using my action shot mode just because my sisters were moving so fast! They were almost moving too fast because I got so many blurry photos! Like most of the pictures I go of my sisters dancing most of there body was in focus, but an arm or foot would be blurry because that was the body part that was moving so fast. Unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about this. So I just kept taking pictures! I’m happy how these pictures turned out, but I really wish I could have taken some pictures at an actual event. I guess ill just have to take them at my next family gathering just for fun of it!

Websites I used:
http://www.imagemaven.com/event-photography/

DIY Music Photography

I decided to try something different, something challenging but also enjoyable involving my camera. What I did was I went on Pinterst, and looked at the photography pins. Most of the photography pins are different types of photography examples like portraits, still life’s, landscapes etc. But the ones that I was interested in were the DIY photography ideas. It’s these interesting unique ways of taking pictures. So I took some examples off Pinterst, and tried to copy what they did. I took 5 different photos that had music somewhat involved in them.

For the first picture I used headphones, pencil crayons, a piece of paper, tape and sticky tack. I wasn't really happy how this picture turned out. I liked the one on Pinterst a lot better. Drawing the music notes took a long time. And after drawing them all I realized that I should have drawn them more to the left side of the paper instead of the center. That was frustrating, and since it took me so long to draw I didn't feel like re drawing it so I just used the one I made. Getting the headphone to stay in position was actually kind of difficult. At first I was trying to hold the headphone in place while trying to take the picture but that did not work very well! What I ended up doing was taping the wire from the headphone to the table that I had the picture on, and I put some sticky tack on the speaker and stuck it to the paper. It worked out all right. It was not one of my best pictures.  

For my second picture I used an acoustic guitar, sheet music and CD’s. I was very proud of how this one turned out. The one I saw on Pinterst actually used an electric guitar and a cord. But since I do not own an electric guitar and only had an acoustic guitar I just used that. Acoustic guitars don’t usually use cords so I decided not to use one for my photo. The one on Pinterst also didn’t use music sheets; I just added that to my picture because I thought that it would look cool. I didn’t have any problems while taking this picture. I took it by some windows so I wouldn’t have any problems with lighting. This picture was one of my better ones, and is also my favorite picture.

For my third picture was the easiest one to take. I got my sister Danielle to hold up an old tape outside and I took a picture. I had to do a lot of editing though. I cropped it so that the tape would be centered, and I repositioned it so that the tape was on an angle. I edited it into a black and white picture and turned up the contrast and exposure. This picture took me around 10 minutes to do!

For my fourth picture it took awhile to set up but I had no problems with it. I used a bulletin board, a black cord, sticky tack, a music tape, pins, tape, a blank white sheet of paper, and star stickers. I have a small bullet in my room. I used my bulletin board so I could pin the white piece of paper up and so that I would have been able to pin the cord to the board. What I did was I placed the star stickers on my paper and pinned the paper to the bulletin board. Then I took my black cord and pinned it to the board and made sure that the cord would overlap the paper. I ended up taping the cord to the bulletin board just for more support. I took the music tape and pulled the tape out. I taped the end of the loose tape together. Then I put sticky tack on one side of the tape and stuck it on the paper just above the cord. It looks like the music tape is being supported by the cord but it is not. I think put sticky tack on the music tapes tape and tried my best to make a heart shape. I then stuck the heart to the paper as well. I edited this picture to make it have an old fashioned kind of look. I have example pictures to show what I did a bit better.

Black cord pinned and tapped into place 

Full view of project 

Heart sticky tacked into place 

For the fifth picture I got my younger sister Serena to help me. It took awhile to get her to hold the music tape in the exact position that I wanted her to hold it, but we eventually got it to work. I edited this picture a lot. Serena kind of looks blurred, but that’s how the picture is supposed to look. The point of the picture is that the music tape is the main focus. I edited this picture so that it was kind of faded, making it look kind of older. Its very simple looking, but that’s the way I wanted it to look.

This DIY music photography was a lot of fun. I might try doing something like this again. Here is the link to the Pinterst website that I got these music photography ideas from. 
http://psd.fanextra.com/articles/25-inspiring-examples-of-music-photography/