Final Project

Small Town Moon

I can't claim to know a city until I've walked its streets in the middle of the night-- that's when the dark hush descends and all that's left is artificial light and the other night creatures. I've fallen in love with Paris, New York City, Brussels, Heidelberg, and London in the dark, but my hometown is a different story.

When my family moved to Payson, I was six years old and just delighted to have my own room and a best friend down the street. Then, as we traveled to other places, I realized that being stuck in near-comatose suburbs for the rest of my life was a claustrophobic nightmare. That hasn't changed, but now that I'm on the verge of fleeing to college in some faraway city, I've realized that thirteen years spent growing up in a place leaves its mark on you; I'll forever be originally from Payson, Utah.

I've spent years running through my hometown late at night with friends, or alone when I'm tired of home, or with my dog when I'm feeling kind. These photos, all taken within an hour of midnight, document the places that I've had adventures in while growing up-- and the beautiful quiet of my own deserted suburban streets.

Assignment #7

Assignment #6

Assignment #5

Assignment #4

For these pictures, I just wandered around the house messing with different things. Custom white balance is good. Not being able to crop is a pain. I'm glad my mom made those clove apples and kept the Chair of Rock's hideous twin.

TO ASK: I was really excited to shoot color theory with some leftover color powder from the festival last year, but in Lightroom the powder was crazy posterized. Unusable. So I checked my settings-- they're fine-- and my dad thinks it was because I was overexposing most of the shots by about a full stop. Thoughts?

Assignment #3

high key #1

high key #1- camera happy

high key #2

high key #2- camera happy

low key #1

low key #1- camera happy

low key #2 

low key #2- camera happy

WHAT I LEARNED:

This assignment made it extra clear that my camera doesn't really know what 

the best exposure is for the picture I'm taking is. And that bracketing makes 

it nice to have lots of options between little differences in exposures when

I'm in post-processing. 

I also learned that I could use some more patience when doing still life 

photography. And that low key is a lot harder than high key. And that 

there is dust and dog hair on everything I own. 

Assignment #2

four

seven

eleven

fourteen

seventeen

eighteen

ninety-nine

Assignment #1

unedited

edited

horrifically ugly

My dad has a stuffed platypus covered in kangaroo skin from Australia, so to get a more interesting shot than just a platypus, I smeared some peanut butter on the floor to get my dog to come sniff around it.You can't really tell what the platypus is in the shot I chose, but its framing/focus/exposure was the best, and it's almost more interesting because you're not really sure what the fuzzy lump getting sniffed is. 

I shot all of these on P and wish I'd been on M, because my pictures had some problems, but the subject material was mostly things I happened across and can't repeat now. I learned that underexposing my pictures by a third or two-thirds of a stop can make it a pain to edit them the way you suggested in class. I also learned that I adore Lightroom and a good step-by-step process for editing. 

A haiku?

fish jeremy boots

lives life in a mason jar.

wide mouth, but no smile. 

Yoda

I like Yoda because he's short but powerful. And wise. And someday, I also will be a Jedi master.

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