The Old Mill

So for christmas I got a new camera. I was very anxious to get started with shooting and just seeing how it would work for me. Let me tell you I loved the results. It was absolutely magnificent. My first spot with the first shoot with the new camera was the old mill here in little rock arkansas. The spot is surprisingly beautiful and definitely a hidden treasure. These are the shots. Let me know how to think.

Thanks to give

This picture means more to me than any other picture I have taken this semester. It is of my grandparents living room. A room that I have grown up in. This picture is not of a lot of things that makes sense. If you notice, most of the furniture does not match, the TV is sitting on a table that is five times if not more than its own age. It is beautiful for it represents what my grandparents believe. They believe that something is always useful, that nothing is ever completely lost in this world. They believe that people are still just as meaningful and important today as they were two thousand years ago. They have not much money being missionaries, so they use the same furniture they have collected over the years. I grew up a lot in this house. This visit was the first time in about two years that I was able to return to it, largely due to family happenings. This room is beautiful to me though, because of the love it represents to me, love that does not give up. 

Iconic presentation

This is the photographer and artist's, Edward Steichen, most famous photograph. It is one of the first photographs to use color strategies. It is a great photograph not only because of its pioneering in the color world but also because of the artistic strategy used by Steichen to create it. 

Chicago Pic.

A few weeks ago I took a trip to chicago with some friends of mine. While there of course I brought my camera. I had several good pictures but this is one that I just thought I had to share. Look at the symmetry in this picture and notice the lines especially. Please let me know what you think.

Macro

For this assignment, I was given maybe one of my hardest challenges yet. Here are my shots.

Here is my first shot. I am not going to tell what it is because I want people to figure it out for themselves. It is not very hard to figure out. It is very beautiful I think. It reminded me very much of a crystal castle reaching up into the sky. 

I love this shot as well. I could not decided afterwords whether the water was going down or going up. Water is just something so magical to me, and it has clearly given away it beauty in this shot. That kind of beauty is what I was looking for when I set out to take this shot.

Breaking The Rules

For this assignment I was asked to post a picture breaking the rules of photography. Here is my shot.

I like this shot for a number of reasons. I realize that this is a gamble posting this as many of the people who see this will not see it the way I do, but I was to entranced with the picture to not put it up. If one clicks on the image, they will notice the only thing that is clear are the lights. I wanted that. The lights almost seem like people to me. The thing that makes cities beautiful at night is not the buildings themselves, but the light which they give. Without the light their beauty would be nothing. Thus, light is the essence of beauty, for without it beauty would not exist. In this picture I have captured the most beautiful thing, the light. 

Portraits

For this assignment my teacher asked me to take photographs in the style of portrait. My subject is one of my friends, named Clay. I love the shots I got. Here they are.

This is my shot, or at least the shot for this assignment. I love this shot because I think it represents a portrait the most. I think that it is the most representative of a portrait then most of my other shots. I really like this shot because it catches him in true human action. Most portraits that are taken are of humans in a faked actions and emotions. I believe I have caught clay in this instance in his real actions and emotions. Something I have ever rarely done. 

The rest of my shots are from this same assignment. I just really like a ton of them. I hope you like them as well. Please let me know what you think.

Words in Nature

 For this assignment my teacher asked me to go out and find natural letters in all of my surroundings and make a word from them. My assignment was to find words in their natural state though, not to find man made letters. I set out with one word in my mind, and I found it. Here it is.

     If one looks at the letters I have spelled out they would be soon to notice that I have spelled out the letters to Yahweh. I chose this word because it is the hebrew name for the God that I believe in. I knew instantly that it was what I wanted to do because quite frankly it is so easy to find God's name in his creation. His name is something very sacred to me, and in times is my greatest source of strength.

The next thing I chose were my numbers. I came up with the number eighteen simply for that is the amount of years I have relied on God for life. I thought they simply fit together better than anything I could have ever imagined. Really for this post I am wordless as to what I can say because it means so much more to me than I can express.

Words in Natural

Pictures from up top

For this assignment my task was to take pictures from the perspective of being on top. In essence, and the easiest way to describe this, would be to take a birds eye view. My initial thoughts were to get on a plane and take shots looking down. However, I am not a billionaire and I have not a personal jet for my own use, so instead I went out to get my own shots. Here they are.

This is my first shot. It was in the one hour my teacher gave us to take photos on campus. The shot represents a lot more than I could possibly say. The flower for me brings no joy but at the same time brings beauty. The first emotion it evokes in me is death. The flower is passing on. No longer alive it slowly withers and goes back into the earth. However, it will come back. Not as itself but as its children. Next spring it's children will give it praise by being the wonderful colors it once use to be. I believe this represents human life. People pass but live on every day as the descendants of who their fathers were. Every person lives a legacy that will be carried on by those after him. 

This photograph I think is my favorite of the two shots. Trails mean the world to me. I am an outdoorsman and a backcountry hiker so trails represent to me the journey of life. As I was coming up these stairs I was pondering those very thoughts. About how life can be hard to endure sometimes. It seems at some points that I am constantly climbing with no support. It is in these time I forget to look down and just notice how beautiful things are, both under me and around me. Life is a very long trail for me, and I think at the end of it I shall be somewhere very beautiful. 

Timeless

For this assignment I was assigned the privilege of taking a picture of something of timeless. I was given one hour to take it in. With a positive attitude, a watch, and my camera I set out to take my picture. My results were as following.

I for one love this photo. The idea came to me when talking to some fellow students of mine during the hour that I was assigned the project. It occurred to me that bamboo, or in this instance cane, is one of the oldest organisms in the world. The shot came out grainy which I was perturbed with at first. However, I was fine with it after second thoughts, after all digital cameras have not always existed. The bamboo represents an ancient thing to me, kind of a reverent respect for the earth. Something that not a lot of people have for the earth these days. The leaves in the light dance and turn. The stalks reach up to the sky. Earth is after all one symphony of beauty. Another reason I love this photo is that not only can one not tell when this picture was taken, but if one knew nothing about the photographer or the assignment one could not tell where it was taken. 

Glimpse

For this assignment my instructions were to take two shots of a glimpse picture. At the beginning of this I had no idea what a glimpse was or how I was to go about taking a shot of it. After reading it I was still perplexed a little. However, with the ideas of what I thought was right in my head I set out with my camera to take my pictures. Here is my first shot.

For this shot I had a certain idea in my head. In this picture you notice that the salt and pepper shaker are the frames. Beyond are the hands of my friend. A lot of people seem not to find beauty in the simple things around them, but I make it a point to find every small detail beautiful in life. My favorite thing about this shot is the reflection of the hands and the hands themselves. Hands are such an essential part of life, they display our intentions in many ways. Here I have captured the idea of the feeling of right after one eats. That point in dinner where one is at rest from full stomach and talking with friends. That to me is true beauty. 

This shot may be the more obscure of the two shots. I can easily see how someone would not think this is a glimpse because the frame may not be a clear as one thinks. However, to me it is obvious what the frame is, the lights. I consider it a glimpse in another reason as well. I know that the rule states that a glimpse can not have a trail going off into the distance, and though this has that very concept it also has a point of focus, the building. This represents to me the two paths that man can take along the lighted path, one can choose to stop and rest, or one could choose to continue on in their journey. This picture is sort of a Robert Frost play off for me. The lights also seem to play a song to me. Something sweet and beautiful. All in all, it just seemed to me like this could under a certain mind be the perfect definition of a glimpse. 

Silhouettes

My assignment for the weekend was to capture two silhouette shots. A silhouette being of course the outline of a person, without the features being noticeable. In a lot of ways like an eclipse. I found this assignment to be a marvelous challenge. Here are my two shots.

I absolutely loved this shot. I thought it represented the assignment perfectly. I think it is very reminiscent of what it is to look out of life's windows. One might notice that it is raining outside. I captured, or for me at least, the very concept of sorrow. Without even seeing his face, one can feel his emotions.

           For this shot I set up my camera in a parking garage. This shot took a little bit longer to get. I wanted this shot because I liked the way that the lines in the garage synchronized together. My idea was to get the motion going towards my camera. Notice that the lights line up with the one way sign behind the man.

Visual Design

For my assignment I had to take pictures based off of two forms of design. This is my first.


This was the first of my two categories. It was centre of interest. I took a this picture of my girlfriend in the grass. It was right in the golden hour. I had no intention of taking a shot like this but then I noticed how beautiful the grass was. All of the focus is on her and specifically her eyes. The grass was a very plain background making all the attention on her.

This is my second shot. This one is based off of the design symbolism. This shot inspired me in several ways. I think what it represents to me most is of the blur of things around us. Even in other people. I think that often we can be unaware of what is around us. Trapped between lights. In the moment people around us seem to be a blur, or even not real. Vagueness can often be the most real expression of all.

Three Perspectives

My teacher asked me to take a picture of something very familiar but with three different perspectives. I thought the task was very challenging but I generally like things that challenge my boundaries. I chose the cliche answer. I chose to do it over water. When most people think of water they think of it in the traditional sense. They do not see beyond the boundaries. However, I see water in a completely different way. The Photos are as follows.

I liked this photo for the imagery of water. It is in context with earth but at the same time gives off a very reflective state. The strands of water to me represent streams of life flowing into the earth, reflecting that life all around them. 

I like this photo because very rarely do people see the untamed side of water. In most instances when people think of water they think of it as flowing peacefully in a river or in the substances they drink. The truth is water is one of the most powerful substances on this planet. I think this photo illustrates just how unpredictable water can be. 

This Photo is different. I know that on first appearance the tendency is to think that this is the night sky full of stars. I assure you though there is no where in Nashville where I could get a shot of the sky like this. This is actually a shot of water plummeting to the sky. To me it represents the vastness of the substance as well as the complexity of both its shape and appearance.  

Beauty in Life

I took this Picture in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Each Candle represents a prayer in the Catholic faith.

"Letting go of self is an essential precondition to real seeing. When you let go of yourself, you abandon any preconceptions about the subject matter that might cramp you into photographing in a certain, predetermined way. As long as you are worried about whether or not you will be able to make good pictures or are concerned about enjoying yourself, you are unlikely either to make the best photographs you can or to experience he joy of photography to the fullest." - Freeman Patterson

    The first thing that the author seemed to point out was how caught up in life human beings can become. In fact so caught up in life that they fail to see the beauty around them. I tend to agree with him too. After reading what he wrote I found myself thinking about the beauty that I fail to comprehend that happens around me everyday. It appeals to me to look at things in a completely different way. Maybe to see more of what beauty there is in every corner. I might look more at the hue's in the world around me. Less at facts and more in the beauty of life. I do fully belief that life becomes over time the mindless drizzle of rain. That it just eventually one day stops in a crash and with it abruptly ends.

  

      "Where I live, people seldom notice the dandelions in the spring because there are so many of them. But, in southern Africa, a woman I know struggles to grow a little patch of dandelions in her garden. For her, dandelions are not familiar." - Freeman Patterson 

    
      The other point the author elaborated on was how much for granted we take things in life. I thought the point of the lady trying to grow Dandy Lions in her garden in South Africa was a wonderful representation of what humans typically do. People seem to take something that they have so much of, such as trees, and completely dismiss it as normal. I think though that there is nothing more beautiful than a tree. For instance, a tree in both size and structure is an amazing creature. Though most of it's beauty is above the ground, its leaves that stretch to the sky, it receives most of its nutrients from below the ground. Just the sheer beauty of them is enough to keep me in awe for a lifetime. Yet, they have become such a common thing to the human world that trees are no longer seen as a beautiful organism but instead a resource, only something that meets a need. The author seems to strike the idea of how much humans miss a lot of the beauty in life by just looking at necessities, that is when the human race loses beauty. I think that as a photographer I need to start to observe more of life's qualities and less of it's necessities.  

Begining of My Blog

This is my begining of my blog. More to come.