Final Exam

4. Transformative Photo:

This was one of the first photos I took for the class this year, for our first photo assignment (rules of composition) way back in September.  I think this is my transformative photo for several reasons, both personal and technical.  The first was that the photo really made me realize that I loved the natural element of the photo (the tress, plants, clouds, etc.), and from then on, the focus of a lot of my work became natural elements in the photo.  The second reason is that I realized that viewpoint is crucial to creating a good photo; from then on I experimented with my photos, trying to find viewpoints that capture the essence of the scene and emphasize certain parts of my photos.

5. Shapes are closed objects in a photo; they are two-dimensional and flat, so they express length and width.  Forms, on the other hand, are three-dimensional objects, similar to shapes, but expressing length, width, and height.
Blog Posts: Shape  Form

6. Pattern means that a certain object, such as a shape or line, is repeated throughout the photo or work of art.  Repetition is what gives the pattern meaning; it is essentially how the object is repeated. Repetition works with pattern to give the photograph homogeneity.
All my principles of design photos are included in this post.

7. HERE is a link to my Weebly About Page.
HERE is a link to Ralph Clevenger's About Page, who inspired a great deal of my nature-oriented photographs.

8. Last 3 Projects:
First Commercial Photoshoot
Relay for Life Photoshoot
Final Project - Nature Photoshoot

My best project was probably my last one, the nature photoshoot that I did for the final project. Because I photographed subjects I was familiar with, I was able to find viewpoints for my photos that really showcased the beauty of the plants as well as the majesty of the landscapes.  I also made good use of my rules of composition, namely depth of field and viewpoint, particularly for the flower photos, as well as Mr. Farley's #1 rule (getting close), which I know understand.

This project really changed my viewpoint on photography.  I realized that, especially for the sunsets, you may have to wait for just the right moment, and that moment could very well pass you by if you aren't paying attention.  The sun sets fast, and I missed the right moment two days in a row. Also, always have your camera, because you never know what you may see.

I also learned to see differently, particularly in regards to lighting.  In many of my photos, the sun was one of the most important parts of my photo.  In nature, the only light you may have is the sun, and some days just don't have the right lighting to capture the photo.

Final Project - Beauty of Nature

Student Website Reviews

1st Period:
Rudy Estrada's best photo is this one; he uses the rule of thirds and establishes depth of field, focusing on the tree closest to the camera.

2nd Period:
William Shih's best photo is this one; he uses leading lines and has excellent space, in addition to his fantastic lighting for the photo.

3rd Period:
Barry Liu's best photo is this one; his excellent use of filters and contrast emphasizes the red and freedom.

4th Period:
Alyssa Zhao's best photo is this one; the photograph has a good amount of space, and her masterful use of color emphasizes the clouds.

Final Project Proposal

My project is a nuture-oriented photoshoot, with shots of flowers, trees, and horizons. My project is inspired by Ralph Clevenger's style.

The first shot will be of a flower and the sun shining on it. It will be surrounded by similar flowers, which will be out of focus.

The second shot will be another flower shot, but it will be a top view, similar to many images that can be found on Google.

The third shot will be a tree shot; I would like to have an old mossy tree be the focus of the photo, and try to get the light shining through the leaves.

The fourth shot will likely be a landscape photo of the Mission Hills and the meadows that are found on them.

The last shot will be another landscape shot, but this one will be of a horizon, most likely above Mission Peak. I will do it on a somewhat cloudy day to get desired lighting.

Relay for Life Photoshoot

Click HERE for Weebly Gallery

First Commercial Shoot

Ralph Lauren was our inspiration for this shoot:

Taken by Hugh Smith

Taken by Simar Chhabra

Taken by Barry Liu

Taken by Simar Chhabra

Taken by Barry Liu

This is the photo we based our photos off of:

Background Photo

Original:

Changes:

Blacks +100

Shadows +32

Contrast + 10

Clarity +21

Finished:

And the Winner for Best Picture

This is my best photo:

Here's some info about photographers I like:

1. Gordon Parks

2. Bob Capa

3. Loius Jacques Mande Daguerre

4. Ansel Adams
5. Dorothea Lange

Photo Story MCW

Here we have Andrew Chen, a junior, a physics olympiad champion, and a coding legend.  Let's follow him around multicultural week and see how he lives the life.

Andrew has gotten out of class early and is ready to roll.  He finishes a leftover soda from yesterday, and checks his wallet to see what he can buy.

As lunch begins on this Tuesday afternoon, Andrew is already ahead of the crowd, having bought his food tickets.  As he quickly scans the booths to check for good food he may have missed, his mind is focused on upcoming AP exams and robotics competitions.

Not finding anything good, in the end Andrew has settled for another soda.  He will need the energy to get through the rest of his school day.

As the bell rings, Andrew is in the midst of a heated conversation with fellow physics legends Alan Shen and Jerry Yu.  They are discussing the nature of quantum locking, a levitation phenomenon that occurs when a super-cooled superconductor is exposed to a magnetic field.

Story with a photo - Bike Ride of Fate

I stumbled across the setting for this quite by accident; I was riding my bike along a favorite trail near my house, looking for cool plants to photograph for Phoenix Magazine at the request of a friend.  Not finding any, I was ready to turn back and look elsewhere, when I opted to ride up a nearby hill for fun.  I rode to the top, and not realizing I was standing at the edge of a small cliff due to tall grass and weeds, I suddenly lost my footing, and tumbled 20 feet, fortunately landing in a clump of relatively soft plants.  I slowly sat up and realized I was surrounded by beautiful flowers of many colors - red, yellow, orange, but most of all, purple.  I immediately knew that I had my picture.  After snapping several shots, I now had the problem of getting back up the cliff to where my bike was lying on its side; a painful half hour later, I was on my way back home.  It wasn't until I got home that I realized how many cuts and bruises I was covered with.

MSJMCW Story

Multicultural week has something for everyone, whether it be the food, the fancy clothes, the extended lunch, or have a chance to show their talents in public...or that's what we're led to believe. Multicultural week is, in fact, a poorly-organized excuse for clubs to sell food and make money. There are very few people who still celebrate the meaning of multicultural week. Take my friend Boyu, for example.  "Oh, Multicultural week is just an excuse for those not fortunate enough to have their [driver's] license to get some food...no one really cares about the multi-cultural aspect anymore. It's basically bs," he says.

The ticket lines and ridiculous prices are simply too inconvenient for even the food to be appreciated by many upper-classmen, for whom the extended lunch is a blessing.  "It gives us a chance to drive farther than normal, with less time pressure," says veteran lunch-driver Taasin Saquib.  "Like, normally our options for lunch are really limited, but like we can go a lot of places during multicultural week."

Simply put, the poorly-organized multicultural week is no longer the tradition it was...now, people only care about it for the food and extra time.  In a way it's sad, but at the same time, it can help to strengthen friendships to last the test of time.

Shutter Speed and Everything After

Paired with Ethan Hu & Anita Yen

1. The photo of the truck demonstrates a fast shutter speed, because the photo appears frozen. Since the trucks are on a highway and should be moving, the fact that they are frozen and not blurry means that the photographer used a relatively fast shutter speed.
2. The photo employs the Rule of Viewpoint to capture all 3 trucks in such a way that emphasizes the lines and the color of the trucks.
Ethan's Rule is the Rule of diagonals.  For more info, look here.
3. The photo employs the element of lines.  The barrier in the middle, as well as the highway lanes, all are parallel lines.
4. The photographer employed emphasis in the photo.   The comparison of the brightly-colored truck to the pale and gray background causes it to stand out, and places emphasis on it as the subject of the photo.

Photo with Farley's Kids

Shutter Speed of 1/250

Friday Lens Photo Variety

The photo from the slideshow that best illustrates the principle of variety is photo 15.  The use of lines in the roof, combined with the space behind the man and the texture of the singer's clothes yield the impression of motion, and give the photo a variety of places for the eye to focus.  Each part of the photo gives off a different impression of the overall feel, demonstrating variety.

Top kek.

Movie Monday Part 3-4

1. I define my vision of success as the accomplishment my major goals; this includes, but is not limited to, graduation from college with a degree in engineering, obtaining a commercial pilot license, and employment in NASA as an aeronautical engineer.
2. I have had to sacrifice much of my time in my youth in order to obtain the education I need to accomplish these goals.
3. Parks had to give up time with his family and the opportunity to make money.
4. He was the founder of the UN.
5. He was initially offered 5K, but that increases to 10K.
6. He offered Parks $500 Million.
7. He did not want Muhammad altering the story.
8. It was the first Hollywood film directed by a black man.
9. He was a hero for young African Americans, who could relate to him; he went beyond the limits of society and the boundaries of race.
10. Parks used the camera and the pen.
11. She said she was unable to keep up with Parks' busy life.
12. "12 Years a Slave"
13. He was Parks' son, who became a famous film director as well.
14. My favorite photo is the one of the young boy whom Parks would later rescue.
15. I will remember that Parks is the embodiment of a value system; he fought for what he believed in, and he worked hard to get where he was.  I will remember him not as a photographer, but as a human being.

Principles of Design

Principles of Design Assignment

*Note: this post will be continuously updated as more photos are taken

Balance:

Balance is the even distribution of the objects and elements in a photo.

Emphasis:

Emphasis is the focus of the photo.

Movement:

Movement is how the viewer's eye moves through the photo.

Pattern/Repetition:

Pattern is the repeated use of an object.  Repetition is how the pattern is organized in the photo.

Proportion:

Proportion is the correct relation between the sizes of the elements/objects in the photo.

Rhythm:

Rhythm is the repeated use of elements of art to organize movement in the photo.

Texture in Plant Life

Color in Plant Life - Yellow, Bottom Right

Space in Plant Life

Before:

After:

In Camera Raw, I raised the values of the shadows and raised the vibrance.  I also raised the clarity a little.

Form in Plant Life

Shape in Plant Life

Gordon Parks - Part 1

1. The doctor saved his life by dunking him in a tub of ice-cold water.
2. He was born in Kansas.
3. She told him very few blacks went to college because they just weren't college material; they mostly turned out as porters and maids.
4. He was 15.
5. He moved to Minnesota.
6. He never passed college, but he received an honorary degree from Princeton.
7. Gordon became cocky from his previous photographs and walked into a clothes store to take fashion photos.
8. It is a repeated exposure of a photo plate to light, which produces ghost images.
9. He was the husband of the woman who told him to go to Chicago.
10.  He played the piano.
11. They worked to document and educate Americans about the hardships of the Great Depression.
12. He told Gordon to put his camera away, go to a nearby store to buy a coat, then go to a fancy restaurant and watch a movie at a cinema.
13. She was the cleaning lady at the Farm Security Administration.
14. The inspiration came from Flemish Renaissance Art, which he studied during his travels in Europe.
15. Gordon learned that photographers couldn't take pictures that were too provocative or radical.

Lines in Plant Life

Before:

After:

In Camera Raw, I raised the contrast and clarity, as well as the vibrance.  I lowered the levels of the highlights and lowered the temperature.

Favorite Photo - Look from Behind

Our favorite photo was photo 5.  The eagle man looks very majestic, gazing over the football game. We noticed that the photo uses natural framing, depth of field, and symmetry.  The framing is outlined by the stadium lights, the sky, and the bench.  The depth of field focuses the viewer's eye on the eagle, and the positioning of the eagle in the center makes the photo symmetric.

Top 5 Photos - Empowering the Poor

Our top 5 photos:

5. Woman Carrying Metal Vase

4. Two Hands Exchanging Wheat

3. Children Running

2. Woman Chained to Wall

1. Eyes in TV

Multimedia Fest Poster - Version 2

1. The poster is great because the combination of our photography skills and our use of masking in Photoshop blends the poster very nicely.
2. The poster is much better than the last one because our use of advanced photoshop techniques such as masking and outer glow, as well as a different approach to the photographs, makes the poster seem much more professional than the last.
3. We imported the images in different layers, and used masking to blend them all into the background to get the desired effect.  We also used a bit of an outer glow on some of the text to give it a bit of color.

Movie Monday Photo League Questions

1. The Photo League's credo was to use photography to spread awareness and accomplish social change.

2. It separated from the Workers' Camera League.

3. The workshop was a photo school offered by the league.

4. It was taught by Sid Grossman and Sol Libsohn.

5. A project that I feel would be worthy of a year of my life would be to go around the world and document nature. I would love to take pictures of the beauty of nature and show people just how amazing the world can be when you look.

6. The Harlem Document was a series of photos that documented the lives of many African Americans during the 1930's.

7. It was started by Aaron Siskind.

8.) The painter was Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

9.) The lighting in the photo was reminiscent of that of the paintings of Caravaggio, whose main focus was always very well lit.

10. Lewis Hine worked to end child labor and documented American Red Cross relief efforts during World War 1.

11. Weegee, or Arthur Fellig, was a photographer and photojournalist known for his sharp black and white street photography.

12. Many photographers European photographers fled from Europe and ended up joining the Photo League.

13. The League used photography to support the war effort; many of the men went overseas with the armed forces to photograph on the front lines, while the women stayed behind and ran the League.

14. Aaron Siskind transitioned from the realism of the Harlem Document to an abstract expressionism, in stark contrast to many of his earlier photos.

15. The Saturday Evening Post was a bimonthly American magazine that was published weekly. Most of the photographs used in the articles were taken by members of the League.

16. Barbara Morgan was an American photographer famous for her depictions of modern dancers. She was a co-founder of Aperture.

17. Its connection to Communism and the Soviets eventually aroused suspicion, which led to its downfall.

18. The menace was the Soviet Union.

19. Eugene Smith agreed to serve as President when the League was under investigation.

20. The League was disbanded in 1951.

Multimedia Festival Poster

Music Group Poster

Rave of Thrones DJ Set, Featuring Hodor

Period 3 - Semester Final

1. I would have to say that my favorite photo from the slideshow was photo #9, for the following reasons:

1. The bird standing on top of the deer illustrates the uniqueness and diversity of nature.  It's one of those moments that just makes a great picture and was fortunately caught on camera.
2. The fogginess of the picture makes the deer stand out and really helps to show off its majesty as a dominant animal of nature.
3. The photographer's choice of making the photo black and white really adds to its appeal, and helps the deer to stand out.

2. I feel that the best photo from the slideshow is also picture #9:

1. The photo uses the rule of thirds to perfectly position the deer.  The bush in the background also helps to balance the deer with the empty space to the right.
2. The photo makes use of the framing technique.  The branch on top is positioned in such a way that it creates a "frame" for the rest of the photo.
3. The photo has a sense of depth.  Even with the fogginess, the deer's outline is still clear-cut, as it is the focus of the picture, while other elements, such as the bushes and branches, are more blurry.

3. My best work this semester was, without a doubt, my photo of Matt Saleem for the Masters of Photography project:

1. My photo is well-composed, employing the rule of thirds to position Matt.
2. The photo's lighting turned out perfectly when the photo was changed to black and white.  It really helped add to the aged feel of the photo.
3. Matt's pose is flawless.  Just like a real daguerreotype subject, Matt is hardly smiling, and is both dressed and posing like a rich businessman.

If I had more time, I would have used some kind of framing technique to add to the daguerreotype feel, as most daguerreotypes are identified with a frame.

4. My 3 rules of composition are the Rule of Thirds, use of a unique viewpoint, and always having a depth of field.

5. 

Photo of Jasmit Tamber, taken near the Bell Tower

The photo illustrates the Rule of Thirds and having a depth of field.

6. Mr. Farley's 1st rule of composition is communication and getting close.  Always get as close as possible while still talking to your subject so they get comfortable with the camera.

7. Working in groups can be very beneficial:

1. Groups provide a photographer with support and suggestions, which can help the photographers advance their styles.

2. Groups provide criticism and critique to help a photographer improve as he takes pictures.

3. Groups allow photographers to have a healthy work environment so that they can do their own thing, but aren't alone when they go to take pictures.

4. Groups allow photographers to work on great projects that they otherwise would not be able to accomplish alone.

5. Groups provide photographers, or really just people in general, to work harder, because if they fail, they let down not only themselves, but their whole group.

8. There are also many problems when working in groups:

1. Sometimes, people in a group cannot agree and end up arguing over trivial matters.

2. On occasion, some members in a group don't work, leading to an uneven distribution of work.

3. Working with other people can be just as much distracting as it is helpful.

4. Sometimes, people in a group agree to a project too readily, and can't put their hearts into it.

5. Sometimes, people having a bad day while criticize others' photos and discourage them to the point of tears.

9. My favorite work from someone else in this class has got to be Jasmit's Picture of Mahad:

10. My Photographer was Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre.  He was one of the first great photographers, greatly reducing the exposure times of photos by creating a new method of developing photos, which was later named the Daguerreotype.  Due to the fact that he was most well-known for taking portraits, the word "daguerreotype" has now grown to be associated with a certain style of portrait.

11. Dorothea Lange's famous photo was "Migrant Mother", taken in 1936 in Nipomo, CA.  She was working for the Resettlement Administration when she took the photo.

12. The founder of the photojournalism Life Magazine was Henry Luce.  He bought the name in 1936, and began publishing on November 23, 1936.

13. Robert Capa helped found Magnum Photos in Paris, in 1947.

14. Capa took the photo during the battle of Cerro Muriano in the Spanish Civil War, on September 5, 1936.

Album Cover Recreation

Album: "Bookends" by Simon and Garfunkel