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