Bury the hatchet tour

Wildflowers

 

These images were taken on a very windy day in the middle of a field full of flowers. Bluebonnets are a delicacy in Texas because they are our state flower. They only come out once a year and this year they were hard to find. It took them a lot longer than usual to bloom and even then we did not have anywhere near the number we usually have. Luckily for me I knew where a great field was that I saw full last year. This year it was not as full but I may have been early. I love taking macro photos so this assignment was great for me, I know how to take the pictures and enjoy doing so. The only real problem I had was the wind. The lighting was fairly easy to adjust, but the flowers were tall enough that the wind really shook them. My favorite part of taking these pictures was being able to learn and teach others something. What I learned was that bluebonnets are symmetrical from the top, if you look straight down at a bluebonnet you can see straight down the middle of it. Everyone who has seen my pictures of this have said the same thing “wow I didn’t know bluebonnets looked like that”. It has been wonderful for me to see how happy my mother is because bluebonnets are her favorite flower. She is putting up these pictures all over the house now. I truly love macro photography and if I can I would love to make a career out of it.

Bluebonnet Field

 

Colton Dixon and Third Day Concert

 

This was probably my favorite assignment. I absolutely love Colton Dixon. He was a contestant on American Idol and I along with the rest of the nation believe he should have won. He was the second opening act for the headliner Third Day. The camera settings were not hard to work with until Third Day came on. They had lots of strobe lights and that washed out a lot of the pictures. The only other thing I had problems with was the people. I was trying to be respectful of their concert experience while still capturing my picture. I didn’t use any extra equipment besides the three lenses I had with me. The one I used the most was the football lens. Next time I have an assignment like this I will make sure I am not taking pictures of someone that I want to just watch as a fan. I had difficulty remembering to focus on the pictures. Overall it was a fun shoot.

Easter Egg Hunt

 

So this was an Easter egg hunt held by the city for everyone. It was separated into age groups and the one I chose to shoot was the zero to three year olds. They were all very cute, but it was kind of hard to get pictures of the children because the parents were helping. I stayed until the field was almost completely cleared and thats when I got the amazing pictures of the parents who stayed to open the eggs there with their kids and take pictures. It was nice to see those beautiful family moments. Overall it was a good shoot and it was easy to get lots of pictures. It was a cloudy day so the lighting was a little difficult but I got there early so I was able to figure it out before they let the people in. Luckly it held off raining until later in the day. It was a fun subject to shoot and I enjoyed the enthusiasim of the little kids.

Kickball

 

This assignment was quite simple. The hardest part was finding open or unlocked gates. It didn’t take very long and the images turned out pretty well. It wasn’t too sunny or completely overcast so the lighting was perfect. I did have difficulty getting different poses, like all of the people throwing the ball threw it the same way. The only thing I might have done differently would be to open more of the gates. The people in the pictures are either workers at one of the KISD schools or someone they know. It was a kickball tournament between the schools which was in the end pretty entertaining.

Writing with Sparklers

 

This assignment was relatively easy. The main problem I had was that I put my setting on BULB to have the lens open to capture the light and it took longer than expected to get the images. The first fifty or so images I took were with my grandparents so we had alot of fun doing that. The next set were just with my mom and she just spin the sparklers all over the place so I could take as many pictures as possible with our last few sparklers. The sparklers died faster than we thought they would. I didn’t really prefer one light assignment over the other. Writing with light is fun with my mom but I don’t think I will be making a career out of that. The other light assignment was just with flashlights so it was a bit easier to do accept that we ran out of ideas. To see the pictures from that assignment click here.

A day in the life of a principal

 

This photo-shoot was fairly slow. I didn’t have to direct her much because I prefer to take candid pictures. I just told her in the beginning of the day to go about her normal day and forget I was there. I didn’t have any lighting issues or speed issues. I didn’t have to spray and pray because all she did most of the day was have conferences where she was sitting so I just waited for good facial expressions. I started out with my small lens and then switched to my longer lens for close up shots even though I was farther away. It didn’t take long to edit the pictures; I just adjusted some of the lighting I thought needed help and added my logo. If I had to do it all over again I think I would have sat in a few different place for the meetings, other than that I was pretty happy with how everything turned out. I was able to capture a portrait image during one of her meetings, I know she isn’t looking at me but like I have said over and over again I like to take candid pictures. The one i chose as my portait is the only image with my black logo. I enjoy her genuine smile and that is why I love candids, it’s hard to capture something like this when their posed.

Action part trois

This is my third action post made of a combination of two action events. My other two can be seen here and here. Our original assignment was to shoot a basketball game but he gave us other options. I am not a fan of sports so I decided to try two of the other events that were suggested. The two events I chose were a monster truck rally and a mud bog. Most people know what a monster truck rally is, but not many people know about mud bogs. A mud bog is an action packed fast paced evening with motocross and ATV races around the track, a tractor pull, a 360 backflip by a monster truck, a tough truck race, a monster truck race through mud, and lastly a tough truck race into the mud. We even got a surprise at the end of the show before the last driver went through the mud, he got out of his truck saying he had engine trouble and had his girlfriend come down to the arena floor to help and proposed to her. It was a fun filled night. These events were much easier for me to shoot than the first two action events which were football games. At these events I did not have to be so involved with people like you do at football games. Plus most of the things you’re shooting at these other events are large and easy to focus on where as the football players are smaller and fast moving. I did have trouble with the motocross and ATV races however, because they are small and fast so I couldn’t really get them in focus, in that situation I used the spray and pray technique. I didn’t really have any lighting issues except for when I was trying to take pictures of the dog a woman had brought. I didn’t edit much besides adding my logo and some lighting on the monster trucks. I feel I am getting a lot better with action shots, I now know where exactly to put my ISO and shutter speed so that I can shoot quickly and capture the images I want. The only thing I would have liked to do differently would be to keep my camera from freezing when the man was doing the backflip with his monster truck.

Photographers Choice

 

This photoshoot was very funny for me. I am an avid fan of the Lord of the Rings series so when they came out with legos to go with the movies you can imagine that I was excited. We were assigned a photographers choice assignment so I chose to do macro of my awesome collection of legos. The only problem I had was with lighting so eventually I figured out it was easier to use the flash for most of the pictures. I didn’t do any editing besides adding my logo, resizing, and a little cropping. It was a fun shoot and I took one hundred and seventy five pictures.