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Feature Story - Peer Edit

For the edits I chose to edit Jessica Chatwin's. For most of the photos I just cropped a little tighter, adjusted exposure a little so that I could work with the highlights and shadows and then most of them I bumped the saturation and color temperature a little bit to help the dirt look more red. On the shots where rocks are in focus and a main focal point I boosted the sharpness in order to make them stand out as individual rocks instead of as a clump.

Feature Story

Perhaps one of my hardest stories to figure out. The stress of being a graduating senior, filming a capstone and meeting a deadline for this project all had to come together at once. Originally I was going to do a feature story about my girlfriend being the first of an immigrant family from Cuba to not only attend secondary education but the first to be graduating as well. But she is also a graduating senior filming a capstone who has a different schedule then me so the alignment never worked out. After that finding something I thought was worth sharing was hard. But then I realized I had a combination of photos on my phone and computer from Sundance that I took as memories and for our shooting fast and slow assignment that didn't exemplify a fast or slow lens. I have photos of celebrities as if I were a part of the paparazzi as well as some that would align with press photos or news photos for the events. While I was there newsworthy events were taking place like, Tomi Lahren kicking out famous Youtuber, Shane Dawson, along with his boyfriend and other friends from a private, invite-only party because they were gay and made her feel uncomfortable. While I missed the event I saw the yelling ensue outside the party and was able to speak with the party who was kicked out and immediately took to the internet. I will include a few screen-grabs from what happened on the internet the following day. I was surrounded by news and rejected it until I realized what is actually newsworthy and not just a memory from my life.

These first two photos are of Nat Wolff. I saw him coming out of a steakhouse on the corner and he really hurried along with his girlfriend, Margaret Qualley, to get into the car before being recognized. When I saw him come out of the steak house we made eye-contact and I recognized him but the look on his face told me that he didn't know me so it took me about a minute or so to realize that he wasn't someone I knew from school or a party but rather that he was Nat Wolff.


Copious amounts of traffic and copious amounts of snow. That's the best description for Park City during Sundance.

I had to use my iPhone for photos during the Q&A sessions and sadly I didn't have press seating so I never was able to be lined up for a great shot. The digital zoom makes the photos grainy and the dark lighting doesn't help. But all of the Q&A photos show the true heart of Sundance which is a connection. Being able to talk to the filmmakers and actors about a film helped me to understand so much more about each one.

In this photo we have the cast and crew from "Columbus" answering questions about their drama that focused a lot on beautiful cinematography and architecture. This is the director's first film, Kogonada is on the far right with the microphone. In the center are three of the stars, John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson,  Rory Culkin. And the rest on stage are part of the crew.

"Band Aid" is one of the best films I've ever seen. Director, Zoey Lister-Jones who also starrred, wrote, produced, wrote the music and performed the music for the film did something that had never been done with this one. Aside from cast members, everyone on set was female. Having an all female crew was a statement to show that women can do anything. Co-Star of the film, Adam Pally, said it was a unique experience and he loved to bring his daughter to set to show her not to limit her dreams. Fred Armisen also guest stars in this film and was a huge supporter of Zoey Lister-Jones' choices in how to make the film. "Band Aid" will hit theaters this June.


The directors and cast of "Sidney Hall" did a very early Q&A with this 8 am premiere time. From left to right we have actors Blake Jenner, Michelle Monaghan and associate producer, Brendan Hubbard, writer and director, Shawn Christensen, writer and producer, Jason Dolan, and star, Logan Lerman. This film was an emotional rollercoaster and this group right here was a great example of why. Lerman seemed almost awe-struck throughout the Q&A at the positive feedback toward his film and even stayed after to interact with patrons. The writers shared that not everything in this movie is sentimental, in fact a lot of important dates and things were just last minute additions based on what day they finished writing or a date that sounded good.  The whole cast and crew was very light hearted and fun with the Q&A but the movie was a much more emotional experience.



I am still waiting on feature stories to be posted so I can edit a raw take. Those will be on a post titled "Feature Story - Peer Edit"

Hard-ish News

Well, this was the most difficult assignment I have ever had for a photography shoot and I found out that this is probably not a career path for me. Listening to the police scanner was the hardest initial task. As I would listen during the time I dedicated to it when I wasn't working, or volunteering for D-Week, or taking care of other homework and I wasn't lucky enough to catch any action in the small segments. So I chose to dedicate my Sunday to listening and responding.

The sound is scratchy so I learned you have to be very alert and can't multi-task while listening. Location's were never repeated and I began to wonder how cops were so responsive off of one quick verbal address. I learned that St. George is not a crime hub and definitely isn't a very active community for police work. In the 5 hours I was listening on Sunday there were 4 or 5 elderly people who fell and called for help. And finally there was a "Silver Ford Taurus versus a rock Wall" off of mile marker 14 on the 9 east. The problem I had was that it was so far away that by the time I got there I pulled up and the car was pulling away on a tow truck. In fact while I listened as I drove I heard them call off the medics because they weren't needed. The images I captured were of the police on the side of the freeway at the location. I couldn't walk up the side of the road because speeds are high and the roadway was narrow. The car on the tow truck appeared to be in good condition. The front bumper was hanging off but the airbags were not deployed and the car had no real structural damage. The driver was a young woman but they never said what caused her to swerve off the road.

I am continuing to listen hoping for better photos but this is what I have for now.

Shooting to Illustrate

This assignment was hard for me because I couldn't think of what issue I wanted to create content for. Then I decided that I didn't need an issue but rather just a feature. A common one that is constantly written about is millennials from a viewpoint of the older generation that hates them or from a millennial explaining how great it is to be a millennial. As I brainstormed I came up with the idea for this shoot as stock footage to be used for a story about millennials but realized it could also be used for a feature about the powerful tool that we keep in our pocket, smart phones. The article would explain how having the whole world at our fingertips is nice, but it doesn't give us all the practical skills we need in life which is why I replaced tools with the iPhone because looking at it raises emotions in you because everyone knows what a hammer is, but being able to look up a picture doesn't mean you have a hammer. The emotions raised will be based upon audience. Ideally the older generation that is anti-technology and millennials will take these pictures as a representation of what they believe millennials to be. For the younger and more technologically advanced they will see this picture and it will instill a sense of remembrance and nostalgia as well as a call to action about being able to use the correct tools for each job. Just because we have a tool with endless potential in our pocket doesn't make it a universal tool. Here's a few of the best shots from the take. Other's ended up unusable in my opinion because they looked even more forced and I wanted using the tools on the phone to look more natural as if they were meant to be there and they would work.

Natural Light Portraits

I don't have the Meta data for this shoot because it won't pull up on this computer for some reason. But all of the shots were taken on a 55 mm lens with a telephoto attatchment. ISO was changed between 400 and 100 depending on lighting. And mostly f/16 but a few were taken at f/5.2 to drop the background. Shutter speed was typically 100 but was boosted and lowered for different shots.

A problem I had with shooting Jiselle is how to capture who she is. She is strong and determined yet fun loving and depending on the moment of day when you encounter her you can get a whole different vibe then from another moment. I chose to have her expressions be natural and not dictated. The only thing I asked was that her eyes come back to camera. Her eyes can be dark, but when the light hits them just right you can get a catch light and it brightens up the brown. 

One concept I wanted to use was the fountain as a foreground. With the stress of being a senior and trying to graduate weighing heavily on our minds I thought this would show the chaos of graduation and how it seems chaotic but is actually harmless much like the fountain. But I ran into problems with my lens not being long enough and my focus pulling back and forth as well as the distance making it hard to communicate with Jiselle. These are cropped frames out of a much wider frame. If I were to re-visit this concept I would use a much longer lens.

In Class Portraits

Portraits

For this portrait assignment I wasn't able to photograph anyone I had negative feelings towards because of proximity. Another challenge I faced was lighting. I took these photos of my family members that I don't know extremely well and although each shoot was only 5-10 minutes it was 5-10 minutes of them talking and maybe 2 minutes of me actually using the camera. I was able to gain a lot of insight and get an idea of how I would photograph each person to capture their essence and who I believe they are based on the stories they chose to share with me. Every shot was taken on a 55 mm lens. The lighting was cloudy in San Clemente the entire time we were there so my camera settings are 400 ISO, f/3.0, Shutter Speed 1/250. Small variations were made on some shots between the shutter speed or ISO but only on shots where the clouds moved and forced in more light.

MIKE SHEFFIELD

Mike is married to my step-sister whom I only ever lived in the same house with for one summer. Although he lives in the same city as me I only see him about once a month. When I think of Mike I think of confidence. When I asked him for defining moments in his life all of them were about building his confidence because that's who he wanted to be. I took all of my shots from below his eye level to give him a slight feeling of power but without over-exaggerating it because I also found a lot of humility in his character.

ZACK SHEFFIELD

Zack is Mike's younger brother and I only know him for this reason. Zack and Mike get along extremely well but are far from the same person. Zack's essence is humor. The defining moment he spoke most highly of was finding his wife who allows him to be himself. Zack has a childlike happiness to him that really brings all of his personality to life. For this reason I took his photos from slightly above him. His eyes are much deeper then Mike's so connecting with them was very hard to do but his smile connects with the camera very well.

MIKAYLA & AUSTIN JONES

Austin is my stepbrother who I got to know pretty well our last 2 years of high school but have not had much contact with since graduating high school in 2013. He is extremely different and had to attribute his defining moment to his parents divorce which would lead him to becoming a part of a blended family with me and later would lead to his wife, Mikayla. Mikayla's defining moment was her marriage and the emotions that she felt there. These two are not very "open" to people other then each other and their parents so this was hard to get even those small pieces of information from them. Having them forget the camera entirely was a very difficult task but I believe in these shots I was able to have them show who they are through their eyes and facial expressions.

The most interesting take away I have from this assignment was how to capture appropriate emotions. I was telling my subjects to think of the moments that define them. When asked how to pose I would tell them just to keep their eyes locked with a spot of the camera and to not worry about smiling or posing in any other form. I used a technique I saw Platon use on the video we watched in class which was yelling at our subjects while not looking at the pictures because I turned my screen off. The picture after yelling out during a quiet shoot took most of them off guard but they found their recovery in the moment they were thinking of. I found this shoot to be one of my favorite one's I have done.

B&W Portraits

These are my top 5 picks for today's shoot. The last shot, the one of Kaden without his glasses is missing a catch light in his eyes but I thought the rembrandt on his cheek and the lighting quality of the photo along with the expression on his face told a story even without the catch light.

Shooting Tight

For this post I wanted to experiment with a 100 mm lens for creeping and shooting unsuspecting civilians as well as shooting in tight on inanimate objects because of the plane of focus difference on a longer lens. Overall I found more interesting shots in my inanimate objects because the candids of people were overall uninteresting because the people I was photographing were not a part of a story or people of interest to me or any viewers.

ISO 100, 1/125 Shutter Speed, f/2.5

Looking down into a bush.

ISO 100, 1/125 Shutter Speed, f/2.5

Close Up on a Fire Hydrant.

ISO 200, 1/250 Shutter Speed, f/3.2

Interesting Poster shot using a low aperture and a long lens.

ISO 100, 1/400 Shutter Speed, f/5.0

Shooting through a window and exposing for the outside instead of the inside.

ISO 200, 1/250 Shutter Speed, f/3.2

I was trying to keep the people and the dixie rock photo in focus while exposing for the light coming in through the window so I ended up with a few hot spots but I like the composition of the photo.

ISO 100, 1/400 Shutter Speed, f/5.0

Breaking 5'7" 

Shooting Wide

I chose to photograph the blender for DSUSA as the event that I wanted to document. In it there were free muffins along with the announcements for this weeks events. There was also a side game that was competing for free Game Day t-shirts and #theDixieLife stickers. Most of my shots were taken at f/16, 1/125 and ISO 400 but some had my shutter speed changed to 1/250. All of the shots are on an 18 mm lens.