Reflection

Throughout the whole year I felt my skill as a photographer grow day by day. I learned much from my teacher and even made my own personal breakthroughs. All my classmates have been amazing and helped me evolve as a person and a photographer. This year has been full of excitement, and it was an incredible experience. 2 of my favorite projects were the Staple Cities project and our very first real assignment, the Element Scavenger Hunt.

Blind Photography

In our final project to end the year, we really dove into the importance of shutter speed and balancing the exposure triangle. Before we started shooting, we researched into Pete Eckert, a popular blind photographer. We wanted to channel facets of his work into ours. The biggest takeaway we took from Pete’s work is how he used slower shutter speeds to his advantage.

When we got into shooting, we wanted to capture a long exposure image and a light painting image. We were given objects to shoot with as practice before we took our final images with our own objects. Knowing the exposure triangle was very important as we had to be in an extremely dark environment and the shutter speed was very slow. Capturing both images took much trial and error, and I lost my artistic direction at times but overall, I think I did well.

Buh-Bye!

What was your initial belief when you were first assigned the project?

• I didn’t think I could build a viable city to photograph, but I pulled through when I started gluing the staples down.

What was your inspiration behind the city?

• My inspiration was the game Cyberpunk: 2077 and DC Comics’ Gotham City, specifically the version seen in the Batman: Beyond show, which is where I derived the name from.

How did your city differ from Peter Root’s City of Staples?

• While Peter Root’s City of Staples was broad and monotone, mine was condensed with a red overlay of color.

How can one tell a difference in aperture settings? What did you notice about the different apertures within your own work?

• When trying to capture a wider image, you want everything in focus, but when capturing a single component, you want only the selected component in focus. I use f/18, a smaller aperture, to capture my wide angle, covering my whole city, to have it all in focus. For my other angles, I used bigger apertures like f/5 to focus on one specific part of my city.

What do you think is most successful about your work? What could you have done better, or how can you grow as a photographer?

• I think the most successful part of my work is the lighting and how it correlates with the culture of the city. I feel as if I could have made the city itself more unique and complex.

Are you overall proud of your end result?

• I’m very proud of how it turned out, and I believe this is one of my better projects.

Come visit Beyond City if you want to experience the delightful world of crime, beautiful scarlet storms, and the smell of radioactivity in the air!

ABC Photography involved using abstract objects, structures, or anything else to capture letters A–Z through photographs. We had over a week to capture all our photos. As we continued our hunt for every letter, we kept track of our progress with a Microsoft Word document. We used it to identify what letters we had, needed, or could improve upon. The easiest letter I kept finding was O, and the hardest to find was between Q and R. I wasn’t really happy with my final submission for those letters. The word I created was the name of my favorite movie. I had to train myself to look at things from all different angles and find the little details in everything around me.

ABC Word

Favorite Image

Bookface is the aligning of a book to a face or body in a way that creates an illusion where the book and the person are connected. This concept allows for the creation of many different creative ways to create interesting images.

Search For Safety by John Langan

Immanuel Williams

To take this picture, I had to tilt my brother’s head right to align the book, which I covered the right half of his face with. I put him in front of a brick wall to match the background of the book cover.

Drama High: No Mercy by L. Divine

Imani Williams

To take this picture, I held the book in front of the bottom half of my sister’s face and tilted her head slightly to the left with her chin down. I used a curtain for a blank background to reduce distractions. 

In 2023, I unveiled a lot about myself, especially through photography. Last year, I realized that I had to open up to new experiences and ideas. The projects we had pushed me to be more creative with my work. These projects included capturing the elements of photography, incorporating the rules of composition, and creating self-portraits. 

This is my favorite image of all my submissions in 2023. What really makes it different from my other pictures is the process I went through to take the photo. I simply went to close the blinds, then saw the perfect chance for an image that aligned with a rule of composition for my project. My favorite images are usually the ones that come to me rather than me seeking them out.

In 2024, I want to understand myself more. Often, I make impulse decisions because I see impulse as my raw, true self. I’ve decided to try and stop acting on pure impulse and to find a common ground between my emotional and rational selves. As a photographer, I want to think out of the box and be more creative with my images. I’ll use my surroundings, different locations, different lighting, different angles, and other factors to accomplish this. A short-term goal I have for myself is to change my style and experiment with clothes more. I want to try and wear a wider variety of colors and combine different colors to make outfits. A long-term goal I have for myself is to start cutting and retwisting my hair. I’ve already retwisted my hair multiple times, but I’ve been scared to bring clippers anywhere near my head. There are plenty YouTube videos I can watch to help me. I want to watch more thought-provoking movies. In my opinion the best movies are the ones that make you think, whether it’d be about a controversial ending, how you can personally connect to the story, how the events translate to the real world, or anything else that gets your brain gears moving.

Self-expression is defined as “expressing one’s thoughts and feelings, and these expressions can be accomplished through words, choices or actions.” Expressing yourself is extremely important to one’s health and overall being. Without self-expression we stop feeling like an individual and just feel blurred into everyone around you. To me, you don’t have to express yourself in a grandiose way to give yourself a sense of individuality. Self-expression is simply for yourself and no one else.

My most casual way of expression is through music. A song that perfectly displays my emotional state is Egyptian Luvr by Rejjie Snow ft. Amine and Dana Williams. When listening to this song I think of my past along with my potential future. It makes me reflect on how I have changed, will change, and need to change. The song makes me feel calm, nostalgic, and accepting. The most important parts of the song to me are the bridge and chorus. The bridge shows the fear of losing something or the fear of change (“I want you to stay forever”) but the chorus (“leave it in the past”) shows the beauty in letting go.

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“Self-expression should not be a challenge that demands extraordinary talent but should be a right accessible to all.” – Ansel Adams

In our element scavenger hunt project, we were tasked with using different photography composition rules and capturing different photographic elements to elevate our image taking skills. The project was split into two parts with the elements of photography being the first. The elements included: Line, Texture, Emphasis, Shape, Contrast, Space, and Color. For this portion, 11 total final images were required with a prerequisite of showing a different element or part of an element for each. The second part was the rules of composition, where 8 final images were required demonstrating each different rule. The rules of composition include: Rule of Thirds, Balancing Elements, Leading Lines, Viewpoint, Inclusion and Exclusion, and lastly, Experimentation.

My favorite image from the elements part of my project is my Overlapping Shapes submission. What I like about it is the vibrance and how you can almost feel the softness of the flowers. When I took this picture, I wanted to completely focus the picture on the flowers and kind of crowd the image with them. Crowding them in the picture would create repetition. Creating repetition would relate the picture to Overlapping Shapes.

Now, for my rules of composition, my favorite would have to be my Rule of Thirds submission, a favorite among my classmates. This stork usually stays by the pond near my house, and I got excited when I saw it perched on my neighbor’s house. The sky was an added bonus. I put the stork in the left third of the image so it could line up with Rule of Thirds. With the picture in itself, I wanted to make something reminiscent of a silhouette painting.

JPEGs are the most common file formats. They are compressed images so they can be stored in large quantities. HEIFs are relatively new. They offer the same storage as JPEGs but cannot be shared or displayed as easily. TIFFs are uncompressed so they take up a bunch of space but are high quality images. RAW files show all the information captured by camera but must be viewed through processing software. DNGs are an alternative to the original RAW files. They were made to be because the original RAW files might not be useable in the future, but the DNG will. PNGs don’t lose much detail when compressed, don’t take up much space, and are useful for logos. GIFs are good quality, small photos but, they show limited colors. BMP files are high quality photos that prioritize printing over sharing. PSDs are flexible files because all layers of image are editable, but file size can get large due to those layers.

When the attacks of 9/11 occurred, I wasn’t even thought of yet. All my knowledge of the incident comes from the media and personal stories. I can’t imagine how it felt to be alive when it happened and I’m not sure if would want to. My sister had just been born a year before the attack and the fear my parents must have felt is unthinkable. Though I wasn’t there in body, I can still experience some of the terror through images taken during the infamous day.

This picture is a perfect display of my feelings towards 9/11. The clouds darkening the city giving a sense of danger and the unsure feeling of what’s next. Through pictures and images an event can be shared through different visions and can be retold to generation after generation. In history we can’t sufficiently picture how certain events happened past illustrations or paintings. Live photographs give more depth and show the honest and real thing. A painting or illustrated cartoon could not create the same feeling a picture can. If you look at a picture of a living, breathing, person being shot that would stay in the back of your mind versus a painting where someone is being shot which you would glance over. An image brings your mind into it and allows you to momentarily experience what is shown, whether it be excitement, happiness, terror, or the unknown. Images overall can help create a stronger feeling and connection to the event and give more insight to how it affected the world and its people.