Nikon and iPhone

Nikon has now come up with a Learn & Explore for iPhones! This is amazing, Learn & Explore will have new articles updated regularly as well as answers about what your shutter speed and aperture should be at certain events. Also just basic knowledge about Photography. Everything a photographer might need to know is now available at your fingertips!

New York

Recently one of my friends Melanie asked me if the weekend before Thanksgiving I wanted to go to New York with her. Now as much as I would like to I just don't think that I am going to be able to make it. However it got me thinking about New York. I found this article on PDN about Photography Exhibits in New York. As if I didn't want to go before now I really do.

Fill Flash

Another one of our upcoming Photojournalism assignments is Fill Flash. On Wed, this week my photojournalism class and I are supposed to be going on a field trip and do some hands on training and learning with our flashes. The video below is about Fill Flash from Cameralabs and DSLR tips, just like the previous video about the D90. Hope it is informative.

Artist Highlight: Michael Nocher

Back a few months ago I had the pleasure to meet Michael Nocher on a trip to Charleston, SC. Sadly I did not have my camera, but there was a huge art festival going on downtown. I purchased one of Michael Nocher's prints Angel Oak and had the pleasure of talking to him for a bit about photography and the print that I purchased. Alot of his stuff is really beautiful, you should check his stuff out here.

Pet Photography

Today I went to Apalachee River Animal Hospital because my Yorkie is pregnant. We found out today that she is going to have FIVE, yes FIVE dorkies. Today got me thinking about Pet Photography and how I really would like to be a pet photographer. I love animals and I connect well with them. So I was looking up Pet Photographers I came across another totally dog lover Leeisa Teh based out of Atlanta.

Nikon D90

I have had my Nikon D90 since last Christmas, and I hate reading manuals. Although I know that I should so I know all the cool stuff my gear does, I have not read it all. So there is a video talking about some of the features of the D90.

This guy is from Camera Labs & DSLR tips and they have a lot of informative videos on Utube and their website.

Henna

Today I went to two events, but ended up mainly spending time at the Pagan Pride Day in Athens. There really was not as big of turn out as I had expected but some really neat people. I did not stay the whole time but while I was there I got my first Henna art from Mari Baker.

Photojournalism

Our next assignment that is due for Photojournalism is our Feature. I have been shooting for this for a while and have been to a bunch of great events. One of the first events I went to was the 2 day walk. It was a very inspiring day! This weekend Fri-Sun is the 3 day walk. I am thinking about going on Sunday but I am unsure right now.

Choices for Low Key

I've talked about my previous photoshoot for Low Key. Well yesterday I went to school and picked up my contact sheets to see what was picked for me to print. There are 4 choices that Mrs. Harkins had circled or marked on. One of them was stared but I wanted to get everyone's thoughts on these four. I have posted them on Flickr, and they are named Choice 1-4. Let me know what you guys think. Here is the one that was stared!


Thanks again to Jeremy for bringing in Cinder, my model Kelley, and all my great assistants: Nichole, Jenni, Jeremy and Ze !

Hand of the Genius

Today was a rainy day so we decided to go to the High Museum. Its amazing because tickets are only $5 for college students, you really cant beat that. I went to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. It was really good, although I was hoping to see things that weren't there. I learned a lot about da Vinci that I did not know before, and got to see a lot of this own hand drawings.

Also at the High is Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods and John Portman: Art & Architecture

Mamiya new medium format cameras

Mamiya finally announced the prices of their new DM22 and Dm28 and at alittle under 10 thousand it is the cheapest medium format camera around. With the Dm22 comes a 80mm f/2.8 lens, and many other features. The Dm28 is just under 15 thousand with the same lens. The Dm22 is to be shipped come this November. Read the rest of the review of the new camera here. And check out Mamiya blog here.

 

Leica Will Not Attend PMA 2010

Leica has announced that they will not be attending the PMA( Photo Marketing Association) in 2010. PMA is one of the largest photo trades shows. Canon has also decided to pull out of this trade show as well. Check out the full article here at PDN.

Atlanta Photographer

I love looking at photographers work.Derek Blanks is an Atlanta photographer, who shoots alot of celebs. He also does a lot of alter ego shoots(where the same person is two different people in the shot), which are really neat. Take a look at him website and his portfolio here.

Auroa's Mini/Max

I was recently reading ShutterBug about lighting. Auroa's Mini/Max are basically light diffusers to go. They strap around your flash, and are really easy to use. There are actually five different ones to achieve different lighting. Plus they are not really expensive at all, ranging from 19-42 dollars. You can purchase them at Booth Photographic. And check out the article and more information from ShutterBug here.

Low Key Photoshoot

This morning was my Low Key Photoshoot, and it went really good. One of my oldest friends Kelley came in and rock it! Jeremy brought in his snake Cinder, who was amazing. I am really happy with all the images, I haven't shown all of them to Mrs. Harkins yet so I don't know which one will be my final. I had a great set of assistants today: Jeremy, Jenni , Nichole & Ze. Here is one of the images from the shoot.

Fashion Photographer

One of our upcoming assignments in Advanced Portraiture is Glamour/Fantasy/Fashion so l have doing some research looking at Fashion Photographers. I came across Tim Walker who apparently was an assistant to Richard Avedon. I really like Tim Walker's style. Here is one of his images, but check out the above link for his website.

High Key/ Low Key Photography

Since we are shooting tomorrow morning High Key or Low Key Portraiture I decided to look some stuff up, and found this really cool site about DIY Photography and Lighting. In this website there is an article about the differences in High Key and Low Key as well as some images. Take a look at it here .

New header

One of the things I am working on fixing with my blog is my header. Originally the lettering was too small. Since I had already cropped the image in Photoshop it wouldn't let me change the lettering size, so I have gone back into Photoshop to redo the lettering, but now the size is all wrong. I am having so much trouble with it and getting quite annoyed with myself and Photoshop. Hopefully I will get it right soon.

Finally I just changed the html, which is what I guess I should have done from the get go. What do you think about the new header?

More new stuff

So along with my Christmas coming early from my mom, my boyfriend decided to do the same. So he ordered me the last thing that I really needed: A flash: A Nikon Sb-600. Its really awesome, I haven't messed with everything yet, but it works great!



He also felt that because of all my new stuff, I needed to upgrade my backpack from the Tamrac Expedition 3 or the Adventure 74
.

Low Key/High Key

This week in Advanced Portraiture we will be shooting High Key or Low Key. I will be shooting Low Key. My model was supposed to be Jeremy, but he was already taken by someone else. I am still excited though because he is going to bring in his 7.5 ft Red Tail Boa, for me to use. I am even more excited that one of my oldest friends Kelley, is now going to come in and let me shoot her for this assignment.

Fair Time

Today I went to Cumming Country Fair & Festival . I went to have a good time, but to also try to shoot for my Feature assignment in Photojournalism. I think that the hardest thing for me this quarter is going to be photojournalism cutlines. To get a cutline, I actually have to go up to the people and talk to them before or after I take their photograph. I ran into Cooper today while at the fair and we talked about it, and he tried to help me out a bit, since I don't like feeling like I am in someone's way. And it helped, I ended up actually talking to a few people getting some names, and ran into someone who's photograph I had already taken at another event and got a name for other photographs.

Shepard Fairey Lying

I thought that this was really interesting, that now the photographer is admitting wrong doing after what I believe has been quite a while. Check out the full story at PDN

Flickr

Its final official I have a Flickr now too! There is one of the images from my first set posted: My favorites. Check it out for more to come.

Student Photo Contest

I am not feeling good today. However I found out that PDN is having a student photo contest a couple of days ago and wanted to share with everyone. The deadline for entries in Dec 7, 2010. There are a couple different categories: Fashion/Portraiture, Documentary/Photojournalism, Still Life, Travel/Landscape, Fine Art/Personal Work, and Pre-College(open). The entry fee is only 12 dollars and you can include up to 6 images in a series for one price. There are some cool prizes too.
For more information check out the full link here

I think that it would be a really good opputunity for everyone. You never know, it would be your image chosen....Like my classmate Tameka who placed 3rd in the My Atlanta Exhibition of the ACP.

Productive Day

Today was a very productive day. We shot children portraits in the morning into the afternoon. I felt like the shoot went really well. I wanted Alexa to have a lot of fun, and have that show through the images. She was a real trooper and such a little ham. It was a real treat to be able to photograph Miss Alexa because Monday was her 4th birthday, so the balloons were suitable!




Tomorrow morning is Photojournalism. We are going to be going over our Sports Photography. I am not really confident in my image. I struggled with this assignment and plan on continuing to shoot. Hopefully things will go okay tomorrow morning. I have to finish reading the Sports Chapter and then I am going to bed. Here is the image I am going to turn in tomorrow. ( This kid hung on to the touchdown.)

Children Portraiture

Today we photographed children. It was very fun and challenging. Thankfully I had Nichole, as an assistant. She is great with kids, because she works at a Portrait Studio on the weekends. I shot Alexa with balloons all around her. She had a lot of fun and ran around a ton.

Here are some of the images from the shoot. The image above is the photograph Mrs. Harkins picked!

New lighting kit

This past weekend has been an eventful one. I got some new lens and a lighting kit. Tonight I wanted to actually set up the lights and have some fun with it. So my mom was a great volunteer as well as my dogs(they just love the spotlight). Nichole came over to check it out too, and we had fun with it. Here are just a couple of the pictures I took tonight!

Inventive Photographers

So I was researching photographers today and I came across an article called: Technically Speaking: Hugh Kretschmer's New Twist on Kite Flying.
It was all about Hugh Kretschmer's new project. The photograph is what first got my attention. After reading the article I thought that it was really interesting that he had an idea in the beginning but realize that it was not feasible so he changed it. It reminds me of how Mrs. Harkins always wants us to troubleshoot, if something does not work then change it. So I looked up some more of his photography. His images are really different with the way that he sees things, very inventive and gave me a Wonderland kind of feel.

His work reminded me of Sandy Skoglund, who I have liked since highschool. In the sense that he builds his sets from the ground up and then photographs them. I also thinks she plays with the relm of reality.

Both are amazing artist and you should check them out.

Adventure Day

This morning Jeremy(my boyfriend) and I are going hiking. I am very excited because we found out where this waterfall was a while back( thanks to Nichole) but have not had the time to finally make it out there again. It is sure to be an adventure. Last time we went hiking we ran into a cub in Helen. While in Athens we ran into a cooperhead. I am hoping for NO snakes or bears today! I will post pictures later!



After 6 hours of hiking, I'm back! It was a long exhausting day and at the end of it, we did not really think the waterfall was worth all the hiking! We only ran into one snake on the way back and I walked right over him not even knowing it, of course when Jeremy pointed it out I freaked. Guess I was so tired I stopped looking where I was walking.

Sports Photography

One of our assignments for Photojournalism is Sports photography. Nichole and I went Thursday night and shot the Collins Hill varsity game at night. It was very different. We were on the sidelines with professional photographers. I really did not get much of anything I liked, so today I went to shoot rec league with little kids. They would not let me on the sideline there said something about some league rules. So it was harder to get anything good. My mom being the amazing lady that she is took me to Showcase to get a new lens! I ended up leaving with a Tamron 200-500mm, 10-24mm, 2 UV filters, and a 2 light lighting kit. As my mom said Merry Christmas, and don't ask for anything else. I then went back to the rec league and had a a little more luck!


So if anyone needs any help when they go to Showcase, ask for Kelly she is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

Bring your pets to school day!

This past week in Advanced Portraiture we had to shoot animals. Since I have five dogs and two cats getting an animal was no problem for me. I was just hoping that they would behave at school. I shot my Yorkie, Fancy and she did really good. I had a great team of helps Nichole, Jayne and Ze. Here are a couple of the shots from the shoot.

Starting off right...

This quarter of school I am taking Photojournalism, Advanced Portraiture and Multimedia II. For my Multimedia class we are all creating blogs to network and share our photography. Above is a photograph I recently took in Bostwick, Ga. Check back for more, I am planning on updating often with my photography.