For my final project I wanted to do something meaningful and has context behind it. On the 78th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor I walked to the Pittsburgh World War II War Memorial and took photos. The way the light and shadows are casting from the polls on the memorial make it so much better and how the light is showing (in one of the photos) the pictures that are in the glass. I love using my 10-20mm lens to show the whole scene so you get a greater field of view of it. In the last image, I used a longer lens to get the wreath and photos, I decided to go black and white to capture the emotions in the photos on the memorial. "A date that will live on in infamy" ~ President Franklin Roosevelt.

Here is my time lapse video of when we were out at Village Park, I decided to do the cross section of Boulevard of the Allies and Wood Street to show the cars, people, and the traffic signals going back and fourth from green, yellow, and red.

Before I went out photographing, I did some research and looked at examples of what I should be looking for and capturing to get in that mindset. Then went out downtown and found the images. I'm looking for details, lines, shapes, and macro images in the world that fit my narrative.

Today I was researching where would be a good place to take 300 photos of a scene. I thought about going to Point State Park looking out from there (where the fountain is), but I wanted something different. I wanted a scene of looking back at that (splitting the image with one river on the right and one on the left), but found this instead. I used my wide angle lens (10-20mm), at 10mm to get as much of the scene in the frame as I could and just so happened that an empty barge was going through my photo/video. Enjoy!

Nature Photography

I have not been to Frick Park prior to Monday, so I was flying blind. My creative side kicked in and off I went. Looking for images and these are what I found to be the best one's that tell nature photography.
First image: As I was walking around the observatory, I wanted to get the building and the field, so I went off the path through grass, mud, and twigs, found the composition I wanted and got the picture. It would've been better if it was a sunny day and more sky in the background, but an overcast, dreary day was what mother nature gave me to work with.

Second image: Along the path I came across a camp area with a foot and a half logs on the ground, this "bug hotel" poster strung on one of the trees with an exposed bat house like structure next to it.

Third image: Again, walking more down the trail, there was this small yellow door on a tree stump, I found it odd and with contrasting colors I took the picture.

Fourth image: There was a rut in the side of the walking path and branches, twigs, and leaves fell on it. I found it to be with good composition and leading lines to lead you through the image and see what nature's path is.

Fifth image: The amazing features of nature to root their trees into the ground to grow 50+ feet tall.

Sixth image: A small bridge I found that someone had built for people or deer to navigate over the fallen tree.

Seventh image: Two paths to choose from, two outcomes you can choose where life takes you, path A or B?

Photos related to light, this week I was coming up with different ideas for photos related to light. I came up with light-painting - so I took my flashlight and attached my camera to my tripod and used the timer (to not get camera shake in the image) plus a long exposure to track the light I drew.

When the camera see's the colors red, green, and blue at the same they mix to create white from the intensity of the colors mixing "at the speed of light". The pictures below, some have green on the strokes of light, some have a tint of blue, and some have a tint of red.

Portraits!

I went and knocked on my neighbors door in my apartment and asked him, Marcus, if I could take some pictures of you for a photo assignment. He said, "sure I can help you with it." He loves to play video games on his Nintendo Switch so I thought that's a good idea, so I posed him in his gaming chair, snapped a couple pictures. For the second set, I wanted something with depth, I had him stand on the stairs in a stairway with his arms crossed and the stair rail leading you to him and creating depth. I then had him go down the stairs and pose in front of the window to create more of a soft box look plus a white backdrop for him to stand out more. For the last set of images, I wanted something more outdoors look and had him sit on the guardrail on First Ave with the river and bridge out of focus in the background.

 All about Movement!

I think I missed this assignment post, but none the less, I saw the buildings in the reflection moving and thought thats odd but my creative side went, "take the picture!" The clouds in the sky were moving and had an interesting pattern to them too.

All about Depth of Field!

Depth of Field (or DOF) is the best part of being able to control the camera yourself. I get to control what the viewer sees first and what is the most important about the image. The first image is of a church cemetery in downtown Pittsburgh. I wanted to show all of the graves and to give you a better perspective on it. So I changed lenses to my 10-20mm and at 10mm I took this photograph. The 2nd image is of one of the doors on the church, I again took this on my 10-20mm lens. The 3rd image is my favorite out of the whole shoot, sometimes you have to take a second and "look up"  and find new angles. I enjoy the blue sky with the clouds and the buildings "touching" the sky! The 4th image is of a plant in a flower pot and wanted to get close to the subject to get it in focus and the rest of the other building in the background out of focus. The 5th image I got creative, wanted to have something in the foreground (the fence) to draw you into the background, which is the Coke truck as the subject. The last and final image is of an alley way as we walked a bit farther into downtown Pittsburgh, I chose to make this one black and white because these really no emotions you can get from this in color. In B&W, I get the deep dark and texture from the bricks that makeup the buildings. I chose this one to have the viewer keep looking into the image and with having natural leading lines, makes them wanting more.

All about Motion!

The experience I had taking these photos on a photowalk I was apart of going through downtown Pittsburgh, PA was a great time from finding these images in the wild and seeing them in your mind before you press that shutter button. Images I think of would be cool, I need to execute them fast to get the moment I want to be captured in the right place. This requires me to know what settings to use and what kind of composition I need to be in to get the winner image. Do I want to capture this in landscape or portrait, do I want a shallow depth of field (f/2) or everything in focus (f/22).

What research went into the shoot? Not so much the research but the most important part of this photowalk was the weather, it was a nice sunny, overcast day with some clouds in the sky. What drew you to the subject(s)? What drew me to the subjects were my eyes that saw an image and thought that, that would be an interesting photograph. In that moment, I think of what my settings are and if that would be appropriate to be at f/3.5 for a picture or another f/stop. Then my shutter speed, is 1/30th of a sec. good or should I be at 1/125th of a sec. (subjective) to freeze the motion. Next, I move onto my ISO, is it in a bright area, if so move my ISO to around 100. Finally, I think of composition, is my image composed right, should I use the Rule of Thirds, should I capture it with more of the background in the frame, or a tighter shot?