Blogs

The LA101H Passion Blog Assignment was definitely one of my favorite parts of the class.  Everyone chose a topic that they were passionate about, and we had to write a blog post before class every Friday.  From the moment I learned of the assignment, I knew I was going to create a photography blog.  My uncle is a photographer, and I plan on following in his footsteps.  Unfortunately, camera equipment costs a lot of money, and money is pretty tight right now.  It may seem naive, but I know the day will come when I can retire and become a full time photographer.  Until that day comes, photography will remain a hobby.

The following are my four favorite blog posts from this semester:

 

Week One

I have always been told that in order to become a good writer you have to practice everyday.  I feel that the same is true with becoming a good photographer.  While I don't have the time to put on my snow gear and brave the harsh winter weather everyday, I am challenging myself to take an hour or two out of each weekend to take pictures. 

There are two specific times during the day that are great for taking photos.  During spring, summer, and fall the general rule is that you should be taking pictures outside at either 5:00am or 5:00pm.  The sunlight at these times is the best for taking pictures in natural light. However, it is the middle of winter, so I have to modify the rule.  Rather than taking pictures at 5:00am I will try and be outside by 8:00am, and as winter slowly turns into spring I will wake up and get outside earlier and earlier. 

January 22, 2011. The first day of my photography challenge.  The idea for this challenge came to me when I was woken up by the sound of my neighbor's alarm at 7:30am.  She went canning for THON and forgot to turn it off.  This has happened two times now, and believe me, it is annoying.  After I got over my initial anger and frustration I climbed out of bed and looked out the window.  There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun was shining.  I put on leggings, jeans, wool socks, a thermal shirt, a hoodie, my winter coat, and my boots, grabbed my camera, and left my dorm.  The second I locked the door the idea hit me, "I'll challenge myself to get up early once a weekend to take pictures!" 

I was on my way to Old Main to take some photos when I stumbled upon a tree in which people had carved their initials and hearts all over.  The tree was in plain sight, on a sidewalk I had traveled enough times that I should have noticed it before.  Maybe it was in the absence of people that I finally noticed it. Who knows.  I stopped to take a few photos.  Here are my two favorites:

I was so distracted by the tree artwork that I almost forgot my original purpose.  Don't worry though! I got a picture of Old Main in the awesome morning light too:

At this point my hands were frozen, so I decided to walk back to my warm dorm room.  I passed through the hub on my way back, and it was completely empty.  I realized how peaceful this campus can be, as long as you are up early enough to enjoy it.  I think I am going to like this challenge, no matter how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning.

Reflection

Because this was the first blog post of the semester, I revised and edited it like a maniac before I posted it.  I was in a new class, and strangers would be reading my blog, gaining insight into my life with every word.  I did not want to hide who I was in my blog posts, so I let my personality shine through, no matter how informal it was.  As the semester went on, and these strangers quickly turned into friends, I noticed even more of my personality in my blogs. 

I chose this blog for my portfolio because I believe it is essential to understanding all of my other blog posts, and it includes some of my favorite pictures.

 

A Change in the Challenge

Generally, I love taking pictures, but this is beginning to feel like a job.  It is hard forcing myself into being creative.  It sounds weird, but I have to be in the right mood to go out on a picture taking adventure.  Last weekend I was too tired and stressed out to be creative, and even though the light was perfect on Sunday morning I could not get out of bed.

I must confess, I pushed photography out of my mind completely for most of this week.  I only started thinking about it today while I was sitting in my Intro to Contemporary Africa class.  I was staring out the window, like I usually do in that class because, well, it's boring, when suddenly I knew what I wanted to take a picture of.  Sure, I had a picture of Old Main already, but not a picture taken up close. 

The first picture I took wasn't exactly creative, sure, it looked nice, but I think everyone has taken this picture of Old Main:

 I like this picture, don't get me wrong.  The words, "Old Main" are in focus, you can see the pillars, and the sky is blue.  I played around with shots of the bell tower as well.  I was just upset at the lack of color in the photo.  It needed more.  I looked around for something with some color.  Because the leaves have fallen, I had to resort to something less traditional.  I spotted the the sundial and ventured over to it. I took this picture first:

I liked it, but then I decided to frame Old Main using the sundial:

I absolutely love this photo!  Just taking this picture was enough to put a huge grin on my face for the rest of the day.  I know I'm challenging myself to take pictures in the morning on weekends, but I think I have to change that.  I am challenging myself to take pictures and enjoy doing it, regardless of the time of day.  

Reflection

I have edited this blog post several times.  Each time toying with the idea keeping or deleting the sentence where I openly admit that my Intro to Africa class is boring.  In the end, I decided to keep it.  I feel bad admitting to the everyone that I do not actually pay attention in every single one of my classes, but it is true.  Africa Class, as I like to call it, is actually rather interesting.  I would like to take the time to clear one thing up.  I learned a lot in that class, and I ended up feeling very strongly about the issues we were taught.  However, it does not change the fact that being told statistics for an hour and fifteen minutes every day is incredibly dull.  When I wrote this post I had not come to understand the value of the class.  I think it is important to leave that sentence in the post because I now know how much I enjoy that class.  It demonstrates the changes that I have gone through this semester, and it is something that I feel needs to be kept.  It is a rhetorical artifact, if you will, that helps to show how I have come to enjoy something I once found boring and unexciting. 

 

The Rule of Thirds

Although this weather has been beautiful, I've had no idea what I want to take pictures of right now.  I am just waiting for the leaves to come back on the trees.  Hopefully, they will restore my creativity.  The truth is, I don't care how sunny it is, if the trees don't have leaves I still feel like everything is dull and boring.  My photo this week is not anything special, at least in my opinion.  Although, I do enjoy the colors:

It is just a simple shot of the "Pennsylvania State University" sign out on Atherton Street by the Nittany Lion Inn.  The sun was starting to set, and I really liked the light that it cast on the sign.

Since there isn't much else to talk about with this photo, I figured I'd take the time to talk about one of my favorite photography concepts-The Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds

Following the rule of thirds is essential to taking great photos.  The concept behind it is that people find pictures that are separated into three different sections of color or texture to be the most pleasing to the eye.  Essentially, if you draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the picture, you should see that each vertical section is different from the others, and that each horizontal section is different from the others. 

I took this picture at the Alhombra Palace in Spain.  It is a great example of the rule of thirds.  Here is the same picture, but with a grid on it.

You can see that the top horizontal section is all sky, the middle is part of the palace, and the bottom section is all water and reflection.  Two of the vertical sections are the same, but because they aren't next to each other this picture still follows the rule.

While it is good to follow the rule of thirds, it is fun to break it too!  Here is a picture I took during snowpocalypse last year:

This picture was taken inside of my car, after I spent an hour shoveling it out of the snow.  The snow was on my windshield still, and I thought it looked really cool.  This picture doesn't follow the rule of thirds, but I still like it.  I think the triangular pattern is what makes it pleasing to the eye.

Reflection

While editing this post, I realized that I made a lot of mistakes while writing it.  I though that perhaps I had written it really late at night, but I wrote it at one in the afternoon.  I am not sure what was going on that day, but I was distracted by something.  I added missing words, and switched where sentences were located within paragraphs so that they flowed better. 

I picked this post for my portfolio because it is an example with one of the weeks that I struggled with my passion blog.  I love photography, but occasionally I get stuck in a rut.  When I am running low on creativity, I always go back and look at old photos.  I was able to incorporate the old photos I was looking at into my blog post because they happened to demonstrate one of the classic concepts of photography.

Slightly Obsessed

Today was a beautiful day.  I have no problem hopping out of bed and heading to class on a day like this.  The weather today was really great for pictures taking.  I saw about 15 other people with cameras out today, so I didn't feel as crazy carrying mine around.  In a blog post a few weeks ago I mentioned a picture that I had planned out in my head, but that I had to wait until the weather got warmer to take it.  Well the weather I've been waiting for has finally arrived!  I have been waiting for a certain group of daffodils to bloom for what seems like five years.  This week when I was walking down College Avenue, I noticed that they finally bloomed.  All I had to do was wait for was fantastic weather.  I finally got it today.

My roommate came with me to take pictures today.  It was nice to have her with me today because I was doing some pretty crazy things, and I needed someone to laugh with.  Here is the picture before I go into too much detail:

Like I said, I've been planning this picture for weeks.  I was so excited when I finally got to take it.  To tell the truth, I was in a horrible mood today, but this cheered me up instantly.  Now, taking this picture was not an easy task.  First of all, the Old Main lawn was really crowded today.  People kept walking right in front of me and my camera, obstructing the view of Old Main.  It's not that I have anything against people, but I wanted Old Main in the background, not the backside of a kid in cargo shorts and an obnoxious red shirt.  While people were walking all over the lawn, I was laying down on my stomach right in front of this grouping of flowers.  It has been raining all week, so rather than laying down in some dry dirt, I was laying down in the mud.  Everyone that walked by looked at me like I was absolutely insane.  Maybe I am, I was laying down in mud taking a picture, after all.  My roommate just stood there and laughed at me.  The whole thing was pretty ridiculous.

If you haven't realized this by now, I have a really odd obsession with taking pictures of Old Main.  My roommate was kind enough today to point out that it isn't the only building on campus that is pretty.  She is right, so next week expect a picture of something other than Old Main.  I also realized that I haven't taken any pictures of people.  It sounds weird, but I usually don't take pictures of people.  I took my sister and brother-in-law's engagement photos, and that was probably the last time I took well thought out pictures of people.  I'll try and work on that before the end of the semester!


Reflection

Occasionally, I can get a little too dramatic in my blog posts.  When I revised this post, there were things that needed to be taken out.  My writing was all over the place in the beginning, so I had to work on giving it focus.  To be honest, I think I was overly excited about the picture.  I remember that this post took me about five minutes to write.  I was typing as fast as I could think, and organization happened to slip my mind.  I included this post in my portfolio because it contains the picture I like the most from this entire assignment.  When I plan a picture like that out in my head, it is always one of my favorites.  I always try to put a lot of thought into the pictures I take, but not only did I plan this picture out, I had to wait a long time to take it.