Winter break 2014:

These image were taken over winter break this year. Although i had planned to go out and shoot "good" images over the break, things did not go as planned and i ended up just taking images here and there when the time was possible. Most of these images are just at my house, goofy images that i took just to capture a moment. The most important part of this break that i learned is that sometimes things happen that you do not expect and even though they are not expected, you have to be ready to change your plans. It definitely does suck that i didn't get to shoot, but it does not mean that i wont have other opportunities to shoot later. That's something i really like about photography, whenever you have a camera and an inspiration to do something, you can make the best photography ever. Some people travel to the most beautiful places in the world and take a whole lot of amazing images, but that doesn't mean that they are better or more inspired than a person who stayed at home taking pictures of trees and her dog. Anyway hopefully i get more chances to shoot when the weather get better because it is freezing right now!!!!

HDR blog post
High Dynamic Range. 

• dynamic range is the difference between the lightest light and darkest dark you can capture in a photo. 
• Once your subject exceeds the camera’s dynamic range, the highlights tend to wash out to white, or the darks simply become big black blobs. 
• It’s notoriously difficult to snap a photo that captures both ends of this spectrum, but with modern shooting techniques and advanced post-processing software, photographers have devised ways to make it happen. 
• This is basically what HDR is: a specific style of photo with an unusually high dynamic range that couldn’t otherwise be achieved in a single photograph.
• http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/what-is-hdr-beginners-guide-to-high-dynamic-range-photography/
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• NOT my image 
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NOT my image 

• My images

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• These images where taken with a canon rebel T1i
• I used photomatix to edit the images together, then used Photoshop for some simple touch ups.
• I manually focused the images and used the auto bracket tool to take images from a -2 exposure to a +2 exposure. 

Photo Essay 

 http://time.com/11254/afghanistan-msf-health-care/

          

          

          

          

Andrea Bruce and Mikhail Galustov

In this photo essay found online, from TIME magazine, is about the hard to reach healthcare in all parts of Afghanistan. This essay is from earlier in the year in the time that foreign troops were leaving Afghanistan, after being located there for over 10 years, and documents the quality of healthcare that Afghans are receiving and will receive once foreign aid is no longer available. "access to emergency or basic medical care remains hard to reach" quotes the author of the title. In this article i learned that even though billions of dollars have been spent in humanitarian work in Afghanistan, There is still work to be done. Many people the authors interviewed stated that they had family members and friends die from lack of proper care. Many hospitals don't have the right equipment, staff, or even electricity to run a health facility. The only good note about the article is that the number of healthcare facilities has considerably risen, with having a health facility at least an hour walking distance. 

1. A photo essay is a series of photographs, normally documentary, which is meant to impact people and tell a meaning or story of current events in the world.

2. This article and the photos relate because they are evidence of what the article is talking about. We see in the pictures poverty all over Afghanistan, People receiving poor healthcare, and no help being delivered. 

W.Eugene Smith

W.Eugene Smith uses over exposure in the first image to darken out the surrounding areas of the image and focuses on bringing light to the face of the boy in the tub of water. Using this form of exposure you can see very good detail in the boys face and his body. He uses this to show his viewers the pain that he and his mother are in but also the darkness shows that emptiness and the helplessness they feel. By brightening whites and darkening blacks, He not only tells a story, but creates awareness to his viewers as a cry of help. In the second image most of it is underexposed, to show detail in both the girls face and the doctors face. He was able to capture sorrow, pain, and peace all in one image. The exposure allows for the wrinkles in the man forehead to be brought out and it allows for a softness in the girls face, which shows pureness and helplessness.

Alpha threat quarantine area 177c

On Friday October 31st 2014, we visited a top quarantined area located in an old shack a couple yards from a local high school. What we found there is something never seen, or photographed before. Walking in through the doors, following a CDC official, we were automatically surrounded by panels of barbed wire 9 ft tall. At that point most our crew wanted to return, but the doors were soon to be closed. Once inside we made our way around what seemed to be an abounded area, locating unnatural items all around the contaminated floor. We walked through a door to the left side, passed the wire, and through a room with contaminating trash all around. We had to be careful. Once inside we were left by our CDC guide as he check the last room in the area. We were in the dark for approximately 300 seconds, when suddenly we heard a noise coming from one of the doors. Scared, we opened the door, looked trough the small opening, and saw nothing. Nothing was there, but we knew something once had been there and it was waiting to return. We found our guide and made our way back to the front doors. As we reached to close the doors once our crew had exited the building, we heard a loud scream coming closer and closer, our guide hurried to close and lock quarantine area 177c before anything that didn't come in with us, escape. One must see these pictures, to believe what had happened that day.

So i decided to make my "about light" series about all different aspects of light. I choose to not only focus on one form of light such as the sun but also focus on shadows, mechanical light, sunlight, etc. I believe that light has many sources and is so beautiful that no image can really do it justice. It was harder than expected to "capture light" because i wanted it to be like a ray of light coming through a tree, but i later realized that there is light everywhere and you can photograph almost anything and make it about light, which is why my series is a mix and match of different images of light. My favorite image is the one of the concert. I  had such a great time, but i also got to experiment with what i wanted for the image and i think it came out better than i imagined. 

This image is about light because, it shows a light source coming through the water in the clear glass and its reflection on the hard surface. You can see the reflection of the glass on the surface and its long proportions and you can see the light through the reflection.