Hey There!

It has been over a year since I posted something on here. Crazy! Well, honestly I haven’t been taking pictures that much either. Life is busy and things happen, and our hobbies get pushed to the side. I got the bug to look at the blogs from some of my old classmates and I came across the blog from Brittney Price. She made a recent blog post about how she was going to start using her blog again, and that inspired me to post some of my most recent pictures. They are nothing special or amazing, but they are something. So here they are!

Thanks for looking,
-Katie

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Clouds, Floods and Signs! Oh My!

Clouds are beautiful and unique and you can make them look like anything you want. While we were on our roadtrip to Mexico there were some pretty sweet clouds and I attempted to capture them in all their glory. Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

I had quite a few more, but I didn’t want to bore anyone here.

When we were driving through a few of the midwestern states there was some major flooding going on and I tried to capture it but I’m not sure I was successful. Oh well, here they are:

I had never seen anything like this before, I only wish I could have gotten better pictures.

Finally, SIGNS. While we were driving we passed a place called Shelbyville, one of my good friends name is Shelby. From that point on I devoted myself to taking pictures of signs that had the names of my friends in them. My determination lasted about 2 days and then the excitement passed so I missed out on taking more than the ones I managed to get. I realized, though, that it is tricky trying to take pictures of signs while you’re driving past them at 70 mph. Anyways, here are the few that I got:

There are a few more but the internet here is a little slow so it takes a while for pictures to load, therefore I won’t be adding any more pictures to this post.

Signing off now,
-Katie

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Moving to Mexico

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve put any pictures up, but for anyone that keeps up with me, here’s some new pictures. Within the past couple of months, my family and I have moved to Mexico, which has been quite the adventure. We’ve made some good friends so far and we still haven’t finished settling. I must say, it was hard leaving my house, I mean I lived there for the past 9 years of my life, so it was hard letting go. As things started getting sold, given away or thrown out, I started walking around the house, looking at all the empty space. I decided to take pictures of it and this is what I got:

MEMORIES! “All the memories make me want to go back there, back there. All the memories, how can we make it back there, back there. I want to be there again!”-Weezer

I can’t decide if I want to go back yet, I guess time will tell.
-Katie

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Light

http://www.digitalslrguru.com/low-light-portraits/

http://eco-stylista.blogspot.com/2010/12/merry-christmas.html

http://bkpphoto.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/oh-christmas-tree/

This is my final final in photography, ever. What a sad day. The final this semester is quite different than the one last semester. This semester, we had to pick a theme for all of our picture to fit into and then there were certain photography requirements that they had to fit into. One had to be a rule of thirds, another had to be a leading lines picture, a small depth of field, a large depth of field, a picture showing balance, one showing simplicity, a picture with natural framing, one with an interesting viewpoint and 2 pictures of your choice. All of the pictures had to fit into one theme.

I chose light. It took me a while to get this idea. At first I was thinking something having to do with paint because I have been wanting to take interesting creative pictures of paint for a while but as I kept thinking about it, I couldn’t come up with many ideas for pictures. Then I started thinking about things around my house that I could take pictures of, something that we have a variety of, and I came up with light because the all the lights in our house are very different from each one.

I spent a few days looking up inspiration and I found a few links to pictures that I was going to try, but as I actually took the pictures, I didn’t really get any that matched the first 2 links, however, I did take one similar the the last one. I honestly just ran around the house looking at the lights and thinking of the requirements to try to find interesting subject matter. Even though maybe the pictures weren’t really planned out, I’m still happy with most of them.

Rule of Thirds

I was laying in bed on Sunday morning thinking of the pictures that I had to take, running over our house in my mind trying to think of things that would work for this project. I was looking up at the light thinking of how I could use it for one of the pictures and I knew it would be perfect for Rule of Thirds. I say perfect because the ceiling surrounding the light is plain and boring. I turned the light on because I wasn’t sure if there would be enough light in the room without it on. I didn’t realized the types of shadows it would cast on the ceiling, but I think they really add to the photo because without them, it would have been a relatively boring picture.

Leading Line

This is my leading line picture, and I think it is lame. I couldn’t think of anything else that would really work for leading lines because most of the lights in our house are out of reach. I was envisioning the light leading the eye into the sink to look at the random dishes and such in the sink. Not my favorite picture, its too…..I don’t know, maybe the word is blah.

 

Small Depth of Field

I really just wanted to use these lights because they are pretty when they are on, the glass has a rainbow of colors and its really cool in my opinion. I used this one for the small depth of field because you can see the second light in the background but its completely out of focus and I had an interesting subject matter for it. I wanted to make the lights stand out so I had a small aperture and a fast shutter, it left the background dark enough to where the lights would be bright and bold against it.

Large Depth of Field

This is a fairly boring picture in my opinion and to me it looks more like a leading line picture instead of a large depth of field picture, but the intent of this picture was a large depth of field. I think the tint of it makes it look old fashioned kind of, but I think its a little boring, I don’t have much else to say about it so I’ll move on.

Balance

As soon as I had figured out my theme, I knew I was going to use this picture for my balance picture. I did not set this up at all, this is how my mom decorated this window and it was PERFECT. I had my camera settings low once again, so the light would stand out against the darkness. I wanted the painting on the window sill dark so it wouldn’t take the attention away from the lights, which are the focus of this picture.

Simplicity

This picture was inspired by BKPPhotography (link at top). I was going to use the actual fairy lights and I tried taking pictures of them, but the camera was focusing on the lights and changing how I wanted the picture. I happened to look in the mirror and noticed that the lights were visible in it, so I tried using the mirror instead of the lights and it worked out the way I was hoping it would.

Natural Framing

This picture I had to make sure to get quick because the light coming through the window lasts so long before it goes away until the next morning. I knew it would work for natural framing, but I didn’t know what it should be framing. This was in the kitchen, so I was trying to think of something that would naturally be on the ground in the kitchen, and I decided that cereal would fit quite nicely, so I sprinkled some cheerios on the ground. I don’t like the high contrast of this because it makes it hard to recognize what exactly is in the light, but at the same time, the high contrast emphasizes the light that I was wanting to capture.

Interesting Viewpoint

Not my favorite picture again, but I couldn’t really think of anything else. All I did was take a picture through a light bulb. I think it works for an interesting viewpoint because not many people walk around looking at life through a light bulb.

My Choice 1

I got my idea for this picture after taking the one above. I remember a book cover or something having a similar picture on it and I wanted to try it for myself. The key I discovered for this picture, was have a low enough exposure to be able to see the electricity traveling through the metal stuff in the light bulb. I really like how this turned out, this is really one of my favorites.

My Choice 2

I got this idea from a guy I happened to find in my search on the interwebs, but I can’t remember his name, all I remember is that he did something called “double exposure”, where he would take 2 pictures and put them together, so you could see both in one photo, layered on top of each other.  With this one, I took maybe 5 pictures of a candle flame and then layered them on top of each other, each layer being at a 38% opacity. I think it looks pretty cool.

Thats it for my themed photos. I think I did pretty good, but I should have changed things around a little bit. My large depth of field looks more like a leading lines picture and my leading lines picture looks more like a large depth of field picture, but hey what can you do besides learn and move one, right?

The last thing we had to do was take a professional business portrait. We had to set up the studio equipment all by ourselves and take a good, clean, simple, professional portrait. This is what I got:

(thanks for letting me use your face Brittney)

Thank you Twitchell for the past 3 years, I’ve enjoyed them a lot and have grown a lot in my photography. It has turned into something I enjoy and I credit that to you.

Thank you to everyone else that has allowed me to use their face or other body members and thanks to all the people who have taken the time to look at my blog and comment on it.

I hope to continue in photography, and maybe continue posting the images I capture for the rest of the world to see.

Enjoy your summer and more importantly, enjoy your life!

-Katie May

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Tubbs Hill

A couple weeks ago, my family decided to take a walk on Tubbs Hill because it was one of the first really nice days we’ve had in a long while. I think we were there between 7:00 and 8:00 pm so the lighting was less than ideal. After taking the pictures, I found this really cool sight that has 30 Magical Example of Natural Light Photography, and they really are magical. I wish I could have gotten some epically magical pictures like the ones from the site. Any ways, here are the ones I got. Enjoy!

These were the best of the ones I got, and I must admit that even some of these aren’t the greatest but I’m pretty happy with what I got. It was a good opportunity to try some landscapes using the lake and I really like the pictures I got of my family, not the “typical” type of portraits, or whatever you wish to call them, but I really do like them.

Thanks for looking!

-Katie

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Rain, Rain Go Away, Please Don’t Ever Come Back

Going along with my post from a few weeks ago, I’m taking advantage of the wonderful weather we have been experiencing here in Idaho for the past couple weeks. RAIN! I think monday was the first sunny day we’ve had in a long time and I was excited about that, but at the same time I was bummed because I wasn’t able to continue trying out cool pictures for rain that I saw on this lovely website HERE. I thought the pictures on the website were pretty cool so I wanted to try some similar ones and also just try some that I thought would be cool.

This is what I got:

For the pictures above, I cheated a little bit and put my camera on sports mode so it would continue to take pictures as long as I held the shutter button down. It took a lot of pictures, so I went through all of them and picked out the best. I think they look pretty cool. The top 2 aren’t the best because it is hard to see the water with such a “busy” background. I like the rest of them a lot, I think the shots I got a quite good, but I could use more practice.

This one above is my favorite out of all the pictures I took. Originally it was dark blue and black, but in photoshop I auto adjusted the levels and it fixed the color for me. I really like how it turned out, almost a tie-dye look because of how the color changes as it moves away from the tree.

The rest of my pictures were okay, nothing too spectacular in my opinion, but I’m glad I took them.

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Photo Competition Week!

So this week our lovely photography teacher, Mr. Twitchell, decided that the class would do a photo competition during class. We took pictures on Wednesday and Thursday. Each day, we had about 25 minutes to go outside and take pictures in a specific area, then we went back to our class and had 20 minutes or so to edit them and make them look as pretty as possible. After we edited them, we left the picture up on the computer screen and took a vote on whose was the best. Sadly, I did not win 😦 Oh well, I was happy with the pictures I got, and now I will show you.

Ok so the 2 pictures up above are ones that I was serious about, the bottom 3 are interpretations of Brittney and I as to the “typical cool looking picture” which include using selective color, tree pictures, and high contrast-over sharpened black and white pictures, oh and a macro flower picture. 

During the time of the photo shoots, Brittney and I were goofing off making fun of the things I mentioned up above. I think it’s important to have fun and goof off every once in a while because, for me personally, if I take photography seriously all the time, then I’ll get bored and I will learn to hate it.

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Shoes and Faces

This was actually an idea of mine last year, but I never did it. Then, when I was snooping around online I found my inspiration to do this project. My inspiration came from Mr. Evan Dell who took a photograph of Levi Benton from Miss May I (the band). This is the photo I was basing my project off of.

This is what I got:

Bailey: cute and adorable, simple and fantastic, bright and cheery.

Kaylee: crazy and silly, sweet and sour, dorky and cool.

Katie: Me.

The words below the pictures are words that I would use to describe the people I photographed, and I wanted to capture who the person is in the photos I took of them.

I think I did a pretty good job with it, and it’s a project that I would like to continue. I think it is something that would be neat to continue doing as a project throughout life and my travels because I know I’ll meet some cool people and this would be a good way to remember them.

Here are 2 other options that I had for Bailey, but I went with the Toms over the heels and boots because, as long as I’ve known Bailey, Toms represent her best.

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