The REAL Last Post!

My presentation could have gone better. I was a lot more nervous than I thought I was going to be and I think that had a big impact on my project because you could tell that I was nervous. My projection of my voice and tone of it was not how I wanted it to be during some parts of the speech because I was stumbling over my speech (during parts of my speech it made it unclear of what I was saying). Now that it's done with, I think it was really dumb for me to be as nervous as I was but now I can consider it a lesson learned!

I was happy with my powerpoint, because it was quite simple and allowed the audience to focus on me, without the powerpoint being too distracting. It had a few pictures to support what I was talking about and it allowed me to display my final products throughout the presentation. It was busy enough to convey my meaning but not distract the audience members. However, I tried to interact with my powerpoint by pointing things out on the screen but that did not go too well.

In terms of the TED commandments, I broke quite a few. I read off my note cards way too much, but the problem was I was nervous so I was improvising and then losing my place in my speech, so I became flustered because of that. I wish I would have practiced my speech more and given it to an audience beforehand. As for timing, I don't know how long my presentation was. Practicing it, it fluctuated between 4:45 and 5 minutes, so I am hoping it was close to that time and I didn't end up talking too fast.

I'm taking of two points for looking off of my notes cards too much and it not being refined.
I'm taking off one point for the projection of my voice and clarity within it.
I'm taking the last point off for the TED rules I broke.

So, in the end, I  give myself a 26 out of 30.

Last comments!

The last comments of the project go to:

Carolyn Chen (ccphotograph.blopspot.com)
Brooke Rhea (brookesknitting.blogspot.com)
Jenna Kleman (jennak421.blogspot.com)

Last Post!

This week has been a fun week for taking pictures. I feel very accomplished and I am proud of how all of my work came together!

I got the chance to go take pictures with my cousin, who is very passionate about photography and was actually the one that inspired me to do this project. Let me say, it is completely different learning by reading and learning hands on with someone teaching you. Not to get me wrong, the book did teach a lot, but I found that I learned a lot more plus I enjoyed it more when I was able to learn as I went taking pictures.

We went to Valley Forge park on some day earlier this week (I don't even remember what day it was...) and the weather was actually pretty nice for taking pictures. It was nice to be on break because we had no time limits and we basically just drove around until we found something I wanted to take pictures of.

The book I read (Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots) did not cover exposure in depth. I learned so much about it from my cousin and we figured out how to put a histogram on my display screen so I could see the exposure! (Wow...you know its bad when I'm excited about a histogram). For the people reading this who don't know what a histogram is, it is basically a graph that shows the amount of light in different places.

This is the display screen: (The histogram is the graph on the right)

Overall, I think this picture does a pretty good job of showing you the basic graphs of a underexposed, well exposed and overexposed picture. To change the exposure, you have to play with other settings like ISO, shutter speed, aperture, camera angle, lighting...etc.  

Here, the sky is well exposed, but the tree is way to underexposed. 

Quite the opposite with this one- the tree is well exposed, but the sky is overexposed. 

Alright, enough about my boring histogram talk. If you're still awake, here are some pictures:

 It's not a trip to Valley Forge without a pictures of'/with a cannon!

I like these, but not my favorite. I just had to post it because I took about forty others trying to get a good one.

I like the tree shadows on the road. At first I thought they were there because something was wrong with my camera. 

Some of the prettiest moss I've ever seen.

There was a large number of fallen trees...

I also took some pictures of my neighbors and my brother playing basketball. I hate the background, but I love some of the pictures I was getting:

I absolutely love this picture. Like seriously, how can you not love it?

Pretty cool if you ask me...

Look how ugly the background is. Ew.

Just an example of how you can freeze motion. If you look closely, he is not even standing on the table. He is completely in the air.

*Note I think this is my seventh, but I wanted to post it!

Even More Comments!

This week's comments go to:

Carolyn Chen (ccphotogrpah.blogspot.com)
Sun Kim (20watercolorproject.blogspot.com)
Jenna Feltes (asladventures.blogspot.com)

More Pictures!

Let me just start out by saying how difficult it is to find good pictures in Blue Bell in winter when its rainy, dreary, overcast and gross outside. The lighting sucks for indoor photography and I can only take so many pictures of tree branches against the blue sky with clouds. It's officially spring so I expect nice weather and trees to start blooming. I want pictures of pretty flowers, not snow.

I have yet to do night photography, and I have yet to figure out how I am going to do it and what I will even take pictures of. I need to go to the city at night or a good place to take pictures. (like I mentioned in an earlier blog, this would be so much easier if I could drive myself around or Brianna could.) We might end up going to see my cousins so that would be a good time to get those pictures and some more portraits I've been wanting. If anyone wants to model, I'll take pictures!

Other than that, I feel really accomplished. I finally got the pictures of architecture I wanted! My grandma and I drove around and I took pictures of random things I saw. She was willing to randomly drive around with me unlike anyone else in my family. I ended up finding some really fascinating things and I think some of my pictures turned out really good. I took over six hundred pictures in a few short hours and I took them using all different functions: different modes, different ISO's, different focusing options, and many other settings.

We got yelled at by a group of men for "taking their picture" once, got an enormous amount of strange looks for pulling over and taking pictures as well as almost getting hit by a car.

Here are some of the pictures I took:

My favorite picture of the whole project (so far). I love the clock and how you see the pub sign in the background and I think the colors work really well together.

Probably the picture I got the most weird looks for taking. I was across the street, crouched down on the ground in the middle of a sidewalk just casually taking pictures...

I like the picture, but not one of my favorites. The line in the middle is awful and the cut off signs don't look to pretty. Maybe I'll just crop this one.

I had so much fun taking this picture. It was really windy and the flags were blowing everywhere and I was able to capture their motion. I love how the Marine flag is blowing the opposite way.

This a real house in a neighborhood. It would be so cool to live here.

The first of a couple pictures you'll see of this bridge. I literally thought it was so pretty.

A slow down sign on a slow down sign.

Also probably another one of my favorites. I love the colors throughout the picture.

Nothing special, just an interesting angle.

I have so many pictures of these flags waving and this was the best one I picked out. It was at a war memorial (The bottom flag is a POW-MIA, which stands for "Prisoners of War, Missing In Action")

I thought this bridge was so cool. I think it would have looked better in the summertime because I think the barren trees in the background ruin it. 

Due to time constraints, I think I bit off more than I can chew and decided to cut the photoshop element out of my project. Between trying to learn photoshop, editing pictures, still taking a few more pictures and working on my presentation, I just don't have enough time for all of it!

As for my presentation, I have some work to do. My script needs to be finished and I need to work on my visual component. To show my progress throughout the seven weeks, I will be making a short book called "Kara's Intro to Photography" that will show all of the basic things I learned. I plan to include basic vocabulary as well as teach people what the different modes are and when it is appropriate to use them. Also included will be some of the pictures I have taken throughout the weeks.

At least I have all week to get everything finalized. The poor people on vacation...

Vlog!

Vlog from Kara M on Vimeo.

Excuse the fact that my voice not only sounds terrible from my cold, but the words are off. (Now that's going to bother you the whole video (: ) Oh, and the ugly picture of me above.

Comments!

I commented on these people's blogs this week:

Arielle Goldberg (aripianoprodigy.blogspot.com)
Carolyn Chen (ccphotograph.blogspot.com)
Jenna Rollins (jennamakesfood.blogspot.com)