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)

Some Setbacks...

Okay, this week didn't really go as planned. I was sick in the beginning of the week and couldn't really take pictures of anything (unless I took artsy pictures of tissues and medicine...) But anyway, I did not achieve my goal to take pictures of architecture, but I did end up taking random pictures throughout the week of various things like my dog, a couple things inside and I tried to take pictures of nature.

On the side note, I finsihed reading my book, Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots. The way the author wrote the book was not to act as another owner's manual. It was to teach the reader how to effectively use the different settings on the camera to enhance the photo and not just how to physically change the settings.

I might try and do a bit more of indoor photography if I have time, because I like the challenge of finding something in my house with a good subject as well as a good background. (Indoor photgraphy was not incorportaed in my project from the beginning, but I REALLY liked Carolyn's pictures, and considering I was sick, I decided to incorporate it.)

Here are some of the shots I took, though I do not like any of the ones I took this week:

I wish I could have found an artistic way to take this. And I pretty much failed at the lighting. Its a really bad picture, but I needed to post something.

Yummy....bananas and apples...

Got a little bored taking pictures, just you typical artsy piano picture. 

I took some pictures of my dog too, I thought he would make for an interesting subject.

Apparently, this is comfortable.

I like the close-ups.

One day I did go out and take pictures, it was raining. I have a rain cover for my camera, so everything is covered and nothing gets wet. I had been trying to tak pictures in decent weather but I figured it might be fun to take pictures of raindrops, escpecially when I looked out my window and saw raindrops on the tree.

The pictures that I took pretty much failed. I'll post some down below, for the sole purpose to show how they failed. I tried changing the ISO to match the lighting and the focusing to manual, but no matter how I changed the settings I could not produce a quality picture of something I wanted. I would have played with the settings longer, but I was wet and cold and it was getting dark.

It just wouldn't focus...

Wouldn't focus on the right thing..

I don't know what else to say about this picture besides...yikes

Since I did not achieve my goal for this week, I have a lot of work to do. This next week I want to take pictures of architecture and I want to take pictures at night (or in the dark) Even before this project these were two general themes that I never really took pictures of.

My project is not going as planned, so for the photoshop element of my project, I will most likely end up reading as much of the book that I can (The Photoshop Elements Book 11) and I will spend a decent amount of time working with photoshop and taking even more pictures over this next week and spring break.

I plan to shoot something interesting this week, maybe, so if I do, more pictures will follow!

Even More Comments!

This week (once again) I commented on..

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

Pictures & People

This project would be ten times easier if I had a license and a car. Its so hard to convince my mom to drive me places and if I had a license I would probably just drive around randomly until I found something interesting to take pictures of.

I'm still not done reading the book I've been reading since the beginning of the project. It has been teaching me a lot about the ins and outs of my camera and what settings to use for what pictures. It has a wealth of information in it, so I will probably finish it in the coming week. All the pictures I took were not on auto, but I was manually controlling the settings. (Except for the focus- some were manual and some were automatic...but I am still learning how to focus manually.)

The weather was better this week, and I went out a couple of times. Taking these pictures I almost got attacked by a squirrel that was coming down from a tree. I wish I would have seen it sooner because then I could have gotten a pictures. I don't really like these pictures turned out but I thought I should post a couple of them anyway.

The shape of this tree is so cool...

I tried to get an artsy picture of the birds nest but it was high up in the tree so it didn't really work. 

I'm not sure why this picture was like this, that was not how the lighting was when I took it so I don't know if I like it or not. 

Something I really wanted to do was take pictures of a person but I had no one to model for me. Thankfully, Chloe let me take pictures of her. That was....interesting. I really like the way the pictures came out, and I would post more, but these were the few Chloe approved.

This one is my favorite out of the ones she approved, there were so many more! 

The only picture where she is smiling...

We both really liked this one, especially because it brings out the blue in her eyes. 

There's something fascinating about this one. I like it, but I wonder how it would look if the house was not in the background. 

Molson "smiled" when we called his name to take pictures of him. What can we say... he likes the camera

Can you find Chloe?

Molson is too cute!

For next week, I want to take pictures of buildings and have a subject with life in the background. It will be a challenge not only taking these pictures, but finding a good location to take them!

More Comments

This week I commented on:

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

This Weekend...

This took a while to post, but I wanted to wait and post pictures this weekend because the weather was supposed to be better. I ended up taking a few pictures, but still none of a person. (That will probably be later this week...)

For my finished product, I will have a portfolio containing thirty-six photos. They will be of twelve different themes according to the settings on my camera  (ex. portrait, sports, landscape, night portrait, etc.) Each theme will have three of the same photos, taken with different settings. (The first will be auto, the second will be adjusted to fit the shot as well as the lighting, and the third will be photoshopped.) This may sound confusing, but it's actually not.

Anyway, here's some pictures I took this weekend...

It can be hard to take pictures of trees in the winter, but I kind of like how this turned out. I wish the trees in the background weren't in the picture, but I can't really do anything about that...

I don't know if I like this one or not... but it's interesting..

Just a rusty nail. And some moss. 

To me, this just captures the dreariness of winter. I'm so ready for spring to be here and the trees to start blossoming and everything to look really pretty and colorful instead of dull and boring. 

I don't know if this is obvious to people or not, but this is a pinecone. Something about this picture fascinates me. 

Out of all of the ones I took, this is probably my favorite. No reason, I just like it.

I know these aren't the best photos, but thats partially why I am doing this project. I want to learn how to make my pictures better. Plus, these pictures were taken in and around my neighborhood, so I need to go out to a new location, like a forest. 

If you have any tips or suggestions on how to make my pictures better or anything to take pictures of, let me know! Thank you!

No Photos, but Comments

The three blogs I commented on are:

        Jenna Rollins (jennamakesfood.blogspot.com)
        Jenny DeLuca (designsbyjennyd.blogspot.com)
        Arielle Goldberg (aripianoprodigy.blogspot.com)

Photos & the Weather

When I chose my project, not once in my mind did I ever consider I would not be able to take the pictures I wanted. It's been rainy, overcast, dreary and the lighting is terrible for photography (especially since I do not know the correct setting to put my camera on in light similar to this). Even though I took some pictures already, they are really basic and not that interesting. It's supposed to be sunny this weekend, so I'm excited to go somewhere and take more pictures!

I spent the past week reading Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots. I find it really interesting to learn about all of these different settings and functions that my camera has that I have never used before. Even though this book is interesting, it is also very hard to understand at some points. I  know a bit about photography, but I never learned the correct vocabulary for it or took any classes on it. The author will mention how to change something on the camera, like ISO and I have no idea what it means.

While I will continue to read the book, I am going to go back and see if I can find more information about "photography jargon," so when I read I will know the importance of the features and how they can be applied to certain types of photos. If I want to learn how to make my photos the best I can make them, it is essential I learn the jargon of a photographer.

 

My plan for the upcoming week is to continue reading the book, and take more pictures. I am going to use a person for my subject (I haven't done that because no one will be my model..) and I want to take some unique motion pictures (I learned how to adjust my camera's settings so I can make one subject appear in a frame multiple times).

 

I can't find anywhere to shoot that would make an interesting photo. Many professional photographers who write the books travel the world taking pictures and aspiring photographers always seem to find places to do a shoot. I want to go into the city one day, because those would be amazing photos, but I can't think of another place that would be pretty. Any ideas?

 

* I plan to take pictures in the next few days so I will upload some to my blog after I shoot this weekend! 

 

 

Photos & More Photos

Ever since I was little, but old enough to use a camera, I have been taking pictures. But, as much as I liked Photography, I never took the time to learn how to use all of the different settings and features on my camera. I was one of those people who used a "point and shoot" camera (what a standard digital camera is referred to as, in the photography world.) With a camera like that, all I did was just take pictures. Never once did I utilize the settings to enhance my pictures.

Maybe it was because I did not know how to, but it was partially because I did not understand why I needed to do these things. However now, it makes more sense. I am not a professional photographer, and I have never taken a class before, so I was not thinking like a photographer. I was snapping pictures of things I thought were pretty, not creating beautiful pictures using the features of the camera.

Over these next couple of weeks, I hope to learn how to actually use my camera (which is a Nikon D3100, in case you were wondering) and all of the settings that come with it. I also hope to learn how to use Photoshop Elements 11 so I can improve the quality of my pictures. Even though Elements is a step down from Photoshop, it still provides the basic tools I need and it is aimed more at beginners. I was told when buying this software that unless I was a professional photographer, Elements would have more than enough features for me.

In the first week of my six, I will spend it taking random pictures. No theme, little skill- just pointing and shooting. I will also be experimenting with the different functions and settings as I go along and learn about them, by reading the book Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots. I'll probably read the owners manual too, considering I have not yet read it in the two years I have had my camera.

The next two weeks will be spent applying the knowledge I have learned. My plan is to go out and take a bunch of pictures with different themes, subjects, lighting, settings, etc. With these pictures, I want to spend time and change the functions to meet the picture's needs, not just capture the object.

After I finish taking my photos, I want to learn how to use Photoshop. I will read the second book of my project, The Photoshop Elements Book 11. While learning, I'll play around with the different settings and edit photos I have previously taken.

Finally, in the last two weeks of my project, I will edit some of the pictures I have taken before. I will probably end up taking more to edit.

After that is all finished I'll compare the pictures I took at the beginning to the ones I edited at the end. I'm sure there will be a great difference between those pictures and the ones I take now.

Though the pictures of the books I will be reading are shown above, here are the citations:

Revell, Jeff. Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.