PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOJOURNALISM

"Cabaret"
Photography by Alicia Christie

      One element of our ISU in the Com Tech course was to take pictures at a school activity.  We choose the activities at the beginning of the semester regardless of when throughout the semester your activity was.  The activities varied from sports to arts events.  The reason we choose so early was so we knew and that we had to take the initive to remember and plan to be at the event the correct day, lessons that are needed in everyday life. 

     The activity that I was in charge of taking pictures of was the Arts Cabaret.  In order to capture the moments at this event I used a Nikon D200, with ISO 1600, F-Stop at F16 and a Shutter Speed of 1/125, it was also set on the sports mode.  I then uploaded all of my photos on to my computer and choose my best 25 pictures, with the best focus and facial expressions. 

       After I had my best 25 pictures chosen I then opened them into Adobe Photoshop CS3.  While I was in Photoshop I cropped the pictures to get rid of any unwanted and unnecessary clutter to make the photo more professional.  I also edited the photo slightly just to make the picture more vibrant and brighter.  The photos were then published on our school website. 

PUBLICITY HEAD SHOT

 "Tara Publicity Head Shot" 

Studio Photography by Alicia Christie

     For the webpage project we had to take a Publicity head shot of a model, mine was Tara.  She then had to take my picture in return.  In the picture we were instructed to choose a prop that best represented what our favourite part of Com Tech is.  All the props were old fashioned to make the portraits more vintage and creative looking.
   
     To achieve this photo I used a Nikon D700 DSLR with a Nikkor 85 mm portrait lens. I also used the Camray 300 Compact Lighting System to create a Rembrandt lighting style on my model, we also took the pictures at a creative angle to make them different and unique.  We used the black background to make it more professional and not take away from the photo.  After we took the pictures we then chose the best one of ourselves and open them in Adobe Photoshop CS3.  When it was in Photoshop we made the photo black and white.  This effect was used to make the photo more vintage and match the vintage look of the props we used. 

 

TRAINING EXERCISE

 

 "Shutter Speed Training Exercise"

Photography by Alicia Christie 

     In our Com Tech course we completed a number of training exercises.  We did these exercises in order to prepare ourselves for many live events that you need to be ready for any situation that you may face to take photos.  With the training exercises it gives you the chance to figure out what settings you need while you have the chance to make mistakes.  

     This exercise was a shutter speed exercise.  I used a  Nikon D5200 DSLR with a Nikkor 18-55 mm lens on a tripod to take these photos.  I took a picture of the same model at different shutter speeds to show the importance of having the correct shutter speed.  I took a picture of a model jumping at a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second and again at 1/30 of a second.  You can see that there is a big difference in the quality of the photos depending of the shutter speed. 

     In the photo of 1/1000 my model jumping is crisp and in focus.  This is because the shutter is open for a limited amount of time, which causes the camera to catch little movement the model is making.  With the shutter speed of 1/30  the shutter is open for a longer period of time which allows more light and more movement into the shutter of the camera.  Since the model was jumping the camera caught the whole movement of her jumping which caused her image to be blurry. 

     From this project I am now comfortable to take pictures at many different events.  This exercise gave me the skills needed to know what shutter speed to use for the events to make sure that my pictures are not blurry.  This project showed me the importance of shutter.