Abandoned Theme Parks

1).  One of the places I'd really like to go is Lincoln Park in Massachusetts.  There's something chaotically beautiful about the demolished roller coasters.  Photos of ruined things inspire a lot of emotion in the people looking at the photos.

2).

3).  Five places I'd think would be interesting to shoot at are:  haunted houses, coral reefs, underground places (such as the London Underground, or the subways in New York), abandoned stretches of roads, and large, barren fields (although I would never do the last one myself).

4).  

5).  I think shooting in the London Underground would be fun because it's a challenge, and it's something kind of different.  The people are interesting, and there are lots of beautiful structures and colors there.  They could be of pretty much anything - the people, the architecture, the trains.

6).  Getting to the London Underground to shoot would be difficult for a lot of reasons.  First and foremost, it's super expensive getting from Texas to London, I'm assuming.  Second, you'd have to go through a lot of work to get into a different country in the first place.  Third, I'm pretty sure you have to have a permit to professionally take pictures in the London Underground.  Also, I generally don't trust airplanes and complicated equipment or fragile instruments (such as a camera or a viola).

Africa

1).  My first reaction to the picture first displayed was majestic.  The proximity to the animal is also somewhat mind-boggling.  A lot of these animals are known as dangerous to humans (and other animals, too).  The fact that he was willing to be in that sort of possible danger in order to get such beautiful pictures shows his dedication to his work.

2).

3).  This is a picture of an elephant strolling down wherever it is he is, with dust all up in his face.  It's beautiful and interesting - the dust is frozen, along with the elephant with its closed eyes and curled trunk, in the middle of taking a step.  I'm not sure where the dust came from, but that could be left to the imagination of the viewers.

4).  The rule of photography that's most evident here is simplicity - there's a simple background and there's a single, obvious subject.  Balance is also evident here.  There's a lot going on in each part of the picture, leaving no space out (except maybe the top, which I think was left in the picture as a result of the dust swirling above the elephant).

5).  He uses a 2003 model of the Nikon Scan 9000 (which he says is really loud, but the animals get used to it).  He doesn't want to use a telephoto lens because you can't "capture an animal's soul" from 100 yards away.

6).  He wishes to raise awareness for animal conservation in Africa.

7).  He hopes the local communities will help out Tusk and The Nature Conservancy with the work they do to help the animals of Africa.

8).  "Poaching of elephants financed by the Chinese has exploded once again in the last few years.  In 2005 ivory cost $400 a kilogram.  Today, it is $6,000 a kilo.  As a result, about 10 percent of Africa's elephant population is killed every year, about 30,000 elephants a year."

     He wishes for this to stop - he cares about these animals deeply.

Funny Captions

102-year-old Esther White celebrates her birthday on June 12th, 2015 at Party City.  She and her friends and family gathered at the to pretend they were back in high school - naturally, she was elected prom queen.

87-year-old Betty Lancaster challenges her grandson to a Dance Dance Revolution-off.  Her grandson had come into as a celebration for the 52nd anniversary for her hip surgery, and she wanted to show off how good her hips still work these days.

Meredith and Christine Plechardstein sit in the ocean, enjoying the view of the horizon.  They had been sitting by the shore when the stoppers of their chairs became dysfunctional and they rolled into the sea - they are currently still waiting for a professional to get them out.

Great Black and White Photographers III

1.  The first thing that caught my eye about these photos is probably the serenity.  All of them seem very calm, no matter what's going on in the picture.

2.    Photo 1:
I see water.  The reflection of the sky and hills in the water.  The sun hiding behind the dense amount of clouds.
I smell water.  The faint scent of the trees in the far-off hills.
I hear the water rippling.  The wind rushing in my ears.  The various noises of the wildlife nearby.
I taste the humid air in the presence of the lake.
I feel the wind (evident by the rippling water).  It's to too hot.  I feel calm.  The softly rippling water makes me feel serene.

       Photo 2:
I see an endless road.  Fluffy white clouds in the sky.  The earth around the road.  The white paint accompanying the one-way road.
I smell dirt and gravel.  Possibly fuel and oil, remaining from long-gone cars that had gone down this road.
I hear the ghosts of lonesome cars traveling the road.  I hear wind rustling the nature shrouding the gravel.
I taste air. ?
I feel the sunlight.  I feel calm - the sight of the endless, one-way road is comforting.

3.  A mural.

Mural Project

1.  A theme we could do is "spirit."

2.  We should open the camera options up to our normal cameras for the people would don't have cameras on their phones/don't have phones.

3.  One of the walls that are suffering from a serious lack of creativity could probably use a mural to brighten its mood - somewhere in the academic hall.

Academic Shoot Reflection and Critique

Pt 1:

1.  It was difficult to make the photos interesting, or have them vary.

2.  I found myself focusing most on holding the focus - though not because I was really worried about it.  It was very quiet in that class, and every time the camera focused or took a picture sounded like a cannon blast.

3.  I'd focus more on what's going on in the background, because some of those things can take away from the subject of the picture, or the picture in general.

4.  Kneeling down for a better perspective on the students is something I'd definitely do again - I took a couple pictures standing while they were sitting, and none of them ended up looking very good.

5..  Rule of Thirds - that one is usually the easiest, but it doesn't automatically make the picture amazing.

6.  Balance is usually hard to capture if you're actually trying to do it.  It calls for a lot more focus on what's going on the picture (such as the geometric shapes), and focusing only on the subject is somewhat of a habit for most people.  It's not until later they notice what's going on in the background.

7.  I'm still not totally clear on balance.  It seems that it includes a lot of different things, and it generally confuses me.  To become clearer on balance, I could go back to the "Guidelines for Better Photographic Composition" and look over it again, and possibly look for another place that I can understand better.

Pt 2:

http://abbyphotojournalism.blogspot.com

The photos are really clear and in focus.  They have clear subjects, too.
On the first picture, it kind of bothers me that the top of the pen is cut off.

Academic Post

1- Balance

2- The subject is the girl with the red sweatshirt, specifically her face.

3- The subject is moderately clear, but the girl to her left is kind of distracting.

4- I could've been a little more conscious of the person to her left, whose head and hand kind of distracts from the focus of the picture.

1- Rule of Thirds

2- The subject is him.

3- The girl in the back (or her water bottle) could be a little distracting, but it's okay.

4- I probably could have changed to angle a bit so the green water bottle isn't directly above his hand.

1- Lines

2- The subject is the line of four students, all working.

3- Yes.  The four students take up the whole frame, save for the top left-ish.