Week 10 // Empire State of Mind

"Where is Central Park?"

Shot from the top of the Empire State Building when we went to the City for a team trip! Thanks to our lovely alumni, we were able to get VIP access to the 66th floor on this beautifully cloudy day. This was my first time seeing this view during the day, so besides the gusting wind and rain, this was an amazing experience! This was shot on my phone in order to avoid getting my camera wet and breaking it.

Week 9 // Trebellious Headshots

A wonderful group of talented vocalists! Trebellious invited me back to take their headshots for the website and I was thrilled. I used a tripod to create a steady frame and a 50mm lens with a large aperture of field to focus on the portrait and blur the background. 

More on Trebellious coming soon!

Week 8 // Former Model

"Let's go to the most red tree we can find" -Bruno

To a Californian like me, and a Brazilian like Bruno, trees that are any color other than green are quite close to a otherworldly. So naturally we want to capture our first autumn experience and share it with our friends and family back home. This was taken at around 4 on an over cast day, so in order to capture the red tones more richly I set my camera on Cloudy mode. I used a very low aperture to create that short depth of field, and blur the red leaves in the back. For this image, I played around a lot in Photoshop. After I color corrected the image to make the reds brighter and more contrasty, I selected his eyes and brightened them. I created a more exaggerated catchlight by using the dodge tool on the existing one. 

Week 7 // Trebellious Workshop

"Green like American Money" 

This week I was invited to take pictures for a Trebellious acapella teaching workshop. While this shoot was very challenging,  I had a lot of fun submerging myself in the environment and trying to become invisible among all of the amazing vocalists. 

The lighting in the room was extremely difficult to manage because there was only a few, white fluorescent lights and the rest of the room was poorly lit. Since there was such low light, any of the Aperture Preference, Shutter Preference, and Manual settings were unable to meter well enough to sharply capture the movement of the room while still having proper brightness, and I always try to stay away from using flash. My fix ended up being to set my camera on Sport Shooting mode. Though many of the images were brighter than desired and very contrasty, I told myself to focus on capturing the space and playing with angles and to fix the light in Photoshop. 

The changes I made in Photoshop ended up making all the difference and turned a mediocre shot, into a photograph. I first used all of the basic tools such as Contrast, Levels, and Curves to improve the image quality. However, the tool that made the biggest difference was the Hue/Saturation adjustment toward the red end of the spectrum to reverse the effects of the fluorescent lights. I then selected the entirety of the piano, everything on it, and Rachel. I took the inverse of the selection and used Field Blur under Blur Gallery to create the blurry background and allow the viewer to really focus on Rachel. 

More on Trebellious coming soon!

Week 6 // Meliora Weekend Aftermath

While I missed Meliora Weekend for a game in Chicago, the setup seemed absolutely extraordinary. Massive tents on all quads and open spaces available; only the best for the alumni. I happened to capture the tent halfway taken down, and was attracted to how broken it looked due partially to the lighting, the leaves on the ground, and the cables and wires everywhere. I didn't have to do much metering or too much editing because the lighting was overcast, so the camera captured everything fairly well. Hopefully I can experience this famous weekend next fall!

Week 5 // Sans Humans

"People use desks to study?"

Unlike most people, my desk space is strictly for clothes I'm not wearing, papers I'm no longer using, and makeup. I was attracted to this shot and this angle because I gravitate towards converging lines in vertical shots. Another thing was the lighting in the shot because it is so soft, yet so angled that it creates sideways shadows and highlights. Being from San Diego, I'm so used to having it guaranteed that if the sun is out, it must be warm outside, so this 50 degree sunny day is a bit of a shock to me. In Photoshop, I had to use several tools, but mostly curves to tone down the highlight that the wall next to the window created. 

Week 4 // GEM

"The garden is absolutely amazing" -Dad

This weekend my dad surprised me all the way from California! We went to the George Eastman Museum where I took this GEM of an image. I was immediately attracted to the harsh quality of light and the shadows the windows created on the floor. I used a fast shutter to be able to make the image slightly darker. Also, in Photoshop, I darkened the image, bumped up to contrast, and played with Levels to make the frame of the windows darker.