Moving Forward

Taken on Saturday, 5/2/2020

Tranquility

Taken on a trip to Connecticut on Monday, 4/25/2020

Comfort Food

Dim Sum has always been my favorite food. My parents and I decided to cook some up and it was absolutely amazing. A ray of light in times like these. Taken on Sunday, 4/26/2020

Simplicity

Taken on Monday, 4/6/2020

Sunsoaked

In my time in quarantine, I've been noticing the sunlight in my house around the time of sunset more and I've been able to take very nice photos such as this. Taken on Saturday, 4/18/2020

Memories

Taken on Saturday, 4/11/2020

The End of a Day

Taken on Saturday, 4/4/2020

What Matters

Taken on Monday, 4/6/2020

Thought and Simplicity

To me, I feel like a large part of a great black and white photo is the simplicity of the concept and the thought that it provokes. The following five photos were taken with these two ideas in mind. Enjoy.

Taken on Monday, 4/13/2020

Taken on Saturday, 4/11/2020

Taken on Saturday, 4/11/2020

Taken on Tuesday 4/7/2020

Taken on Saturday, 4/11/2020

Blacker and Whiter

For today's in-class assignment, we had to take a photo that we think would look good in black and white before placing any filters on it. I took the following picture of my sink because I thought that the light and the shadow would look really good in black and white. After toying with the contrast and brightness a bit I made the final product and it turned out very well. Both photos were taken on Tuesday, 4/7/2020. Enjoy.

The Trip of a Lifetime

I wanted to take this time to retreat from the craziness of quarantine and back to one of the best trips of my life that I experienced this past spring break. I never thought that I would be active with Habitat for Humanity. I always heard about the organization's mission and truly admired it; I, however, never found myself in the position to be involved with them. On a spur of the moment decision, I decided to go on a spring break trip to San Diego, California and to say that I'm glad I did would be an understatement. For class, we were tasked to make a photo documentary of our separate spring breaks. I enjoyed this project a lot (as did my friends on the trip) and even used it to make a video for our reunion (over Zoom of course). Interestingly enough, two days after we left to go back home - all of the San Diego HFH operations were suspended so we were grateful to have caught it at just the right moment. The two photos I consciously planned were the first and final photo, symbolizing how I came into the trip not knowing many of the people around me and I left the trip with 17 new friends. Enjoy.

Taken on Saturday, 3/7/2020

Taken on Saturday, 3/7/2020

Taken on Saturday, 3/7/2020

Taken on Saturday, 3/7/2020

Taken on Sunday, 3/8/2020

Taken on Sunday, 3/8/2020

Taken on Sunday, 3/8/2020

Taken on Sunday, 3/8/2020

Taken on Monday, 3/9/2020

Taken on Monday, 3/9/2020

Taken on Wednesday, 3/11/2020

Taken on Wednesday, 3/11/2020

Taken on Thursday, 3/12/2020

Taken on Saturday, 3/14/2020

Taken on Saturday, 3/14/2020

Window

Taken on Saturday, 4/4/2020.

Pick Your Pocket

Taken on Thursday, 4/2/2020.

An Orange a Day Keeps Coronavirus Away

Taken on Thursday, 3/26/2020.

Only One Way

It's times like these where it's really hard to keep a good mindset, find joy around you, and experience life in the moment. When I find myself in these situations, I always like to remind myself that there is ultimately only one way...and that's to keep moving forward. I took the following photos to emphasize this message. Enjoy.

Taken on Thursday, 3/26/2020

Taken on Tuesday, 3/31/2020

Everything Stays

As the name of this post suggests, I wanted to highlight a few photos that emphasize the fact that through all of this chaos and tragedy, life still goes on. Enjoy.

As the youngest of 4, I'm used to life being myself along with my parents. There's nothing special about this photo, which is what makes it the most unique. Life continues. Taken on Wednesday, 3/25/2020.

This is my rabbit, PJ. He's about 10 years old which is actually very old for rabbits yet he's still healthy and happy. He's had a constant presence in my life and I wanted to capture a photo of him. Taken on Wednesday, 3/25/2020.

Divide Your Time

In the midst of all this madness, I figured that it would be a good time to give up some of my free time into fine-tuning my talents. I've always loved music so I've recently been working on arranging and playing some covers. Enjoy.

The first instrument I learned. Taken on Wednesday, 3/25/2020.

Arranging some music for my A Capella group. Taken on Thursday, 3/26/2020.

Invaded

This photo was taken in my dining room, the area in my house that I've essentially commandeered and claimed as my own. It has good WiFi, good lighting, and it's just the place to not be *as* depressed about online classes as I would be somewhere else. The table pieces have been sort of pushed to the side as my work surrounds them. Taken on Tuesday, 3/24/2020. 

Panic

This photo was taken at my local shopping center. Unsurprisingly, many aisles were completely empty because of the panic that people are participating in. Hopefully, the panic settles soon. Taken on Saturday, 3/21/2020.

Bloom of Hope

Today was a warm day and definitely felt like spring. In global tragedies such as this, it is important to never lose hope and to rather cultivate the things that can blossom into new life. Taken on Friday, 3/20/2020. Enjoy.

Drear

The quarantine is in full effect. This photo was taken on Thursday, 3/19/2020 the second day of online classes. My generation of college students is facing an unprecedented event and in a unique way, my Art 229 class has the opportunity to document the world around us and how we are dealing with it. Life's a little more dull at home, but that doesn't mean that it always has to be this way. Enjoy

Shadows in the Light

The following photos were taken to represent juxtaposition between shadows and lights. These two aspects can greatly impact a picture's meaning and the theme that it represents so using them correctly is important to any photographer's development. Enjoy.

I added a light effect to this photo in Facetune 2, which can be seen from the slight rainbow in the bottom left corner. I liked this photo because of the sun's intensity along with the shadows that form from the light going through the cup. Taken on Wednesday, 3/4/2020.

This photo was also taken at the same time as the one above, sometime in the morning. The sun was very strong and I like the contrast that it made with the objects on the table and the shadows they formed due to it.

This photo was slightly edited to enhance the contrast between light and shadow. I like this one because it is very straightforward yet has a very cool ambiance due to the symmetrical shadows. Taken on Thursday, 3/5/2020.

Cutting Out the Middle Man - Hypocam

The following photos were taken for an assignment to find a new app that could be applicable to our class. The app that I stumbled upon was called "Hypocam." Upon first glance, Hypocam seems to do nothing but make a photo black & white. While this is, of course, its primary function, Hypocam has a ton of other uses. For instance, the app contains framing options, preset filters, the usually editing tools, and it can take on-the-fly B&W photos using the camera or it can edit from the person's gallery - all for free. I found this to be very useful considering its price tag. Enjoy.

I took this photo from my gallery, placed it into Hypocam, and edited it. The black and white I think creates a cool effect and tone alongside a phone being used to create a reflection. Taken on 2/11/2020. 

I edited this photo and adjusted its color base to green, resulting in a lighter more balanced photo that has a uplifting type of vibe to it. Taken on Tuesday, 3/3/2020.

This is the same photo as above except with a blue color base. This resulted in the grass being darker and all-in-all creates a more eerie and lonely vibe to the photo. 

Exposing the Light

The following photo was taken for an assignment using a long exposure app and a light source. Many people could think of photos taken using glow-sticks or sparklers where the long exposure camera follows the light. This was our goal for our assignment and unfortunately only a few apps exist that are good at doing this and they are not free. The app I used was called "Slow Camera" and it did its job well. However, the quality is very low due to the exporting from the app to my camera roll. Nevertheless, enjoy.

This photo was taken of my two friends in a relationship. I wanted them to try to form a heart while remaining still and it surprisingly worked better than I expected. A very cool aspect I found interesting was the difference in colors. The pink light came from a more recent phone and the yellow light came from an older phone. I assume this is because of the different types of manufacturing between phones. An issue in this photo is the reflected heart at the bottom. This must be because of a mirror effect with my phone's camera. In addition to all this, I lightly edited the photo to enhance the vibrance and saturation of the lights. Taken on Monday, 3/2/2020.