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.

The Details that Show

The following photos were taken for an in-class assignment where we were tasked to take a photo of a large-scale overview photo along with a photo that focused on a single detail. Our subject was the basilica and I decided to go with both aspects from the outside as well as the inside. All photos were taken on Tuesday, 3/3/2020. Enjoy.

I made this photo as a diptych and I believe the idea is straightforward. I took photos of some of the side doors of the Basilica followed by a close-up view of the handles. 

Our 2nd task was to overlay the detailed photo over the wide-scale photo. At first, I was not excited for this as I was unsure what I exactly wanted to do with this. However, I added a drop shadow while making the overview photo black and white and I love the effect that these edits brought. The close-up photo of the roses with Mary in the background really emphasize what I think the Basilica exemplifies. The drop shadow simply made the overlay look less jarring.

Still Life Pt. 2

The following photos were taken as a part of the "Still Life" Assignment. I decided to use some antibiotics I had sitting on my desk and my friend gave her cell phone to use as an additional light. My favorite position of the light was when I would place it below my camera so a light reflection was produced. All photos were taken on Thursday, 2/27/2020. Enjoy.

This was my intended photo where the light was reflecting off of the bottle and cap. 

This photo is for comparison to see how the light placed above the object results in a boring and lackluster shot

I edited the brown table to black and white and this produced an interesting effect. The class thought that this edit made the mood of the photo darker relating the gray table to a medical tray.