Héctor Pérez: A Senior Profile Portrait by Karen Quero (2015)

Who is Hector Perez? He is a coach, an English teacher, and a father of two. He balances all of these roles responsibly every day without losing his temper. Between his own kids, and the students he works with, he spends his entire day with children. For him, working with children is a stress reliever. He is funny, wise, and helpful. His way of teaching is different, and he can get the attention of anyone. Hector uses humor to create memories in an environment where learning is fun and lessons are engraved into his student’s hearts. I chose Mr. Perez for this project because he is someone who can always give a helping hand. As I hang out with him, I learn more about him each and every day. He is like a book full of adventure, there are always new discoveries that explain what makes Hector Perez the person he is.

For my profile portrait, my struggles are finding the right photo to work with. All of my photos are either out of focus, blurry, or had distracting backgrounds. Every time I opened an image, it turned out to be blurry. So when I had an opportunity, I turned on all the lights in the classroom and took as many different angles of the same position with my camera. I did this while he was working on his next lesson plan. My shot was successful because I was able to capture his love of reading and how he is so focused and dedicated in his students’ education. The spartans lanyard represents his love of being a proud spartan teacher and coach. Lastly, the white background represents his open mind. He is welcoming to everyone with a warm and friendly atmosphere. One technical aspect of the shot is the angle it was taken. It was taken on a worm's eye view level, using a speedlight to make the classroom bright with a high ISO of 1600. I used photoshop to crop it on the rule of thirds. This picture gives it a professional look.