"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." -Theodore Roosevelt
Another well-planned shot for our Senior Narrative, this take sees the character of Athena Morgan towering over our protagonist. To exaggerate the power difference further, I placed a mirror behind the desk through which to view him much smaller and pushed in on from the sides. This is one of my favorite shots and a demonstration of what can be achieved through taking the time to put planning and care into every shot.
While not necessarily a photo of only myself, I wanted the chance to use this celebratory photograph taken after we called a wrap on the 13th day of our Senior Narrative. The photo includes myself and my co-director E. Fey, two of our principal actors Jennifer Fey and Joshua Hackworth, and the remaining extras and crewmembers who stayed to the end. At one time, we had over a dozen and a half cast and crew on-set, our largest and final shoot of the film.
Looking to capture the warm coziness of the morning, I staged this shot with a soft, wrinkled tablecloth, a bread basket, a glass vase, and a cutting board to show off a variety of my favorite toast spreads, based on a line from my personal essay. I quite enjoy the softness of this particular shot in the lighting, focus, and even subjects.
Taken during one of our shoots for the Senior Narrative project, this shot demonstrates our most expensive of the many period props bought for the film – a replica Colt revolver. The sharp highlights are a staple of the film noir style, and add a dramatic flair to the frame.
To represent the comfort and convenience of the modern world, I thought I’d take advantage of a recent exhibition of CalTrain’s new high-speed electric train system. The trains are now much smoother, more comfortable, and faster, in addition to being more environmentally-friendly. The exhibition also had lots of information on how this railroad line has evolved over time, and it is quite amazing how far it has come from the steam age.
While not exactly “current” anymore, I wanted a chance to use this shot taken during the viewing of last year’s solar eclipse at Stanford University. The partial blocking of the sun made the backlighting softer and the orange haze was just a wonderful touch to this view.
This is a frame from my currently in-progress narrative film that I am exceptionally proud of. It took many attempts for our actor to move into the exact right position for his eyes to be in focus while keeping the frame symmetrical. With the additional color work on top, this shot is one of my favorites in the project.
I decided to go a little meta with this one and represent my chosen sin, “sloth” with my lack of progress made on my photo blog assignments up to this point, showing a list of shots I needed to do crumpled into an overfull garbage bucket.
Since I have already used our piano for photographs before, I thought I’d pick a somewhat rarer instrument: the kalimba. The most difficult part was keeping the camera steady enough to have a sharp enough focus, as I had not yet set up the tripod.
The viewpoint I chose was one that would make the viewer small: the perspective of one of my cats eating from a bowl together with another. It was surprisingly difficult to get Penny (the cat pictured) to focus on eating as she kept being distracted by the camera lens.