{"id":564,"date":"2020-06-05T08:57:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T08:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AvniS\/?page_id=564"},"modified":"2020-06-05T18:41:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T18:41:44","slug":"explorations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AvniS\/explorations\/","title":{"rendered":"Explorations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For our final project of Junior year, Freestyle students got the opportunity to produce a project where we get to explore an art form we are interested in that addresses 21st century skills. I chose to explore night photography specifically focusing on creating movement. As for my 21st century skills, I zeroed in on technological literacy as well as creativity.\u00a0Over time, while finding my \u201cphotography style\u201d I learned that I have always been drawn to taking photos in the night. There is something about the eerie, ominous feel that fascinates me and when looking at aesthetics of various kinds of photos, I almost always prefer a well-taken night photo.\u00a0When I started taking night photos, I struggled a lot trying finding good places, angles, and lighting, all the techniques I had learned previously didn’t really apply.\u00a0At first, this frustrated me, but I eventually learned to appreciate the ambiguity as I felt it gave me more creative freedom.\u00a0When working on my conceptual project a while back, I accidentally took a blurry photo which I later adapted, and this motion became a huge part of the meaning behind my project.\u00a0After this, I started implementing motion into more of my photos which is why I wanted to combine this idea of creating movement I have been experimenting with for a while along with night photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I started off by thinking of the different techniques I was already aware of for these two topics and I began researching on different blogs, websites, etc. I looked into what techniques are better for what kinds of photos, different ways to go about the techniques, how to use certain functions or modes, and the best ways to creatively express what I want to convey. I learned about the importance of usage of equipment like tripods, self timers, and speed lights and how to better your photos using them. I also realized that I actually had to know the settings and meaning behind the settings of my camera really well, as night photos require a lot of technique. I also learned various ways to create movement, but after experimenting a lot, I found that my favorite way is just lowering the shutter speed and incorporating intentional and subtle motion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Annotations for my research<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taking Photos<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I began my process by just going on photoshoots. I started my first round taking photos of someone I work really well with because she always knows exactly what I am thinking in terms of placement and doesn\u2019t really have to be adjusted much. We went to Blach Intermediate School to take our photos for the first round\u00a0and I experimented with both still and movement night photography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For my still photos, I used a tripod and timer\u00a0 as I wanted to reduce movement as much as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For my movement photos, I always started by taking a test photo to figure out what are the best angles, how slow\/fast should I move, and where I should move. For both types of photos, I really had to focus on where the shadows and highlights were, and where the artificial light source was coming from. To better the lighting in my photos, I used a speedlight to bounce the light onto my subject.\u00a0I then edited the photos in Adobe Photoshop mainly focusing on the curves, brightness\/contrast, and hue tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For my second round, I tried a different location, Rancho Plaza, and worked with a different person. Unfortunately I really didn\u2019t like how the photos turned out, as the light sources in that area were not very helpful, and my speedlight was not working well,\u00a0so I ended up with some photos with distorted lighting and a lot of noise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I liked the concept behind a lot of them, and would like to try again in this location in the future, maybe during late sunset. Here are some of the better photos from the shoot, again the concept was interesting, the quality was not.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the third round, I went with 2 other people at a different location, Springer Elementary school.This photoshoot was a little harder, but I ended up getting some pretty nice movement shots, I was just having a little trouble reducing noise in my photos. I also edited them in Adobe Photoshop again focusing on the curves, brightness\/contrast, hue tools, as well as saturation and clarity tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Production<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is my final production, a collection of my favorite photos from all of the shoots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Infographic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In our Digital Media class, we were tasked to create an infographic that exemplified a major idea we learned in the creation of our project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Final Infographic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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InDesign Process<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reflection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After finishing up the project, I feel I learned a lot more about techniques in the kinds of photography I am most interested in and would like to say my photos are a little bit more intentional and clean now. I have a lot to work on to further develop my style, but this was a pretty good start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explorations Celebration Video<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once we completed our project, in Digital Media, we created a final celebration video going through a presentation about our Explorations Production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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