Color Without Color
This photo is of a bulletin board in my room. I don’t have a lot of push puns, so often I have to layer underneath the pushpins that I have. There are photos of my friends, buttons, letters, beads, old tickets, postcards, and memorabilia covering the board, which makes it look very colorful, bright, and disorganized. When I took this photo and then switched it to black and white, it was strange not to see all of the color and gave it a very melancholic feeling. f4 1/30 ISO 640
Who Inspires You
The challenge for this week was to share the story of someone who inspires us. I decided to take a photo of this puzzle box that my dad got after he graduated from MIT. My dad is one of the most patient and hardworking people that I know. I thought it was fitting that this was a puzzle box because he is very good at figuring things out and making things coherent and whole. He is also a very intelligent person and always is able to break seemingly insurmountable tasks or problems into manageable chunks. He is one of the coolest and most inspiring people that I know. f6.3 1/80 ISO 5000
Fill the Frame
The prompt for this week was to fill the frame with a single color. With the rain that we have been having, it felt appropriate to fill the frame with greyscale. I really liked how the small red lights contrasted which, despite breaking the single color rule, helped to add interest into the photo. This was a really fun photo to take, though being in a moving car made it a challenge to keep the camera steady. I really like how it came out! f4 1/80 ISO 125
Friends and Family
Our challenge was to tell the story of someone close to us. This photo is of my sister. She is someone who is extremely smart, but can be very goofy. She is constantly forgetting hair ties and loves to steal my sweatshirts (though I steal hers right back). In this photo, she is actually wearing my jacket. My sister loves walks and hiking and will drag us out of the house to do so. She is someone I look up to a lot and I am glad she is in my life. f5 1/512 ISO 1600
Habits
Our prompt for this week was habits. I have a lot of habits that make my life a lot easier, like how I dress. Thinking in the morning is very hard, so I normally just rotate what outfits I wear. My friends sometimes make fun of me because of my consistency of wearing very similar things every day. I have two pairs of shoes that I trade off based off of which one I can find first. This photo features one of the shoes, next to my sisters tennis shoes that she also wears constantly. f5 1/160 ISO 1600
Symmetry
The task for this week was to look at symmetry in faces. I was really surprised that the faces weren’t as symmetrical as I assumed they would be. At the same time, I have to wonder whether the difference might be because I am not perfectly aligned with the face I was taking a photo of. Regardless, this was a really interesting exercise to do. f5.6 1/80 ISO 2500
Culture
Our prompt for this week was telling the story of our culture. My family is a very musical family. All of the kids play instruments and all of us sing. Songs and playlists are frequently shared and it is very rare that someone is not playing music somewhere in the house (even if you can’t hear it, it is probably in someone’s headphones). My entire life has been surrounded by music and it is a huge part of who I am as a person. f5.6 1/80 ISO 2000
Exit
The prompt for this week was Exit. One of my favorite movies is the Sound of Music and in it, the main character, Maria, has a quote that “When God closes a door, he always opens up a window”. I didn’t really know what to do for this photo, but then I remembered the quote and realized, “Hey! Windows are exits too!”. Though I wish I had taken a photo with a more interesting subject outside the window, overall I am happy with it.
Geometry
The inspiration for this photo for this photo blog was finding geometry in the world around is. I live in Silicon Valley, which is where a lot of tech giants have their headquarters. Often the style of buildings for their work offices, especially places like Apple, have very clean geometric designs. The design of the building isn’t that complex, but layering a whole bunch of rectangular prisms makes it look really sophisticated and modern. Personally, I like this style a lot, but that might just be my own preference.
Freedom
The prompt for this week was freedom and creating a photo that tells a story related to that. This photo is of the statue in the middle of the UN Peace Plaza in Independence, Missouri. I love the pose of the girl because she is reaching towards a bird and has her arms stretched like she trying to copy the bird flying above her. For me, flight has always been associated with freedom and I think that even though we may never be able to truly be able to fly like a bird, we can keep reaching and keep trying in order to get there. This metaphor isn’t perfect because humans are anatomically designed not to fly, so the girl’s attempt to fly like the bird may be interpreted as her misguided attempt that to copy something that is physically impossible to do, so logically, she should just give up,…