Category Archives: Story Telling

This week’s challenge was to do a self portrait inspired by what we thought other people saw when they viewed us. I decided to go with this photo of me laying my head on top of several work books. The time that I interact with people the most is at school, and I am rarely fully awake and energetic. I am constantly working on Freestyle projects and homework, which accounts for the clutter around me. The final piece, my headphones, is because I am rarely without them while working whether in class or at home. It is very uncommon for me not to have headphones on me on any given day. f2.8 1/64 ISO 800

If there is one modern convenience that I could not live without, it would most definitely be cars. I love to go places and do things, and the invention of the car makes it so much easier. I also love to spend time just sitting and driving. It is incredibly cathartic to drive by yourself. Of course, I am aware it is awful for the environment which makes this a little harder to love, but driving makes me really calm. f5.6 1/40 ISO 125

The prompt for this week was the seven deadly sins, and for full transparency, I really struggled with this prompt. However, I did take this photo. It is obvious that the driver takes great care and pride in his car which was absolutely spotless when it passed me, so I think it counts for the prompt. This photo was actually surprisingly hard to take, despite the fact that the car came by me while I was walking multiple times. I kept forgetting to check my camera settings before taking a photo in my rush, and so I would get a bad photo. Eventually I figured it out and I think that it turned out pretty well. f20 1/1327 ISO 1600

The inspiration for the photo this week was Film Noir. I decided to use this photo that I took while on a road trip that seemed to really capture the gloomy nature of this film and photography genre. I think that the streaks from the window reflection and the blurred out frame add a lot of subtle character. The noise that is visible in the clouds also gives a lot of texture and adds more depth to the picture. f5.6 1/195 ISO 6400

This photo was taken during the new year. My family got sparklers and we had a whole bunch of fun with them in the back yard. We tried to write out words, but that was a little harder than expected. I liked this photo because the randomness made it look like a lightning strike and the magnesium coming off of the sparkers left really cool light trails. f22 10 ISO 1600

Our task was to find inspiration in the seasons and how the weather is changing. I really liked this photo of a leaf because with the way that the light was coming through, it showed off a more fiery orange color and you could see all of the veins. The contrast of the largely green background fit the idea of change with the dichotomy of leaf ready for autumn, and the rest of the area around it still clinging to summer. f5 1/60 ISO 1250

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

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

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

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,…

Read more