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Hi Panelist!

My name is Lauren Gerughty. I am a senior at Mountain View High School/Freestyle Academy.

My progression in visual storytelling:

Pre-Freestyle

Sophomore year I took Photography 1 at MVHS. With every assignment very were given a prompt. Although I would follow the prompt the actual meaning of my photos were often assigned after development.

My favorite photo:

This photo was my first semester final for the class. The assignment was to choose a theme and take a series of photos. My house was all decorated for Christmas and I have always loved the holidays, so I choose  Christmas as my focus.

On to Freestyle!

At Freestyle I really started to learn how develop my story before producing the visual piece that would go along with it. We always start our projects in english so that definitely helped me refine the process. At the beginning of senior year we wrote a personal essay  to use for college applications. We then completed a black and white diptych to represent that essay.

My diptych:

In my Diptych I have two images juxtaposed. On the left is a light bulb which is clear and bright, the background is out of focus to draw all attention to the bulb. I wanted this photo to have a busier background so the purity of the light bulb would stand out. The image on the right is a wristwatch. The background is also out of focus, but it is less cluttered to give a sense of clarity not shown in the first photo. The focal point of this photo is the shadows and highlights of the watch. I took photos at different exposure levels and merged them create HDR photos I also altered them to be black and white. These images were chosen to represent my personal essay. This essay highlighted two main feelings that I have experienced in my faith. Those feeling were doubt and strength. When photographing the idea moved toward fragility and confusion, represented by the light bulb; and growth and clarity represented by the watch.

Zenith

At the end of our Freestyle career we completed a final senior project. This project is designed to encompass all of the skills we had accumulated in the past two years. The project is also meant to tie in our passions in order to create our best piece of work.

I choose to write and illustrate a children’s book because it combined my Freestyle skills and my interest in working with kids. I currently work at a church in the nursery, and also babysit frequently.

Children’s Book