Category: Story Telling

For the culture prompt, I photographed these menorahs that my family keeps in our home. 2 of which were hand made by my father using a 3D printed mold and a cement filling. I wanted to focus on something that represents my Jewish and Israeli identity without having to stage an elaborate photo, because these are objects that are genuinely part of my everyday surroundings. I liked the contrast between the dark stone and small gold details, along with the repeated spaces for the candles, which immediately make their purpose recognizable. To me, culture is not just something you celebrate on certain holidays. It is also represented by the objects, traditions, and symbols that quietly stay around you throughout your life.

For this photo blog, I decided to interpret the “Flowers” storytelling prompt literally by taking a close-up of a bright pink, in-focus flower blossoming. I wanted the flower to pop off the background, so I used depth of field to let it take center stage, drawing attention to the petals and other details in the middle of the flower. I believe I fulfilled the assignment’s objective of photographing flowers that tell a story by depicting how even the simplest things in nature can be emotional and full of life. The bright colors and soft light truly help portray this image as calming but vibrant, like springtime, growth, and blossoming.

I took this picture of a flower in my very own backyard. It took the plant forever to bloom, so when I actually saw it blossom, it felt that much more significant to me. That is part of what inspired me to take a picture of it. What I enjoyed most about taking this picture was the amount of detail you really start to see within flowers when you take the time to slow down and really observe them. Flowers are something we see so often, yet when I took this picture, it made me appreciate how unique they are and how expressive they can be. Another thing I enjoyed was the blurred background, which gave the photo a dreamlike quality and made the flower feel alone and the main focus of the frame.

For this photo, I wanted to convey aging by taking a picture of the lemon tree in my backyard. My family has had this tree since we moved into our house, so I’ve watched it grow up throughout the years. It now has fruit on it, but you can see where it’s aged in certain areas. Some of the branches are drooping and uneven, which shows the wear on the tree. Overall, that was what attracted me to the tree. Aging shows that something is continuing to grow, but it’s also been worn down. The purpose of this assignment was to photograph the concept of aging. I wanted to take this in a more literal sense by taking a photo with a story behind it. Ever since I can remember, this tree has been in our backyard growing. When I took this photo, I realized that aging isn’t just about old age. It’s about everything that something has gone through in that time. And this tree and I have been through plenty of memories!

The objective of this assignment was to create a narrative using only shadow without featuring the object casting it. For this photograph, the large shadow covering most of the frame is simply that of a normal door frame. I thought it was interesting how something so mundane could create something so theatrical and emotive when framed on its own. It casts across the wooden surface in a way that feels constructed or purposeful, when in reality it was created from something ordinary and unnoticeable. I became aware of how many cool shadows are around us that we don’t take the time to notice while taking this photo. Light moves through the simplest of spaces and can create shapes and shadows that go unnoticed that feel like movie stills. By allowing the shadow to fill most of the frame and keeping my lighting low, I wanted the photograph to feel somber yet strong. This was a cool assignment that forced me to slow down and look at mundane objects in a different way. It showed me that normal light and shadows can create a story if you take the time to really see them.

For this photo, I wanted to capture something that symbolized beginnings but in a very subtle way. The ceramic piece in the middle is one that I sculpted last year during my ceramics course. I remember sculpting this, but feeling unsure of what I wanted it to turn into. I even painted the glaze on it myself. When I look at it now, it still feels incomplete. That imperfection is what inspired me to photograph it. The raw feeling that something is there, but it hasn’t quite become something yet.

As I was taking this photo, I thought about how beginnings are never perfect and often feel awkward. The texture is rough, the shape isn’t perfectly round, and you can see where the glaze was painted on– but that’s what makes it beautiful to me. By centering it, I felt as though I was giving it a space to be, a space to shine. Something that is there, but often goes unnoticed. I really liked this assignment because it opened my mind to storytelling in a new way. You do not always need people or action to create a story. Sometimes it’s about objects that carry personal history and the feeling of starting something without knowing exactly where it will lead.

The Photo is the last of the sunlight on a residential street, and I tried to make a calm, but not completely silent, feeling. I did not take it with the lens facing the sun, but rather the effect of the late afternoon sunlight, which was still golden, on the trees, street and parked cars, as the sky gradually darkened from the warm tones of the late afternoon to the blue and purple ones of the approaching night. The fallen leaves and long avenue naturally draw the eye into the frame, and the blurry and desaturated colors also contribute to a feeling of calm of the last moments of the day. Because I used the manual mode, I had to balance the exposure between the bright sky and the darker street, and this has been a valuable learning experience to give me more control over exposure in low-light situations. In this way the image tells a story, with light, color and atmosphere conveying not only the street at sunset, but the stillness of a neighborhood transitioning from day to night and the emotion in that moment.

This photo captures me without showing my face, using books to express who I am. The way I’m holding The New York Times Explorer alongside a book on Freud reflects my curiosity about both travel and psychology. It suggests that I value exploring the world through ideas as much as through experiences. By hiding behind the books, the image keeps my identity private while still saying a lot about my interests and the kind of person I am.