This week we were told to take a photo inspired by current events. The prompt reminded me of a sticker I always see on my bike ride to school that says ‘F*** Trump’. Since this year is the presidential election year, the photo seemed pretty fitting.

I framed the sign with the sticker between the chain link fence on the bridge over the road, which created sort of a blurry dark frame around it. All of the litter on the ground also kind of brings the topic of pollution into the conversation.

This week we took a photo inspired by music. I decided to take a photo of my bass, which I made myself! It’s functional and modeled after Marceline’s bass from Adventure Time :] I made it almost a year ago but I never took any proper photos, so this seemed like a good opportunity!

For the photo, I wanted a dark background, and so I propped it up against an old leather chair. I played around a lot with angles, trying to get interesting lighting and reflections while keeping the frame confined to the chair. I also edited it to have more contrast and shifted the hue, emphasizing the light on the strings and body. Overall I’m really proud of how it turned out!

This week’s prompt was to juxtapose the big and small. I took a photo of this plane in the sky against the clouds, to create a silhouette. While planes are big close up, compared to the sky they look so tiny, and that’s why I took this photo for this prompt.

This week we were told to take a photo inspired by one of the elements, and I chose earth. I really liked the way the sun shone through this leaf, lighting it up and framing it with the dark background. I also liked that the leaf was a bit dirty (esp. that one bit hanging off of it), it felt more natural and like it better represented earth.

This week’s prompt was gratitude, so I took this photo of my friends on the way to school! One of them got a drivers license recently and so she drives us when it rains :] it’s really cozy driving with them, and I’m very grateful to have them in my life <3

The photo was a bit awkward to take, the car was shaking so it was hard to get it positioned right. I think this one feels pretty balanced though, with the light windshield in the middle and my two friends on either side.

Stingrays count as a “who” right? I think so. (I think this is a stingray. It’s at least a ray.)

The ocean and all of the weird and wonderful creatures that live there inspire me a lot, and animals in general, too, but especially stingrays. I don’t know what it is about them, I just really like them. Maybe it’s because when a crocodile ate my shoe as a toddler (safely, and the crocodile was fine, we got the shoe back)(the shoe was a bit gross though), my mom bought me a stingray plush? I still have it, it’s one of my favorites. Something about them feels so magical though, they’re so smooth to the touch and they look like they’re flying when they swim above you. It makes me want to write stories about them.

This week’s prompt was reflections! I went on Freestyle’s Europe trip last summer and I took this photo in England. I loved the way the ducks were framed by the reflection of the sky in the water, and you could see the reflection of the ducks too. I didn’t have my DSLR with me, but had an old smaller camera that I took this on. I thought it really fit this prompt!

This week, our prompt was “‘Every exit is an entry to somewhere else’. Be inspired by the Exit this week.” I took this prompt quite literally. In Japan, I took this photo of the entrance/exit of a coffee shop. There is a man walking out of the shop down the stairs, although sadly I wasn’t able to capture him closer to the bottom of the stairs since other people walked in the way. I thought this photo reflected the prompt well, as the exit of the coffee shop was an entrance to the shopping street we were on, and vice versa. I’m proud of how this photo came out, I really like the dark reddish brown color palette!

This prompt was “It is said that the ‘Camera Never Lies’. Prove it wrong.” This sort of prompt reminded me of reflections, images that are there but aren’t the real thing, just a flat copy. The way this temple reflected onto the building next to it was incredibly interesting to me, especially in the context of this prompt. It lines up right so that the roof looks like it continues, even though it doesn’t. You can tell it doesn’t because some parts don’t line up, but the false image it creates definitely tells a lie.

This week’s prompt was serenity! I wanted to capture the calm and peaceful atmosphere of the night sky, as I think it’s a very serene thing. I positioned the moon at the bottom center sort of curving in, since it made the focal point the moon but also led the viewer’s eyes upward. There is a single star right above the moon which I also wanted to emphasize, but it’s a little hard to see with the lower resolution. It feels a little bit like there’s a thread connecting them and they’re hanging in the sky.