My Final Photoshop Assignment

For the final photo assignment I chose black and white as the subject. Being my final assignment, I decided that it would be appropriate to choose it because it is more laid back nad I spent less time taking photos than on anything else. Most people have already done it anyways, because they forgot to take pictures on week. My goal was to get exactly ten pictures for the assignment, and I definetely reached it. The only real issue I had with getting the photos was making the choice of which ones to put into the assignment. Other than that issue, this was definetely one of the simpler assignments. It also turned out nicely, because I would find pictures in my free class time, and instead of sitting around or not using the computer properly, I was actually using my time wisely. This assignment was a great way to end off the trimester.

My Best Photo: ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/60 Aperture: 5.0

My Ten Best Photos:

My Free Photoshop Assignment

The last photoshop assignment of the trimester was our choice, and this assignment brought out the individuality and exposed the skills of the entire class. We had to find a tutorial on the internet on Adobe Photoshop cs2, and then we would complete the tutorial accordingly. For my tutorial, I chose mono with a dash of color, which is where you take a photo with great color, turn it black and white, and then you can paint the spaces with the most interesting color with the history brush tool. For my assignment, I painted a picture of the Michigan Football Team charging onto the field, and i colored only them and their banner, to bring out a huge amount of contrast.

To learn about this tutorial, go to http://www.digital-photography-school.com/mono-with-a-dash-of-colour-photoshop-cs2-tutorial.

This is the photo I made of the Michigan Football Team:

Inspirations for Assignment Seven: Black and White

This week for my last assignment I have decided to complete the black and white assignment. I chose this because this is my last week, and I would prefer to focus on other things rather than spend time shooting more photographs, especially since I have been working on identifying many of the photos that I could put into a black and white assignment for about three weeks, just in case i had a week where I wouldn't be able to complete a photo assignment. Also I referred to flickr to get an idea of which pictures in my library will be the most ideal for a black and white photo assignment.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21644167@N04/3727478858/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/3368329653/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/3368338135/

My Sixth Photo Assignment: Motion

This week my assignment was motion. In this assignment I had to capture images of motion. Although the concept of the assignment seemed simple enough, this assignment was probably my most challenging. I faced many issues, and my goal was to have ten high quality pictures, and I didn't completely reach this goal. The greatest issue I had was getting pictures of motion, because most of the events in the assignment that I could take pictures of had split second windows to be captured. Another issue I had was digital grain. For this assignment, I was frequently changing the camera's settings, and it made it difficult to get a clear image. Most of my pictures were taken at the wrong time as well, because I went outside and only had a few minutes before it got dark. Although the assignment was very difficult, I still got a decent enough picture that I chose as my best. It is a picture of a car moving by me on Michigan Avenue.

My Best Photo: ISO: 1600 Aperture: 4.0 Shutter Speed: 1/10

My Ten Best Photos:

My Pun Assignment

For the past two days I have been working on the pun assignment, in which we find some clever puns out of our own ideas or from the internet, and we incorporate them into a photoshop image. For example, my visual pun was spam, and I had computer sitting next to a pile of spam (the food). This was really interesting because it challenged the class' creativity and tested the skills that we have learned during the trimester regarding photoshop. I enjoyed it and found it to be very simple and straightforward.

Photoshop Dictionary Assignment

This week's assignment was the photoshop dictionary assignment, where we had to find an interesting word, define it, and use our photoshop skills to represent it in an image. I thought the assignment was fun because we got to use our creativity and humor in it. As well as being funny, some of the pictures were very well thought out, and it was a great way to hone down our photoshop skills. I enjoyed this assignment and would do it again in a heartbeat. These are the three pictures that I completed for the assignment, the words are gormless, bamboozle, and dispendious.

My Inspirations for the Motion Assignment

This week for my sixth assignment I chose motion. Motion will be a fun assignment because of the actions involved to take pictures. I also have many ideas for the pictures I need for the assignment. One of the ideas that I want to follow is going to the gym and getting photos of people shooting at the basketball hoops. I might also get a picture of a few other sports, like maybe a soccer or lacrosse goal, or people playing racquetball in the gym. I could also get many other pictures regarding motion. To get an idea of what I need for this assignment I went on flickr and found these photos, which I have linked below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackeycove/5605072224/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jorritkrijnen/3404726767/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/formica/281525485/

My Portrait Demo

This week's class demo was the portrait demo, in which we took pictures of each other, in the library where we had a miniature photo studio set up on Tuesday until Thursday. This "studio" had all the artificial nights necessary to take pictures for this assignment. The second picture that we had to take was outside of the studio, where we used a poster board to reflect sunlight passing through the staircase windows onto the face of the person who was having their picture taken. This would give a similar effect to what we had in the library. After we had two quality pictures, one of each technique, we went into photoshop and made an assignment that incorporated both of the pictures onto a sheet which was similar to how we get school pictures. I thought this assignment was not too difficult, although it was a small challenge to take the pictures. The photoshop part was not difficult at all, and I did it in the last five minutes of class, after I had taken all of my photos. This photo was the final result of the assignment.

My Fifth Photo Assignment: Architecture

My fifth photo assignment ended up being architecture. I enjoyed this assignment very much, and I thought that it was the most fun out of all of the assignments that I've completed so far. It was not easy, but I got to go around Ann Arbor and take some pictures of the familiar landmarks there. Originally my goal was to get only about fifty pictures but I ended up getting ninety pictures because I had so much fun with the assignment, and I decided to take a lot more time on it. Most of the pictures that I have featured in the slideshow were taken after I cleaned the lens thoroughly. The picture of the Michigan Plaza gate was an example of a picture that I had taken before this, because I didn't realize that there were fingerprints all over the outer lens, and for around half an hour I was taking pictures with the dirty lens thinking that I was making mistakes adjusting the composition triangle. This caused huge problems for me because it wasted a lot of my time. Another problem that I had experienced was the fact that some of the buildings were in a very corwded and busy urban environment. The picture that I took of the State Theatre sign was an example of this because I had gotten my camera ready at the right position to take it, and then a bus pulled up in front of me and unloaded its passengers, and I had to wait to snap the photo. I even had a situation where another photographer was taking pictures everywhere on the campus, and I didn't want to get in the way so I had to wait for him too. Although these were issues, I had very little trouble with the composition triangle, and most of my pictures had great shadows and light sources there wwasn't a real challenge with that.

My Best Photo: ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 1/1600 Aperture: 5.0

My Ten Best Photos: