I really didn't know what ballpark my settings should even be on fourth of July. I just messed around until I got what I was looking for. I had a general idea because of our painting with light knowledge and I looked at it as the same type of scenario. This is what I ended up with. I didn't narrow it down for my blog because there was something I liked or disliked about every photo.  ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/80 ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/20 This is one of my favorites because of the color and because of the shadows. It almost looks like it has a weird flash angle on it in the clouds.  ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/20 ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/20 ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/20 I like that you can't see where the fireworks originated, but you can see the ends of them like they just appeared out of thin air. ISO: 200 APERTURE: 2.8 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/10 ...

ISO: 250 APERTURE: 4.0 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/3200 This was the cover of our first issue of the print newspaper this year. I'm so happy with this picture. I didn't really know what I was going to get. I was told to get under him so no buildings would be behind him. I put the camera in high speed drive and let my shutter run. Luckily I didn't hit the buffer since I used the 5D. I ran up the clarity so that the water and ice were more defined. I wish it was looser so you got an image down to his waist with more water in the image, but I'm very happy with how this turned out.

ISO: 160 APERTURE: 13.0 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/200 Ruth Arnold and I decided we would do a self portrait project together each week. So, one photo a week, for eight weeks. This is my first. Technically the first week begins Sunday, but I needed a blog. I like the idea of this project because not only am I self disciplining myself, I'm learning new techniques and building my creativity. I go the idea of this photo from the flickr photo above. This is my representation and recreation. There are some choppy parts. I had red in the face of my watch which was a flaw and no hair under my far left head, so I had to do some work with the clone stamp tool in order to fix that. I wish I would have fixed the blemish on my cheek by my mouth, but that is just a minor detail, not in the actual photography. I had to make sure my heads and hands were proportional because the closer something is to the lens, the larger it appears in the picture. 

ISO: 800 APERTURE: 8.0 SHUTTER SPEED: 1/50 The lesson I learned from this image is that be prepared for last minute assignments. I was under dressed for this event because I was text the morning as it was happening. I was worried I would make the program look bad, but it ended up going well. I didn't realize that my f/stop was 8.0 until I uploaded this. I don't really know what I was thinking but at least everyone's on focus.

I had to make an Info Graphic for the online website today in honor of the 100th rivalry football game. Smith told me to go find four yearbooks. I chose 1961, 1973, 1995 and 2014. When Smith was telling me his idea, I had an idea that this would end up looking a lot better. For my first shot at doing this I was very pleased. I was originally going to keep just plain font sizes until Smith brought shortcuts like holding down shift to resize the text to my attention. This way I could fill the entire landscape with the text. After I finished that I realized the text looked plain, and the graphic was flat. There wasn't any depth. I added a drop shadow to the text adjusting the length, depth, angle and how heavy the shadow was until I was pleased with how it turned out. After I finished this I thought I was done. I was sadly not. The second picture. left to right, was very very light and grey. So, I adjusted the level and dropped the darks down a bit to get some darker pigments. I ...