Bare Truths: Rules, What Rules?

I started out in this game completely organic. It was neither something I felt needed, nor required, boundaries. The rectangular frame was merely a box in which to house my creativity. Never did I imagine that it would become something which would slight me in one way or another.

I've been editing my heart out lately - trying to plow through events and projects. I've stumbled upon a few weaknesses, a few frequent weaknesses, which I'm happy to have noticed, but unsure how to fix. Composition/framing was not something that I really paid attention to until I got into college. I mean, a photography major should know how to frame a shot, right? But oddly, I cannot remember once hearing a teacher deliver a composition lecture, and now that I'm earning a living through photography, I realize that "um, duh, framing is a big deal!!" I mean, it's not like I am horrible at it or anything. I mean, I know the rules of thirds and whatnot, but what are the rules for composition? Are there specific guidelines I'm supposed to be following?

And corrections - color, exposure, black and white points? I know how to deal with such things, in a very textbook manner, but is it mandatory that I always edit "by the book?"

Often, I feel that a picture can do without an absolute black point. And maybe, every once in a while I'd prefer a few blown highlights... What if I want majorly low contrast? Is that such a horrible thought? A photo which has low saturation and high vibrance, coupled with low contrast and no absolute blacks. Can't we just call it vintage and leave it alone? Teachers say "no!", but what are your thoughts?

What do you think of the rules? Are they meant to be followed? Broken? What ARE they, anyway? What happened to creative license?

Austin - March 26, 2010 - 9lbs 14oz - Birth Day!

Here is a baby shoot I have not shared yet, with my blog followers!

Austin is, my sister, Hope's boyfriend's nephew(ha! long description!). As a gift to Rob's brother, Todd, and sister-in-law, Jenny, Hope and Rob offered my photographic services. I thought it was a pretty cool, and rare, opportunity to be able to do a newborn shoot while baby and momma were still in the Hospital. In fact, I got to shoot on Austin's Birth Day!

Needless to say, it was a pretty awesome experience and Austin was an awesome little model for me - He slept, he was alert, he even yawned for me! Well, ok, I'll show you! Thanks Jenny and Todd for allowing me to intrude on you so soon after the birth. I hope you think it was worth it!

Introducing Baby Austin(or "Little Fella" as big brother, Dylan, calls him):

Jakey - 3 months - March 21, 2010

As Promised, here is little Jakey - Thanks Joe, Jenny, Little Joey and Jakey for a great shoot! Have fun in Florida!

Spring Break

So I've been on spring break all week and taking more of a mental break than anything else. I've needed it. I've been so burnt out creatively lately, going nutty over every single photo assignment. So I've been spending my days either playing Super Mario Bros. on Wii, watching my brother's wife, Hana, and Yassine play, working out, or shopping... I've also been thinking a bit about some of the projects I have coming up as well as shooting.

I've had two baby shoots within a week's time and have another baby shoot shortly.
Here are my favorites from the first-



and a sneak peek of the second-




I've also booked a wedding for early April and all the jobs mentioned are paid so, thank God, I'm surviving financially. I'd really like an assisting/second shooter job, right about now, but all in God's time.

I've been getting better at work flow, so hopefully, I'll be posting more often. There are no promises tho seeing as Midterms and Finals are coming soon and are quite close together. So Anyway, ciao for now. :)

ps. H|Photography has reached 141 fans on Facebook!! Thank you to those of you who follow, I really appreciate your support!

breaking point

missing travel. no, the constant nomadic back and forth between my house and my sister's does NOT count. i miss airplanes, and airports, and having an 18hr excuse to look like crap in public, authentic food everyday, people who are naturally hospitable, and being surrounded by inspiration daily. i miss culture.

aye. college.

all i'm saying is that spring break is going to have to do a lot of rockin'.

east coast, anyone?

What I've been up to:

Studio Assignments

3 lights



and

4x5 View Camera w/ a Fuji back.

Typical

It seems to me that I've become a once-per-month blogger. It's so funny that pretty much every blog I write starts out with how bad I am at keeping up, yet I still try.. Ha! You'd think that maybe one of these days I'd just get over it already, but I guess today wasn't that day. How typical of me.

So anyway, since my last post I've been introduced to the studio, reintroduced to Photoshop, and officially became an adult. Yes, I turned 21 and I don't feel much different, for the record. Also, typical.

I remember long ago, in my teens when I could NOT wait to turn 21. It was this HUGE deal. Now that I am I feel like, while there are a few things I can do now that I couldn't (ie. have a horizontal drivers license, like everyone else...), nothing has really changed. I feel like being a Sophomore has changed me more than becoming an adult. Is that weird? I mean, having been through two semesters of photo, I feel like I can tell the Freshmen how to check the temp of the water in the development sinks and final fix prints with confidence. It's so silly, but I realize that I am helping those kids more and more every time I am in the darkroom. Even through my own struggles getting reintroduced to b&w development, I feel like there is something that I can offer to my peers in terms of experience. And even though, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be intruding into their learning experience, it's a really nice feeling knowing that I have the ability. Is that cocky? Maybe, but it's also humbling because it just reminds me of how I felt walking up to the fix and wash the first time and it is SO typical of my maternal instincts to kick right in, telling them what to do.

I am learning SO much this semester, it's great! I've been really busy, keeping up with everything, so glad that I'm only taking 4 classes! I cannot even imagine what it would be like to have 5 with the two shooting classes! Omgoodness! that's not a pretty thought. Studio is proving to be really interesting and hard, but rewarding. I know I will be able to do SO much with it once I am out of it, I have the best teacher too!! Bill First. He's tough, but awesome, and so nice. I can def say I'll be taking him for view camera and for studio 2! the hardest part about Studio right now is probably the printing. Traditional black and white printing is such a hassle, esp in the winter! But, oh well. I think I'm going to get back in there the next few weeks and try split filtering again. I know I do MUCH better with that than regular.

My other classes, aren't really all that exciting. Well, digital is cool, but very basic. I love that I can shoot digital in there tho, instead of film and scanning. At this point, it's a HUGE relief for homework and financial purposes. They teach a lot of really useful stuff tho, saving and printing formats, as well as photoshop techniques. I do find myself saying, "I can do this so much easier/better in Lightroom" a LOT, tho haha! Needless to say, I hate Adobe Bridge.

I'm going to try to get up some albums of homework photos soon. Scanning negatives and prints can be so time consuming, but there is a lot of film work that needs to be digital. There are also a few digital files that I can share, but we haven't really done anything too interesting photo wise in that class yet.