Day 93: I Fall In Love Every Time

(San Jose, November 2009) 

San Jose has so many nooks and corners in it, it's amazing what we can find. I've lived there practically my whole life and I still don't know where a lot of places are. This past weekend, I was home for Thanksgiving and my cousin and I took a short drive from her place down White Road (a road I have gone down many times) and we kept going. The road led us through a the foot of a mountain that I had no idea would be so close.

It was a short trip, but during that time we were able to stop and take some pictures, catch up and just enjoy it together. She is very special to me because she was the one who introduced me to photography when I was a child.

Photography has always been a part of my life, from toy cameras, to my first point and shoot. I owe a lot of this to my cousin. She was constantly taking pictures, and from her, I discovered the beauty of photography. When she was taking a class in college, she took me along with her to the dark room and I remember thinking, I will process my own film one day.

She was the one who I went to when I told her I was going to start taking classes and she was the one who helped me find my first SLR for 35mm. It was really special to take a photo excursion together in our hometown and do what we both love, photography.

Day 64: Matt's Photo Shoot Contact Sheets

These are some of the contact sheets I developed from Matt's photo shoot. I am happy I was able to capture a lot of his mannerisms. The lighting came out how exactly how I wanted.

What made this photo shoot flow so easily was talking to Matt as I was taking pictures. We talked about our friends back home (we're both from the same area), work, life, family, goals, his girlfriend (which you can tell when we were because he would have a huge smile on his face) and so on.

I enjoyed this assignment and would like to pursue doing more portraits along with other fields.

Day 55: Over Propped

Today we turned in our CD covers and had a critique. Although a lot of people were receptive towards my picture, the instructor thought it was heavily propped which took away from each element that was in there.

After stepping away from it and looking at it, I can see where she was coming from. There were so many things going on, it was hard to appreciate one thing.

I learned a lot from this assignment. Learned that I am good at finding props when needed, so there may be a future in styling and props. I learned to step back and look at the subject in various ways, sometimes the best shot is the one where there is only one thing. I learned that I am capable in envisioning a scene and seeing it all the way through. This has been a problem for me even when I was doing art. I didn't allow myself to sketch out ideas for paintings and I never saw the value in it until now. I was able to see understand my abilities and I appreciate them much more now.