Week 10 Photo Challenge: Nothing

This week’s photo challenge was to photograph “nothing”.  This kind of caught me by surprise and made me think a lot about what I could possibly do.  I did research to see what other people had done, but what they photographed did not seem like “nothing”.  Every one of them had a person, a place, or object in them.  I understand though that “nothing” means different things to other people.  For me it means everything.  I’m an optimist, and when I see what others see as nothing, I think of it as something more than that.  I thought about doing one of me sitting in a quiet setting and showing that I was thinking about nothing in my normal surroundings, but I did not want to make it look like I thought of myself as “nothing”.  So I decided to take a different approach to the challenge.  I chose to photograph through a thick piece of glass window that was in my friend’s apartment.  It was around 4:30 in the afternoon.  I was not sure right away what I would come up with.  I was looking for just an empty space that had some different textures flowing through it.  I finally found a piece that had the reflection of a building in it.  I thought for me this “nothing” meant seeing the world with an un-open mind. I also felt that it could mean you have a completely open mind, but you can’t figure out how to get there.  I really think that the different lines, curves, and colors make this photo work.  Whether or not this means “nothing”, is for the viewer to decide.

Week 10 EOC: Financial Spreadsheet

Today I was walked through a process of how to use a financial spreadsheet. A financial spreadsheet is a layout of everything your company is making and spending. At the first glance of it, it was very intimidating because it was long and full of percentages and numbers and words that I have never heard of. At the beginning of the walk through, I was sure that somewhere along the line I would get lost and not a moment too soon I did. I was able to quickly catch back up on where I needed to be. I begin putting in hypothetical numbers that I projected my business to be doing and making in a separate spreadsheet. This thought process took a few minutes because for each month you will have different projections because of what goes on for photographers in certain times of the year. I was able to end up with a decent amount of money totaled at the end of this worksheet. I was told that having anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 was a good number to have and I ended up with $60,000. After this was done, I then put these projected numbers into the financial spreadsheet where they were needed. As I was told what each column represented, I immediately understand a majority of them for the most part. There are still many that I am confused by and need to research more on. Doing the research and making sure I understand it completely will help finish a financial spreadsheet successfully. For the future of my business I will make sure that I know and understand all of these terms because I know that I will not be able to afford and accountant right away to help me. Doing this process has helped me understand better and I will utilize this knowledge in the future of my business.

Week 9 Photo Challenge: Food

This week’s photo challenge was to photograph food. When I think about food photography, I think of food that has been prepared and set up “perfectly” in a studio or on-location situation. These are the photographs that usually entice people to eat at a restaurant.  I decided to use a different and more photojournalistic approach due to the time constraints I was under this past week. My husband participated in a 100 mile ultra marathon run in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. He was able to finish this 36 hour race in 31 hours and 21 minutes. After most races there is an award ceremony, and along with this one there was food prepared for the runners and their crews. It maybe was not the most enticing food around, but it was a meal the runners could handle. There were a few tables that held a variety of sandwich breads and the dressings needed to go on top. At first I was not going to photograph this, but then I decided to due to the bringing together that went along with the event. I was intrigued at the way all the people were “gathering up” their food and conversing with other people that they did not know. I just know they all had something in common and having this food ready for them gave them a chance to get to know some people. It’s amazing throughout generations what the bringing together of people and food can do. I did not want faces in the photo, so you could imagine yourself standing there in the line as hungry as these people were. This also helped me grab out the colors of the food and make the photo “pop” more. This took place about 6 in the evening, so the lighting was easy to work with as the sun was going down. This shown me that there are other ways to photograph food besides the set-up typical food photograph.

Week 9 EOC: 40 Under 40 in Las Vegas

In Las Vegas there is an even that is held called “40 under 40”. This event recognizes 40 employees under 40 in Las Vegas that have become quite successful and made themselves known in the community. I have been asked to explain where I will be professionally, personally, and in the community when I am 40. Professionally I hope to have a small portrait photography business that is successful in the community that I will reside in, in order to provide for my family and myself sufficiently. Even though it will be later on, I still want to be able to work out my home, so I will not have to worry about a studio and all that comes with it. Personally, I want to be settled down with my family that includes my husband and by then a few children. My greatest desire is to be a mother to children I have been given. With having my business run out of my home, I will be able to be there for them which will be when they are a little older by this point. I also hope by this time that my husband will be out of the military and at a steady job. This also means living somewhere we both enjoy and I’m not quite sure where that is yet. In the community, I want to be recognized by all the locals as “the photographer of the town”. Both I and my husband prefer to live in a smaller community, so I could potentially be the only photographer in the community. I grew up in community like this, so I know that it is possible. These may not seem like big dreams to most people, but these are my dreams. I am a simple person who wants to live a simple life.

Week 8 Photo Challenge: News Worthy

 "MAD SHOE SALE"

This week’s photo challenge was to capture a photo that is news worthy. There are many things in Las Vegas that I knew would be news worthy, but I did not know what would happen for me to catch. I was waiting to see if anything at all would happen and I was lucky that something did. It was Labor Day weekend and my husband and I decided to go shopping at the mall on a Saturday evening. I was not carrying a camera in the mall because stores do not allow photos to be taken because of merchandise that is sold in each one. It is the last place that I would think of bringing a camera for these reasons. I knew that there would be sales going on in most of the stores, but I did not know what kind of sales each store would be having. Little did I know that I would walk into JC Penney’s and discover my news worthy photo. Out of all the stores I walked in this one shocked me the most. It was great to see all the wonderful sales, but the unimaginable clutter of everything made me disgusted. As I was walking around I ran into a pile of shoes and shoe boxes scattered on the floor as if animals had torn through them and left them there to die. I immediately pulled out my phone which has a decent camera on it and got this photo. This goes to show you don’t always need a “fancy” camera to capture a great photo. Many photojournalists today make sure that they have a phone with a camera ready on it. The quality of the camera phone is getting higher and higher every day. Soon I believe point and shoot cameras for this reason will be obsolete.

Week 8 EOC: Is She Fair Game?

In the movie Roman Holiday, the plot revolves around a princess who has run away from home. She has landed in the arms of a man who works for a newspaper, but she does not know what he does. He knows who she is, but never tells her. He immediately develops the idea to get a story about the princess that no one else can get. One of his best friends is a photographer. He arranges for the photographer to meet him while he is out for a fun day with the princess. Little does he know that he (the newspaper writer) will fall in love with the princess. While this is all going on the photographer meets up with the two and begins to secretly take photos of the princess doing different things she’s never gotten to do. These are things such as smoking her first cigarette, dancing with a barber, and hitting someone over the head with a guitar in a fight. Once the newspaper writer found out he was in love with the princess he knew that he could not write the story worth a lot of money. The photographer soon came with the photos and was confused by the writer’s reasons. He said she was “fair game”. The writer said you can take them and make money with them if you want to, but I don’t want anything to do with it. In today’s world it is true that she is fair game. There are many people willing to pay a lot of money for photos of celebrities doing things that are unheard of. The photographer could have black mailed the princess for more money to not show them and I’m sure that this happens today also. I think that because the photographer was the writer’s friend that he made the right choice to not sell the photos and ruin the princess’ name. I’m not sure that with the money that could be made that I or other people would be able to do the same. I guess the saying is true that you don’t know until it happens to you.

Week 7 Photo Challenge: Self Portrait Through Someone's Eye

This week’s photo challenge was to do a self portrait in someone’s eye.  I knew right away that I wanted to use my husband, Michael for this challenge. I thought it would be neat to show him as he sees me. By doing research I saw that most people chose to do an extreme close up of someone’s eye, so I knew right away that I wanted mine to stand out and be different. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would accomplish it, but I was determined to try by experimenting. 

I knew that it needed to be on a day where the sun was shining through my bedroom window because it makes the best light any photographer could ask for. I photographed it around 4 PM. In order to capture myself in his eye I needed to be somewhat silhouetted, so I placed myself in front of the window until I saw myself in his eye. At first I was not seeing myself very well, so I tried to hold my camera vertical instead of horizontal. I immediately saw my arm and knew that this was where I needed to be. For the shot I tried to get in close, but I did not like it too much because I wanted to have a different photo than most people. I then backed up my lens just enough to see an expression on my husband’s face while still being able to see myself in his eye.  I was able to capture this image and I just loved how natural it looked. This is how I get to see Michael through my eyes. He didn’t know how close or far away I was and I was still able to get this subtle reaction from him. I knew right away that this was the shot. I chose to desaturate the photo some in Photoshop to help your eye go to his eye more.