Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier.... I think she was an amazing person that did not belong in this world. Her mind and point of view of the world separates her from everyone else. I also think that same uniqueness of hers made her a lonely person. Her childhood may not have been nice and she may have lacked that motherly feeling that she later on went to pursue as a baby sitter. At the last days of her life I think she really needed a friend, but when the only person she practically had let her down unintentionally, it looked like she kind of gave up.  Her journey in life and the adventures she had is very inspiring though. I do believe she did live a nice life, but I have a feeling she was not able to get what she really wanted. Those last days it seemed as if all she really wanted was to be part of a loving family, to be loved and receive that affection she really needed. She was not understood, and by the end of her life, she seemed really broken.

 I think when she said she was kind of a spy she was referring to how she watches everything around her and captures those precious moments without many people really noticing her. They just thought of her as a weird mysterious person. But that is what a spy is - mysterious.

She was a rare enigma. An inspiration to me if I'm to be honest.

Panning Cars

Today we did panning. It's when we take an action picture that shows movement. We do that by setting the car in TV mode, where we can control the shutter speed, slowing down the shutter speed and following the subject. We took pictures of cars on the street, and I used 1/80 - 1/125 shutter speed with a 200 ISO. I personally had some trouble shooting the cars and making the picture clear, mainly because I did not know until later that in continues shooting you just had to keep pressing the button, not press, press, press. So that was embarrassing. I also think that I didn't have enough time because I really need more practice. There are very few pictures I'm proud of. Most of them are a bit blurry.

 This first one is Derek's. It was a demo picture for me.

 The shot of the orange truck is my personal favorite.

Indoor Portrait

Today we did indoor portraits. This time I was able to get the image I wanted. I was really nervous though but at least I succeeded. Yay!

His name I believe was Deandre. I confess I forgot which is horrible of me, but I'm honestly not good with names at all so I apologize if I got it wrong. But he was cool and very chill. I accidentally shot some "trash" in the background, and the first few were a bit dark. My "assistant" was busy helping others so I had to adjust the lights myself. But overall, I liked it.

 At first I went with Bback and white but with the long board, I decided it was better to use color.

Potraits

Today we did portraits. I am not good at talking to other people, which ended up being my downfall since I did not get the pictures that I wanted. I had so many ideas, but I couldn't ask people to do them >.<

 The first was of a classmate. She's really nice and outgoing

 The second is of Ms. O. I took that while someone else was taking her photo. Again, not exactly what I wanted but it's still good. I tried to get the leaves in.

This third one I tried to get a reflection. Not exactly what I had in mind but it's still good.

Going Manual: Black and White

 For today, I went manual. I had to first learn about ISO, F-Stops, Shutter Speeds and how they all fit together to make an image. We went with black and white to make it more artistic. 

While taking the pictures, I found that even though I had the meter at 0 with the aperture at the biggest (F-Stop at 4.5), the picture came out a bit too bright (I prefer a darker black and white). So I went to the negative side of the meter. To do so, I had to speed up the shutter speed. I also found that at times, even at the fastest speed, the picture came out too bright for my taste. So I had to make the aperture smaller by making the F-Stop a bit higher, around 5.

I also found that the car images came out a bit... bleh, so I added the plants. Not the best images but I made do with what I had >.<

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First Photos

 This is me, Sam.

And these are my first photos.