It’s quickly approaching and my plans are finally coming together. I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do for college because it will define what happens in the rest of my life. In thinking about that I’ve been sort of freaking out about it. I’m freaking out because I dont even know what I want to do yet. I have so many options, architect, engineer, banker, photographer, musician.. the list goes on and on and really one of the most important things of my life is my Faith and Jesus Christ. I know that I owe all that I am to him and I want to put him first and foremost in my life but, I dont want to narrow my horizon of futute oppertunities by only going to a cemenary school. So, I’m stuck. But then there’s Ravencrest Chalet. Ravencrest is a really special school, located in the moutnians of Estes Park Colorado it is beautiful. This is where im going next year…

just a short hike away, this is magic lake

So, I think you can see where my choice of college comes into this photography site. It’s unbelievably gorgeous and I will be taking so many pictures. On my flickr page over there >>> you can see the shots I took while I was there for just a few days visiting. I took some pans just because I wanted my family to see how gorgeous the place was. So look foreword to more pictures of this beautiful place in the future.

Today I finally had some free time and got some editing done. I worked on my Toy Car set, It’s turning out nicely, and I also got some older photos edited. Everything is on flickr so get looking! And my stream is just to the right of this post so no excuses!

Just for the record, I use Adobe Lightroom 2 to edit my pictures and I absolutely love it. Lightroom offers exactly what a photographer needs, nothing more and nothing less. It’s just so sweet. I cant say enough good things about it. I know that photoshop is the holy grail of photo editing but I really enjoy working in Lightroom. its easy to use, unlike photoshop, because its totally dedicated to professional photographers, not photographers, visual designers, website designers, etc. so yeah. its great.

My first photo from my Toy Car series. much more to come. i have a lot of cars! haha. so stay tuned!

A great hanging chair, Brittany Spears memorabilia, cassette tapes, and I found a bunch of little matchbox toy cars. They were all beat up from years of play but I was so attracted to them. They were all different colors and shapes and body stiles. So, I took them home with me.

I’m going to shoot these cars (as in photographs, obviously). Toy cars have always inspired me. As a kid I never really played with them a whole lot; I didn’t have tracks, or cases, or a collection. But I always loved them. When I would get a toy car I’d just look at it. I think it’s so cool to this day how the details are so true to the real cars. So I’m going to try to capture this childhood interest in photographs.

I’m really excited about this shoot (which I’ll probably end up ding later today). I’m excited to work on the angles and light sources, and light positions, and backgrounds, and exposure times. I’ve looked up some photos on Flickr of toy cars and I have some ideas of my own. I’ll post some pictures on my Flickr as soon as I finish shooting and editing. stay tuned!

So, my mom is a professional interior decorator and stager for houses to be put on the market and with that job she puts artwork up in homes and sells the artwork to the homeowners and she said it would be a good idea for me to take pictures that would go along with the color schemes of the room so that I could sell my photos and she would have some really great artwork in the rooms. Are you hearing that?! I’m going to SELL my PHOTOGRAPHS! That basically makes me a professional photographer. Haha okay well maybe not that far, but still its every real photographers dream to not only get their work out to viewers eyes but also to get some cash for it. So needless to say im excited.

I’ll take landscapes at Jax beach and of the city and of the river and I’ll do still lifes of things that will go with the houses. It’s perfect for me because I love to take pictures and I love doing local things that bring the viewer to that spot (shown by my 150+ facebook albums haha) and I like being inspired and the rooms will help that for me. I’m just so excited!

As far as an update on my darkroom goes, I’ve been working my butt off at the YMCA lifeguarding to get enough cashola for the chemicals and i think this next paycheck will cover the costs! so i SHOULD have my darkroom up and running by next post.

Lots of exciting stuff going on for me! Thanks for the read and comments, shares, etc. are appreciated! the picture will probably be my first sale! get excited!!

You all have the little point and shoot cameras i’m sure. Maybe thats all you have. Well I think they’re great. I’ve been carrying one in my car with me and on my person sometimes wherever I go and just taking pictures of what I see. Not only have I just be able to catch some fun and interesting shots of me and my friends, I’m learning to look through my viewfinder at the outside world.

One of my heroes in photography is Ansel Adams. He was quoted saying;

“Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: ‘Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print – my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey – from the subject before me?’ – Ansel Adams

This is what I’m trying to emulate while I’m just playing around with my point and shoot. Granted, most of the shots are throw aways with little or no artistic value. But what it’s helping me to do is tell a story with my pictures. Maybe  take a picture of me and my friends at a shaved ice stand and I capture an embrace or an expression that i wouldn’t have been able to catch if the camera wasn’t in my hand. Or I’m just hanging out in my car and see a street that looks really cool so I snap a picture. It’s things like that that gave me the idea to do this. And I’m liking it. So, I just thought I’d pass that word out to you who read this. Try it if you’re not already. It’ll help you home in your skills of looking through the lens at the world.

This black and white photograph, titled Tetons Snake River is a picture of a river and trees and huge mountains in the background. Behind the mountain there are big puffy clouds. It looks as if the sun is behind the clouds because there is a burst of light coming through the clouds in spots. The sky has a medium value overall with a burst of light being a light value and the clouds being slightly darker in value. The mountains are snow covered and they have peaks of very light valued snow while the mountains themselves are very dark valued. The mountains make a jagged line across the skyline and have a harsh rocky texture. They form almost individual triangular shapes all bunched together forming the jagged line. There is one peak taller than the others very close to the burst of light in the sky. Beneath the mountains are trees and forests and a river. To the left of the river the trees have very dark values and are on very light valued ground. The trees have a leafy texture and the ground that they are on looks soft. On the right of the river the trees have different values than the left. The trees to the right are lighter in value and are smaller. They look softer and more fragile than the big trees on the right. The river winds through the center of the photograph. It is shaped like a backwards “S”. The river has the lightest value of the whole photograph. It has ripples on its surface giving it a smooth fluid texture. The banks of the river are sandy and also have a light value. With all of this the sun from behind the clouds seems to be the main source of light. The light is diffused trough the clouds and there are not harsh shadows because if this. The photographer is standing above the bank of the river looking at the mountains and the sky. About half of the frame is the river and trees and the other half is the mountains and the sky.

This is a very complexly organized work of art. The light value of the river is balanced by the burst of light in the clouds above. And yet the eye is drawn to the river first. And the bottom of the frame is separated in two by the river that runs through it. The power that the river holds in the picture is also offset by the huge mountains behind it. There are also a few different points of emphasis. The river being very lightly valued and at the bottom of the photo grabs attention first. Then the eye follows the river up to the mountains which grab attention because they are so big then they eye moves up finally to the burst of light and the result is truly breathe taking. The “S” made by the river creates visual movement in the picture, carrying the eye of the viewer through the scene. Graduation can be seen in the mountains. There is one tall peak and from there they get successively smaller. Proportion can be seen in the trees. There is one tree very close to the photographer that is very detailed in the print but very far back, near the mountains the trees appear much smaller because they are so much further away. There is a harsh contrast between the river and the trees to the right bank. This photo achieves unity by a varying wide range of values organized into uniform shapes.

Ansel Adams loved nature. I think that his main purpose in taking this picture is to show everyone else how incredible and amazing the world is and so that they could maybe appreciate it like he does. The message is that the world we live in is awesome and he planned this picture carefully, no doubt, in order to get this message across best. Adams chose this specific composition because not only does it capture gorgeous scenery it also has artful qualities. The river especially, it creates movement in the photo and it also is a great example of nature’s beauty. The river achieves form and function in one.

I personally love this picture and have since the first time I saw it. I first saw the wide-angle landscape then the river and the mountains struck me first then I saw the light above them and I was sold. I can relate to this work because I, like Adams, love nature. I would chose to spend a day hiking in Yellowstone and taking pictures over being stuck inside any day. This photo has inspired me to go to Yellowstone because that’s where Adams got his start and fell in love with both photography and nature.

Well, today I read online that a good way to become inspired is to walk 100 steps and take a bunch of pictures where ever you end up. Soo.. thats what I did. I walked all around my yard and ended up near a flower bed. The result is the latest bunch of pictures on my flickr. I worked with the bokeh and used my zoom lens to get up tight to the flowers.

I’ve always liked macro photography. I like making the little seemingly insignificant things look big and important. So check out my flickr and let me know what you think!

I’m almost done with my paper on ansel adams. He’s a great man and photographer and I’m so glad that I chose this photo. It’s so breathtaking and it’s gorgeous and it’s one of the few landscape photographs in black and white that really capture these descriptions.

So overall, If youre interested in becoming inspired, try the 100 step activity. It’s fun. Get down on the ground, play with the angles, bring a reflector board and a friend and play with the light if you want, just get out there! I need to hear these words that im typing too.

I’ll put a link to my facebook album here (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=249195&id=906285483&l=71e0fb924c) if you’re interested. but none of them are really Flickr worthy.