no sleep

I'm on break now.. thank goodness..I feel like this school has done nothing but discourage me lately. I walked in last Tuesday only to discover that one of my school loans got denied. Luckily I was able to get a different one out, BUT it shoved my graduation date ahead, which absolutely crushed me, of course. 

I am utterly disturbed by the fact that someone who does not want this as bad as I do can graduate before me just because they or their parents are in a better financial position.

I also nearly failed one of my final projects because I turned in 6 out of 8 photos.

This quarter, I have learned that it is much better to turn in 8 terrible photographs that were shot the day before the project was due, than to turn in 6 that were worked on over a period of weeks.

I did manage to get a C for all my hard work though.

I have decided that my grades at The Art Institute mean nothing to me, due to the fact that someone who either does a terrible job, turns their work in late, or just plain does not care, somehow always manages to get praised and get an A.  

(Heather helping me test lights for JD's photograph)

Thank goodness that this girl exists, because I swear I would never be able to get through a day at AIP anymore without her. Heather, thank you for being such a wonderful person. It was truly a blessing that I met you. If I find that nothing else good comes from this school, I know that I have at least met someone who I know will always be around for me and care about me no matter how grumpy or sad or frustrated & mean I can be...and I swear, we could both be in the worst mood and still manage to come out laughing in the end. It's so nice to have someone like that here. She is also an epic photographer and helps drive my creativity & pushes me to do more. I have never in my life met someone more creative than her. Her mind is like magic.

anyways.. here are some photographs i guess.
I was really bothered by my last one because I wanted more paint. So I bought more and painted myself again. I don't think anybody has any idea how much fun this can be.... minus the fact that once the paint started to dry, it felt like my skin was burning off.

This really needs a lot of work. I plan on reshooting this soon. You most likely will not understand this unless you have played the video game Fallout.

And these are just some more photos of J.J. that I've been working on. He rocks.

I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas. I know I will because I need this time off and I have been playing BIOSHOCK nonstop.

Kathi - Portraiture Final

This is Kathi from Kutters Edge. She is the one who pierced my lip and my eyebrow :D It's such a blast talking to her and she has such an awesome personality. If you are thinking about getting a piercing, I highly recommend her. Check out her website...

http://www.kuttersedge.com/

J.J. - Portraiture Final

It was so much fun hearing some of the different songs he has made and watching him come out of his room with a new instrument every half hour! He's extremely talented when it comes to music!

Kevin - Portraiture Final

This is my manager Kevin. He is the best! :D

Jordan - Portraiture Final

This is my friend JD... I met him at a movie theater where I go to play Dance Dance Revolution.. He is the manager there and sometimes we DDR together when I go up there..It is kind of humorous since we both play on heavy mode... and if you've ever seen 2 people in sync on DDR in heavy mode, it can be really fun to watch XD

Don - Portraiture Final

This is part of my final project.

This is Claire's dad, Don. He cuts gems and also teaches a class on how to do it... which I hope to take some time in the near future! Check out his website!

www.headwaterslapidary.com

Self Portraits

These were fun.. I normally hate self portraits.

"This is the end of everything I am"

 

 Hello Alone - Anberlin

Splicer - Bioshock

PIZZA IS NOW A VEGETABLE

I KNEW IT! Now I just have to wait for chicken nuggets to become a vegetable and I can finally say that I have a healthy diet.

Splicer photograph coming soon!

Portraiture - final project

I am doing a series of portraits that involve people and their jobs/hobbies. I'm trying to incorporate something from their job/hobby in each image I make. I just want something from it to effect the image in some way.

This is my favorite teacher from high school. I had a lot of fun shooting this and setting up the lights. I took it in front of the chalkboard and used that as the background. I actually did not use the lighting I originally planned on doing, because I did not realize the chalkboard would bounce the light back in such an odd way.... But after switching it around a few times, I decided on the split lighting with the slight rim light on the bottom left.

---Thank you so much for helping me :)

it's only in your eyes

"To the wolves, you left me to the wolves." -Anberlin

 

Splicer - concept board

I am working on my concept board that is due for class...in 3 hours.. (shhh) BUT.. my next shoot will be of a Splicer from the video game Bioshock. It has to be either food or fashion.. And I discovered that my friend Mari has a costume for a Splicer... So I am making these wicked characters part of a fashion shoot! If you have no idea what a splicer is, you can search it on Google and a ton of pictures will pop up. They are incredibly creepy looking, but I'm going to take a different approach to them in this shoot. Here is my lighting diagram. I'll be shooting this next Wednesday!

Firebender

Mari,
Thank you so much for standing in that spot for so long while I got the lighting right. You are the best.

 

Red Dragon/composite

I haven't updated this in forever.. oops.

Here's 2 things I've been working on.. This is a composite I made for one of my classes.. And it goes along with the other one that's like this.. I'm making a series of these.. so you'll be seeing more :D

This other photo was shot for advanced studio.. and I based it off of the movie Red Dragon and also a poem. Here's a link to the poem

That's my friend Heather.. one of the most creative people I have ever met in my life :)

Continuing my HDR project...

I wanted to redo this photo at night for my HDR project (..which was an old class assignment but I decided to keep working on it).. I still have problems with this photo that I'm working on fixing, which are mainly the really wacky color issues that went on when I merged the 5 images.. I've never done an HDR photo at night, but I feel like this is pretty decent for my first try.

(click to view larger)

 

Peterswood Park

Today is my last day of the quarter and then I'm off until.. October 4th I think. YAY! and only 9 days until I am 20 years old! Aw yeeeeah.

Claire

Gemstones

I haven't updated this in a while..for several reasons. and I don't feel like explaining right now.

I shot some gems.. Here are two...

Claire's dad, Don Laufer, makes awesome gemstones! He let me borrow a few to practice lighting.

http://www.headwaterslapidary.com/index.html

Go check out his website. He makes some pretty amazing stuff and teaches a class for cutting stones, too... (which I also photographed..but will put those up soon)


At the moment, I am wondering why I am still awake at 3:48am when I have to be up at 6:00am.
My final portfolio is done, besides one photo.. so I'm not worried about being productive in class today. YAWN.

iRUN

Today I was so angry, that I got up and walked out of my class.
Heh.

Too bad my teacher didnt even notice I was missing for an hour.

I walked around Pittsburgh for almost an hour just so I could chill out.. and let me point out how awesome it is that Pittsburgh is FLIPPIN GOTHAM CITY!!! I was walking near all the sets.. and walked on the snowy set.. It is SOOOO NEEEEAT. I am going back tomorrow to take pictures.. because the photography student did not have her camera today... TUH!

Ok.. well here are my not-creative portraits.

Here are more from the cosplay shoot

And here are some photos I was just playing around with..

you can make anything new

"i dont have every answer in life but i'm trusting you one day at a time, cause you can make a weak heart stay alive forever."

Me

I do not like speaking. I am not a speaker. I will never be a speaker. I do not have very good social skills and consider myself socially awkward. I have horrible telephone anxiety. I am not good at starting conversations with people, so I normally don't. I am not asocial or anti-social, whatever you want to call it. I just don't have anything to say most of the time.. unless you are really close to me.. or as socially awkward as I am...

What's funny about this is.. I'm a photographer.. and that involves talking to people... and I don't talk very well.

I'm probably going to get a C in my speech class...which I quite honestly don't care about that much.
I'll be happy to pass the class..because I've been struggling to care about it or keep up in it.. and I've been dreading speech since I started school and knew it was going to come up eventually.. at least I'm done with it next week. I took it online so I could actually video record myself instead of standing in front of people (because I am that afraid of speaking), and I'm still doing a crappy job.

...actually...sometimes I wonder if my teacher is reading the responses.. because I've noticed that she copies and pastes the same response to everyone..and I feel like I did my last assignment right but apparently it's wrong along with everyone else's........OH WELL.


This was from a cosplay shoot. It turned out pretty neat.

 

1:14am

I am having WAYYY too much fun with digital lith prints...

 

More Claire..

This is a poster I made for my digital darkroom class...and the rest are just more photos of Claire

Claire 2

My Best Friend, Claire

Finally, finally, finally, we get to see each other again..

(click to view larger)

 

Lith Printing

neat little article on how to do lith printing in the darkroom..

click...
LITH PRINTING


Now I've got some ideeeeaaas!

Digital Lith Prints

 

Tritone

I'm really starting to fall in love with duotones and tritones. I think I posted this picture in color from when I went on vacation, but I really, really, really love this as a tritone.

(click to view larger)