Fun @ Plum

This is a funny portrait of my co-worker, Brittany Custer, and our boss, Cari Aliveto Rosen. This is another example of the unpredicted, candid moments that happen during down time or on a slow day at work. This was shot without a flash, using the both natural and artificial lighting in the shop with my Nikon D300 camera. 

The Plum Life

For my portrait assignment, I decided to spend a day shooting at Plum, a shop in Shepherdstown where I work. There's never a dull moment at Plum, and the strange situations and funny encounters that happen there on a daily basis make for great photographs. This particular picture is a portrait of the owner of Plum, Cari Aliveto Rosen. It was shot using my Nikon D300 camera with a standard lens. I used it on "manual" so that I could control my shutter speed as well as the lighting. Photographing in a shop like this can be difficult because of the multiple light sources, so I chose to use a flash, and have the natural light behind me, facing my subject.

Lead The Way...

This photo isn't the most journalistic-style photo, but I do really like it. It was one of the first photos that I took while familiarizing myself with my camera and taking some practice shots. What I enjoy most about this photo is that it utilizes the rule of leading lines, which is something that we covered the first week of the semester. Also, even though it wasn't a very sunny day I like the grey sky and the tone of the photo. I did edit this photo somewhat in Photoshop, just increasing the color contrast and lowering the exposure a bit. I think that this photograph would also look good in a grey scale format as well, which would make it have a more nostalgic appearance. 

The Ride Home

This was one of my early attempts at a slow shutter speed and shallow depth of field. Luckily for me this was a cloudy day so that the limited natural light source allowed for a slower shutter speed and for me to capture this image. To create this photo I had to pan with the school bus at the right speed, which is a skill that I’ve now become more comfortable with, and am able to create the shots that I want. I thought that this would also be able to be a good photo for a story about school busses or the local Jefferson County Schools. The only thing that I really dislike about this photo is the power line in the top of the image and I wish that I had gotten the bus in the center of the frame.

bike.

I thought that this was an interesting subject because the way the bike was against the fence it blended in, but also stood out because of the bright blue colors against the grey background. The lighting of this image is something I really like, because it wasn’t a very sunny day the colors were a bit muted, but I think it made for a better photograph. I also did some simple edits to this photo by using Photoshop. I slightly altered the brightness and exposure and the color contrast. This also follows the rule of thirds principle. 

Iconic Shepherdstown

 

This is a photograph of a town cat that I spotted while out shooting one day. I really like this because if you are at all familiar with the small town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where I live, then you would know how common these town cats are and how they in a way they are iconic. For this photo I thought it would be nice to have the Shepherdstown license plate in the frame, however, I wish that I would have gotten down at eye level with the cat to create a more solid background. 

What This Blog Is All About

So far over the course of this semester we have covered many topics pertaining to photo journalism in this class as well as a variety of journalistic styles of photos. This includes feature photography and stand alone photos, general news, sports photography. As well as learning more about how to effectively use our cameras to create the images that we want, such as deep and shallow depth of field, adjusting shutter speed, the rule of thirds, lighting and more. This blog will be a place for me to share and display those photos that I take for this course, as well as explaining how I captured these images and what rules and styles they fall under.