Interview

I did an interview with Wildlife photographer Mark Stadsklev. He is actually an inspiring person because he says that he just shoots when hes in spirits or when he needs a dose of nature away from humanity. He also never went to college for photography, he had taken a course later on in life and is a self taught photographer. He says that he doesnt reccomend being self taught though, i guess he just wants the best for young photographers to go and learn as much as they can in school. He became a photographer because hes been an Alaskan pilot for 25 years and he couldnt resist the beauty of Alaska. I enjoyed the advise he had given me which is "to be a better photographer, first be a better person”. He also uses Canon cameras only because he figured he can get many different lens that fit. He uses a 17-35 mm for landscape, for macro a Sigma 180, and for aerials a 70-200. 

Winter

For photo 1 I'm doing the winter landscape for my final project. I really want to focus on wooded areas to show the beauty in this time of year even though everything is dead. I chose to do this because most people view this time of year as depressing and ugly, meanwhile I view it as beautiful. It is beautiful because when fall goes into winter all the leaves die and fall off. Its a metaphor for life that its good to let dead things go and make room for something new to grow, like winter going into spring.
 

Close Up

      I have kind of just noticed that when I take photographs I really like getting up close and personal with my subjects, whether thats people, plants, animals, etc. I would really love to get a zoom lens so that I can really explore more up close without my lens going crazy because its too close. Recently I went upstate to visit family and I was driving and seen a ton of cows just chilling in a giant field and knew I had to take photos. These cows instantly got up and came to me and were intrigued by the camera, especially this all black cow, which was the only one there that had that coloring. These cows were super friendly too and were sniffing me and even posing for the camera, which made it even more fun. It was already super fun to begin with because on Long Island we don't have random cows in the middle of nowhere and upstate they do so it was nice getting something that I don't see everyday. I really want to pursuit wildlife photography so its fun that lately I've been seeing animals and they have been coming to me and it makes me even more passionate about these animals.

Comfort Zone

      For one of the photo classes the students have to email or some how contact a professional photographer and ask questions for a final project. This is uncomfortable for me personally because I dont usually introduce myself to people first especially complete strangers. I have already messaged some photographers on Instagram and they all do wildlife photography. I am really interested in wildlife photography especially for National Geographic. The people that I had messaged have worked for or currently work for National Geo. I am a bit paranoid that no one will get back to me with anything. I am intruiged as to how they got where they are and how they started. I also am wondering if wildlife was their first choice, or if they had wanted or tried a different area of photography. Emailing other photographers who are so good at what they do intimidates me a bit because they are so good I want them to like my work and to be impressed. It is also intimidating because they are professional and have worked with important people or companies.

Gallery

      At the college there was an art gallery for the staff and another photo major and I went. It was interesting to see what our professors and other professors do outside of teaching classes. I was really impressed with one of my professors photography. He had taken a photo of an old car and printed it on metal which was interesting because I had never seen that before. I did not even know that you could print photos on metal and it makes me wonder what else could be printed on. We were not allowed to touch the work but it was tempting because this image with the car looked like it had texture. Because it looked like it had texture I really wanted to touch it and I think that is also what makes it interesting is that one it is on metal and that it looks visually satisfying because of the texture look.
      There was also another professors work that I was impressed with. This professor had taken pieces of newspaper and incorperated it into her work as a form of symbolism. One painting had an ocean with a boat and the boat looked like it was destryed and there were newspaper clippings of garbage. I believe the symbolism there was about how we pollute our earth and waters with trash. I just liked that she took newspaper clippings and put it into many of the works that were at the gallery

Future Goals

      I have been thinking of some long term goals I would like to accomplish when it comes to my photography. I know that I want to do wildlife and nature photography, but when I think about me working in the future it kind of freaks me out. It freaks me out because I know I would LOVE to work for national geographic or something along those lines, but my mind bugs out when I think of how to get to that point. You have to be extremely good to work for things like nat geo and I am confident in my photos, but it is scary to think of years down the line. I guess it is good that I start thinking now of how do I get to that point I want to be one day. I just do not know how or kind of where to start. Getting your work out there is good but that wouldn't get me a job just posting my photos on my social media. I think one of the first steps I need to take is getting a telephoto lens so I can experiment with that, since those lens' are used for wildlife. I have already started coming out of my comfort zone, like taking images of snakes. I am terrified of snakes, but because I want a career taking photos of animals it is good for me to branch out and do it.
      So I guess I have in a way started slowly going toward my goal. The photo seminar class is a good tool because we talk a lot about the different photo career paths and that soon we're going to email some photographers, which I have a couple in mind. It can just be hard to think of what I want for dinner sometimes let alone 5 years down the road. When it comes to photography though I know what I want, it is just scary to think of how to get there because there are so many different ways and not everyone does things the same way. I think I should just reach out maybe to different wildlife and nature photographers and do some more research on how to get where I want to be one day.

The Studio

   In one of the photo classes we went to a professional photography studio. The man who owns it is named Jim Lennon. I was actually excited to see a professional studio because I had never seen one before. It was quite big inside and he has a lot of room to play with when it comes to his photos. He told the class he does mainly studio work but sometimes he experiments outside of studio work. He talked about some business strategies and it was interesting, but I was more intrigued by his cameras and wanted to see him actually use it. The last five minutes though he did show us a little bit of one of his cameras, but I wish it was not the last five minutes that he decided to show us, I sort of hoped he would have maybe used it sometime in the middle of him speaking. He just did a lot of speaking and it was hard to stand still, so maybe breaking it up and showing us his camera things in between would have made it easier.
    Either way Jim seems like he worked hard and still works hard to get where he's gotten and seems passionate about his job. I hope to one day be successful like that, but I don't know about having my own studio though. I would love to do nature and wildlife photography because I want to travel and I just love nature and being out there. I do not think I could take photos of things like people or products in a studio, it isn't really my thing. The trip to the studio was a nice learning experience and I would go again, maybe learn more about the camera's he used and ask questions.

Feeling Creepy

So for one of the photo 1 assignments the class had to do street photography, which isn't really my thing. I don't enjoy taking photos of random strangers because it makes me feel like a low key stalker. Sometimes people would look at me while I was taking their photo and it made it even more awkward. I did it though and I guess thats good to push out of my comfort zone, but at least I now know that street photography still is not my thing. I did get some nice shots though, like a man on a bike who was awkwardly looking at me. I also got a cool shot of a woman walking and two men walking in the opposite direction with a pole between them so it gave a nice separation to the image. I de-saturated the image and left the woman's blue backpack with the most color because I thought it would look cool and give it a nice pop almost. Of course I was across the street while I took the image so I zoomed as much as a could and in the end I had to still crop a decent amount to get the total focus on the subjects.                                             

Yellow Flowers

For my photo 1 assignment the class had to take photos three different ways. One was the subject had to be in the center, filling the frame, and to be on the edge of the frame. Of course we needed 60 images and I had fun with it because i had the freedom to take whatever pictures I pleased. The only ones I had trouble with were the images where the frame needed to be filled. It was difficult for me because it can be hard to make an image look interesting while filling the whole thing. The ones that I loved and are proud of are these photos with these yellow flowers I found at a state park. It had all these bees on them that wouldn't move, no matter how close I got to them. There were also a ton of beautiful orange butterflies flying around too. Of course those were hard to photograph because the butterflies kept flying away when i got close but I managed to take one I really like. The kind of photography I want to do is nature and wildlife so thats why I was so excited with the way these images came out.                                                             

Salem

For my birthday I went to Salem, Massachusetts and it was interesting. There were so many places for great photos and the architecture was really intriguing. The town has so much history and thats one of the reasons why it was such a good place for me to take some photos. There were many historical houses and they were all black, which is interesting and something we don't have a lot of on Long Island. The grave yards were also interesting because they were so old and worn out that some of them couldn't even be read from the ware and tare. One place in particular is the Burying Point, which is the oldest cemetery in Salem and many of the grave stones were from the 1600's. I thought those would be awesome to photograph because its historical and I don't see many stones here that date that far back. One grave stone in particular was in my opinion kind of beautiful because it had all these pink-purple flowers around it. It was also next to this huge tree that had a giant hole in it and looked decayed. This one was beautiful I think because its ironic that in a place of death, which is not seen as beautiful, there were these extremely pretty flowers growing everywhere in bright colors. I think thats what drew me in because I took plenty of other photographs but the ones I took in this cemetery were something else.                                      

Photo 1 Assignment 1

    For my first assignment in photo 1 with professor Cyr, the class had to basically experiment with our cameras. Each student had to take ten photographs of a high ISO, low ISO, vast depth of field, shallow depth of field, etc. In total there had to be 60 photos and it was a little stressful because it can be hard to think of 60 different picture ideas. In the beginning it was easier to think of things and get the creative juices going, but then I ran out of ideas. The hardest for myself personally was to get images using a fast shutter speed and low shutter speeds, especially the low shutter speed. Personally i'm not a fan of blurred photos so I didn't think any of my photographs looked good like that. 
    All in all it was a positive thing to get to know my camera better and experiment a bit with my pictures. The one photo I liked the most was with a shallow depth of field. It was sunset and i used a dog's eye view to get the image of the tree. I really like that one because sunsets are one of my favorite things and I plan on going into the field of landscape photography and/or wildlife. 
    This project was a little difficult but it did make me think outside the box a bit of what I usually take photos of. Now it is a little easier to think of things to take pictures of and to not just settle with the first image, take multiple in different ways to get different perspectives.