February. This was a month of big changes for me. I started wondering what I needed to do to make myself happiest instead of worrying about other things while sacrificing my happiness. So I decided to leave my job. I am feeling much more relieved and at ease. This month I also moved in with my love. It was a big change for me. It seems that if I've been neglecting certain things while I tried to get settled in this new place and now I feel like I am finally home. I always get excited this time of year because it seems like it is when all of the musical artists that I like decide to go on tour after a restful winter. I attended Angel Olsen and also I went to a show at the Crystal Ballroom that was a protest concert and benefited ACLU and Unite Oregon. There were multiple acts that were all incredible and prestigious speakers. My favorite band Sleater-Kinney headlined the event. My love and I also took a big step and decided to adopt a puppy. He has been a handful and definitely taking up most of my free time, but we love him to death. Anyway, I am very grateful that we are starting to see the first signs of Spring in Oregon and I'm ready for whatever the next few months will offer me.
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Wow, February! This month has been incredible. I can't believe the good weather we have been having, I have never seen a winter in Wyoming this nice. This month I went to Denver to visit my sister and go see my favorite band in the entire world. It was the first time that I've ever taken a trip completely by myself and it was so nice. It was wonderful seeing my twin sister, I hardly ever get to see her since she lives in Colorado now. We had a blast. Denver is so fun and very pretty, I always enjoy it there. The concert was probably the best things that has happened to me so far this year. It was.. just amazing. I saw Sleater-Kinnney, if you were wondering and I shot the show which I'll probably make a separate post about it so I can show my favorite photos! My photo of the month this month is my favorite picture I took at the concert of my biggest idol, Carrie Brownstein.
Here are some more photos I took in Denver! I'm going to be writing about my printing process and how I display my photographs in my film work. Film is something that I fell in love with the first time I printed in a darkroom. My favorite has been doing black and white film and making silver gelatin prints, but lately I've been doing color film and some alternative processes stuff. For those of you that don't know what alternative process printing is, it is using a variety of older printing techniques that use raw chemicals to develop a photo! I'll probably do a separate post on that later! Anyway, out of all the processes that I've learned so far, black and white is still at the top. Printing in a darkroom is such a fun thing! Although it can be frustrating too. Frustrating because some days it's just really hard to get any prints you like! If you don't know much about photography or only about digital then I'll give a quick little lesson about printing in a darkroom. If you know about this you can just skip to the next paragraph! You start by shooting your film and getting it developed into negatives, whether you do it yourself or send it off to be developed. I know how to develop black and white film but not color for instance. In the darkroom you have a set up with large trays of chemicals and an enlarger. Your enlarger has a place for your negative to go inside, a timer, and a lens. This is the machine that projects your image larger than the negative onto paper. You put your paper underneath and figure out what time is best to get the perfect exposure! The light shines down on the paper and now it's time for chemicals! I wont get into all the details but you have to develop your paper in a chemical, usually Dektol, then move it to another chemical that stops the photo from developing, then onto a Fixer which removes all the undeveloped silver (silver is what makes the paper light sensitive) Then you wash your print so it's nice and clean and you're done! Obviously this usually takes a few tries and lots of variables. I hope I didn't get too confusing! Printing is great, I could spend hours in a darkroom. Everyone has a different way that they want their work to look, and that starts from the time you're shooting to printing to mating your photographs. I like to print 4"x6" prints because I use 35mm negatives so I like to get more detail from the negative by not enlarging it so big, besides I think it looks more modest having smaller photos. Also, if your photos are smaller, people want to get in close and look at them! I like to have all my photos a little dark with some contrast, really bright whites and really nice blacks. I cut my own mats and even do the window inside myself, then I buy these nice and affordable 11"x14" frames and call it good! I like having simple frames so it doesn't distract from the work itself! Any questions about printing or film photography? How do you like to present your work?What did you think of this post? Comment in the section below! Here is my photo of the month for May! I took this photo when in Denver at the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver of my boyfriend looking over the street. We went and picked him up from the airport that day and spent the day downtown! I also took this photo on the left of my best friend, tired after a long drive and adventure in the city. I usually love May. May is the month that it finally stops snowing and the freezing cold wind ceases in Wyoming. It's finally the time of year when we get some rain and sun! It's so perfect to have some green in the hills, leaves growing on the trees, birds singing and I'm so in love with the warm sun. College is out and it's exciting to get a start into Summer with less responsibilities and more traveling! And more working too, but that's okay as long as I get to sleep in! This month I got to have my film photos in the gallery at school and got into the school magazine. Also, I figured out that I only have one semester left until I graduate with my Associates Degree. It has been a good month for me and I hope it has been for everyone else! I have been shooting a variety of things, especially outside. Living in Wyoming means there isn't much to shoot between the months of October until May so all I end up shooting when it gets nice out is flowers and plants and the sky and the nature in Wyoming that I don't get to enjoy in the many months of Winter. I enjoy going on runs and hikes as soon as it's nice enough. And of course I went to Denver as soon as school was out and my friends and I had a great time! I took some photos of my friends while I was there. I hope to have a gallery in my Digital Photography Gallery of Wyoming photos this Summer since I don't have a specific album of where I live yet! It seems that I've been shooting quite a bit of black and white lately! What do you enjoy shooting in Spring? This wasn't just the first reception for a gallery opening that I went to, but the first that had some of my work in it!
Of course it was just the graduating show for the art students at my college but that didn't mean it was any less important to me. I put in three silver gelatin prints that I took in New York and printed early this semester. I also had some of my photos published in our school magazine this semester, so that was also exciting. Some of my family members and a few friends came to see and I was very happy that people came to support me! I'm very glad to have had my photos in our schools gallery! It was a great experience and it was great seeing all my fellow students work too. I thought that I should make a post about this important start to hopefully a great career and many gallery receptions! I'm not a huge fan of self portraits, only because I have a hard time photographing myself. Which is understandable because it's hard! Getting the focus in the right spot, timing everything perfectly, being able to pose how you really want, not being able to look through the lens. It is difficult but I do think that it's good to do and practice. I try to take some self portraits every once and awhile, since I'm not perfect at portraits. I don't think people usually try self portraits because they are difficult, although just like in drawing or painting or any other art, I think it's important to study a subject that you see often but don't really look at and try to see it in a new light! This is one that I took awhile back, just me in my room. For these photographs, I wanted to be emerging from the dark. I didn't want you to be able to tell what was the background and the black coming around me. I wanted my skin to be the brightest thing. I would definitely want to try out some more, I think it's interesting how I could possibly chop up my own form by doing this and potentially make it pretty interesting and abstract. So what do you think? This month has been a pretty good one, photography wise! My Photo of the Month for March is one I took for a project that we had in my Digital Photography class. It was called "Urban Landscape" and it either had to be black and white or split toned. Split toning is where you change the tint of the shadows and the highlights which can work really well depending on the photo. I think the small amount of yellow in this complimented the overall feel of the photo. I have been learning to make Van Dyke and Salt prints and I have to say, I really love alternative processes more than I ever thought I could. Each are processes that are old processes where you have to coat your own paper with chemicals and then expose the print in the sun. I think it's become my favorite medium after silver gelatin prints. Here is a photo of the first Van Dyke prints that I ever printed! Tell me what you think in the comments! Hello Everyone! Welcome to my first Photo of the Month! I will be posting one each month throughout the year so you can see what I am working on and doing on a monthly basis, then you can see what I'm photographing all the time!
This is a photo I took on the 27th at Casper College of the statue of the Thunderbird on campus. My digital photo class was instructed to go out and all take a photo we liked of it and we all compared how different they were! We all took very different photos of the statue. I thought that it would be a pretty boring thing to shoot but I ended up liking my photo very much. I've been learning alot more about photoshop lately and I love being able to apply it in the ways that I enjoy editing. Tell me what you think of this photo? Comment below! |
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Each month I will be posting a Photo of the Month! Also I'll try to work in any requested posts or things I find interesting to post! Enjoy! Archives
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