The Brenzier Effect

I have found a very short, interesting article (?) on something I want to try sometime. It's about "The Brenzier Effect". Basically it's a panorama with a subject (person) in it. I've done panorama's before, so I'm curious as to wether or not I could possibly do it. It will possibly be my next photo project on my own time.
Here's the link.

Response: Is Photography Dead?

I don't think photography is dead. While most people do in fact use cellphones and shoot & points to take pictures of everything in sight, there are still many photographers out there using DSLRs & SLRs.
Although most of those photographers aren't doing straight up documentary work and instead doing portraits for clients, there are still some who do document nature and cities. However, I do think that portraits to some extent (depending on the portrait) is a type of documentary.
When parents hire a photographer to take photos of their newborn, that's documenting. This also works for wedding photographers or even concert and other events. Sometimes some of the stuff is staged, but it's still documenting that day as an important day in whoever's life.
While technology does change images drastically nowadays, it is still a form of art. Not every photo in the world has to be documenting something. It can be interesting to have everything planned and stage it and then manipulate it in Photoshop or Illustrator or whatever people are using.

Link to article

Photo assignment #2: Somewhere I don't belong

For this assignment, I chose a few different things to do. They are all snow related, because we just got lots of snow lately, and I don't enjoy it at all.

On Wednesday evening, during really bad snow, I made a poor life decision. I decided I was going to drive to campus from my apartment even though I have no snow driving experience. I arrived to campus safely, thank God, while there were many others in accidents.

This photo was taken on a gravel road at Tussey Mountain. Like I've said before, I don't have experience driving in snow. I managed to drift, (which was AWESOME!!), and got my car stuck in snow. My friend, Katherine, had to push my car out along with these two guys. Very interesting experience.

We went to Tussey Mountain, because when I first looked at this assignment, this was the first thing that came to mind.A few years ago, I went skiing with my family and my friend... and by family I meant my parents were watching from the sidelines, so it was my sister, my friend and I who went skiing. I had never gone skiing before, so I did about an hour of learning the basics and then decided to get on the bunny hill and give it a try. I went down full speed because I couldn't get my legs to work to help me slow down. The whole way down I screamed louder than a 5 year old girl who's throwing a tantrum for not getting her way. I was terrified and since that day I've sworn to never go skiing again. I prefer to watch others ski/snowboard and laugh when they fall instead.

Last but not least, I went to a winery. I thought it was fitting because I'm not 21 years old yet, so I can't buy alcohol.

Photo 402 Assignment #1

This is Erin and I met her in Walmart. (I practically live in there, but I specifically went to Walmart for this assignment this time.) I tried to use the FORD technique I learned about a few days ago.

She's from outside of Pittsburgh, PA and is currently working here in State College. She also enjoys photography but she isn't committed to it and doesn't really know much. Erin dreams about becoming very successful and traveling in her job, which I can relate to 100%. She has one older sister, a dog, and a cat. I also managed to find out that she's been to about 18 states, including Pennsylvania.

It was a rather awkward experience for a few reasons. I've never went up to someone random and asked to take their picture before and it isn't like the person asked for a picture, or in this case several pictures. Although I am friendly, I don't know how to make small talk or befriend someone either. I didn't have any natural light since it was dark outside and I'm still learning how to do night time photography, so I had to rely on the light I had and my flash since I didn't have a tripod. I should've prepared for this better, and thought ahead more.

Winter Jam 2015 - Penn State

Skillet at BJC

January 16, 2015

Taken with Nikon d7100

Last night I went to the Christian concert, Winter Jam, with a bunch of my very Christian friends. It was a very strange experience because there was a pastor preaching about Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit in between each band.
While most of it I found interesting there was one part that greatly bothered me. He started talking about being pro-life. As a man, he should not have an opinion on it. Men are NOT the ones that have to go through with birth and if they want to bail, they very much easily can, while women cannot. I believe that each woman should have the choice on what to do with the cells before becoming a baby, because you don't know her living situation or what happened.
Anyway, the concert was pretty awesome. It was a total of 10 bands, but I was only really interested in Skillet, because I've been a fan for quite some time. I was impressed by Family Force 5, who I knew of and heard a few songs but never really got into. However... Skillet blew my mind! They were out of this world.
The lighting guy did an incredible job as well. It was spot on. And the crew of each band did a great job setting up and stuff.

Response: The Art of Listening

Like the author of this article has said, the Western Hemisphere is definitely very chatty and doesn't listen much. From my own experiences, whenever I go to Europe, most people genuinely seem to listen to me more, but that just may be because they're interested about America more than they're interested in me. It's very difficult to find a person that will willingly listen to what you have to say without them interrupting you and changing topics completely. Often times, I have this difficulty of listening to whoever is talking to me. I find it even harder to listen in a group setting.  I have also noticed that if I am hanging out with friends, they tend to just sit on their phones while you're trying to talk to them and it's very irritating. I try my hardest to keep my phone in my pocket while hanging out with people because that is why i made time to see them in the first place...to get away from my phone and the internet in general.


You can find the link to this article here.