Random Photo Wednesday: Jellyfish

I've decided to start uploading frames that I've taken that don't really have a place anywhere. I'm going to draw from DTH assignments, class assignments, and just personal photos I've taken. Anything that stikes me for any particular reason.

  

I took this photo of a a ceiling fan light in my living room. It came out really cool and it reminded me of a jellyfish.

Abandoned House

I came across this house when I was out shooting earlier this week. It is up the street from where I live and has a large CONDEMNED sticker plastered on the front door. After walking around the back, I managed to find a back door that was open and I went inside.

Here is what I found:

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Awkward Encounters on Campus

This is the first major video project I have produced. I created it for my Audio and Video Information Gathering class along with my partner. The idea developed from my personal fascination with my own social interactions walking between classes on campus. I wanted to know why I felt the need to avoid talking to certain people, why I avoided eye contact or felt the impulse to dig through my pocket to answer a text message on my phone that didn't exist. Luckily, I wasn't the only person who felt these impulses and students were pretty open about talking about their experiences.




The biggest problem with this project was capturing the encounters themselves. These moments are fleeting and hard to capture and awkward experiences are not necessarily universal and they are very much internal. I decided the best way to convey awkwardness stylistically would be to capture our interviewees candidly. By using extreme close ups and jerky movements the awkward feeling would be conveyed  to the viewer more effectively.

The video quality is not pristine, mainly because I wasn't sure what would be the best file type to export with from Final Cut and Vimeo not uploading the orignal Quicktime movie file.

Barbells 4 Boobs

 

For whatever reason I keep getting sent to Hillsborough to shoot for the Daily Tar Heel. This event called "Barbells 4 Boobs" was sponsored by various Orange County fitness clubs in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Participants raised money for mammogram screenings.

I like the layering of this photo. You can see people in various stages of the lift from the background to the foreground. Plus, the look on the dude's face is priceless.

Shot with Canon EOS 30D.

Hillsborough Jazz Fest

This was my first big assignment for the Daily Tar Heel. I probably took 500 pictures over the course of the festival. It was my first time using a 70-200 mm lens, and I took advantage of it. I shot a lot of close ups of the musicians' hands playing their instruments. The lighting was great and allowed me to get some really great shots. The story that ran in the paper was packaged with multiple art, which was really cool for me.

The Raleigh-based performance group, The Magic of African Rhythm performed at the festival. I've seen them twice now, and they are an incredible show. A majority of my shots from the festival are of the group, just because their vibrant outfits and unique instruments. This photo is of a Kora, a traditional West African stringed instrument typically made from a hollowed out gourd and animal sinews.

I ran into Larry Thomas backstage right after The Magic of African Rhythm got done performing. I mistook him for a member of the group because of his colorful threads. He was actually one of the  emcees for the event. I found out that he had actually written for the DTH on the Arts desk as a UNC grad student back in the 80's. Small world.















Photos shot with a Canon EOS 30D

Hillsborough Handmade Parade

I shot this at the Handmade Parade in Hillsborough, NC for The Daily Tar Heel. Probably my favorite photo I've shot so far. Most people when they first see the photo don't understand why I took it until the see the kid peeking out the mouth of his mask. It's a photo you have to look at a while to take it all in. The colorful puppets and costumes made for great subjects to shoot. The lighting was a little hard to deal with because the sun was right overhead and I didn't realize that I was shooting on shutter priority (which I had never shot on before) until about half way through the parade. Nonetheless, I was able to create a photo gallery from the photos I took.

Shot with Canon EOS 30D, 70-200 mm lens.