Goodbye 2009...Hello 2010

DT13.2 Blogging Non-School Related Photos

So Christmas break is over and what a great break it has been!! After a crazy few months of photography school I think I got to the point where I needed a break! Not that the photography stopped of course... oh no, lots of assignments have kept me busy in that department! 

But asides from all the assignment shooting, what else have I been up to you ask?! Well, I'll tell you... not a lot! lol! 

I genuinely have been just taking it easy and chilling out at home a lot of the time (oh, when I haven't been at work earning some cash!). 

I haven't been a complete hermit however, and I have dragged out into the cold, blistering Winnipeg weather a few times. 

The first couple of images I'd like to share with you are from a shoot that I done with my sister and her boyfriend, (who has been over from England visiting). Now, my sister wanted some cute/cool couple shots of them, so off we trotted to The Forks where we wandered around, played in the snow and I, as usual, snapped away! Here are 2 of my favourite couple shots:

Harriet and Stuart

Harriet and Stuart

Another snow day that I endured, was with my family and some family friends, tobogganing down a hill!! Now, I was so busy shooting, I only went down the hill once myself, however, I was having great fun watching everyone else! My dad in particular was hilarious, suddenly he was 10 years old and sliding face first on his belly on the sled down the hill! haha! Next thing I knew, someone else was jumping on his back and 2 of them were sliding face first down the snowy hill! The other highlight of the day, again presented to me by my dad, was when he tried to push my sister down the hill, but managed to get his foot caught on the rope of the sled and he tripped backwards and landed on his back in a heap on the floor! I actually think I almost peed myself with laughter whilst trying to get an 'in focus' shot of the event! haha! dont worry though, I didn't pee myself! lol! Anyway, it was a right laugh and here are some of my fave shots from the day:

Tammy about to push my dad face first down the hill in a race again Shawn on the yellow sled.

My Mum and Dad, in fits of laughter might I add!

My Dad on the floor after he fell over haha - is it mean to laugh?!! 

The main event of the holidays... CHRISTMAS DAY itself!! 

My Christmas day was spent at home with the family, there were 7 of us in total, Me, my boyfriend Liam, Mum, Dad, Sister Harriet, Sister's boyfriend Stuart and Catherine, a Chinese student who is living with us in a 'home-stay' while she is studying at the U of M. It was Catherine's first ever Christmas, as they don't celebrate it in China so it was good fun being able to exchange gifts with her and enjoy a delicious christmas dinner with her! Hopefully she enjoyed it as much as my family and I did! Here are some of my shots from Christmas Day:

Our lovely Christmas tree

The Family (plus Catherine) - (L-R Dad, Harriet, Stuart, Catherine, Me, Liam, Mum)

I set this up then put on the self timer and had to run around the table without slipping over on the wooden floor to get to my seat before the photo was taken!! A Challenge!!

My yummy Christmas Dinner, Starter course - Prawn Cocktail! - I don't know if this is something that's eaten in Canada, but its my starter every year!!

Oh and finally, how could I almost forget; at the beginning of the break, myself, Laura and Janine went out shooting together. We got in the car and basically just drove, looking for things to shoot. It was typical though that it was like -40degrees with windchill the day we went out! I swear I almost died! We were all wrapped up in our snow suits, basically we looked like we were about to go snowboarding down a mountain! BUT even being wrapped up it was STILL cold!! We were jumping out of the car, taking a few shots, then running back into the car to warm up! Crazy times, but kinda fun still! Here are a couple of shots from our little adventure!:

Laura freezing her backside off setting up her shot!

Janine Posing on the car

All in all, I had great break! I didn't go away anywhere or do much really, but I had fun with my family, regained some energy that I'd burnt during the last few months and worked hard on assignments. All in all, a nice end to 2009!

Welcome, 2010!!!

xxx

Prettyful Sheldean!

So I'm working on Gabrielle's assignment for Digital Techniques and I'm finding it quite tricky. I chose Portrait's as my theme for the first part and therefore need about 30 portrait shots.

Portraiture is my forte and where I feel comfortable, yet I'm finding I don't have the time, what with working a part time job as well, to set up some decent shots.

So Im finding I'm getting just bog-standard, average shots which Im not happy with.

I took a few shots of some of the girls at school earlier and I got a gorgeous one of Sheldean, so i've been playing around with it in Lightroom and heres the outcome:

I wish we could submit edited pics for the assignment - I HATE my unedited shots! They always look so bland until I've played around with them in Lightroom or Photoshop. 

As for the second part of the assignment, with the subject of Framing - don't even get me started on that! I need another 30 odd images for that part and don't even know where to begin. I think I have about 5 shots so far.

Ugh, oh well, i'm sure i'll pull something together, i'll have to! 

For now, I hope you like my shot of Sheldean - at least I've got something Im happy with! :o) Thank You Sheldean!

Katy

P.S. Have a bunch of shots from the Nygard Fashion shoot I shot which I'm itching to get up on here, but I have to send them off to Nygard to be approved first, which I will be doing very soon! I almost have them ready! So look out for updates on that! 

Working the Subject... 100 Creative Ways!

Assignment number 3 from Creative Imaging... and probably the most challenging one yet... why thank you Sarah!! lol

Being told to choose 3 objects a week in advance of our assignment, it was pretty obvious we were going to have to take pictures of them. What we didn't know until Friday was that we had to shoot 100 (YES ONE HUNDRED!) photos of the damn things! AND we had just 4 and a half hours to get it done in! (3 and a half if you take away the half hour it took me to get home from school to where my objects were situated and the half hour to make and eat some lunch to give me the energy to get through the afternoon of intense shooting!)

So my objects (as you can see in the above picture) were; my dining room chair, my parasole (new that would come in handy one day!) and my beloved acoustic guitar.

When picking 3 completely unrelated objects, it was certainly a challenge trying to make interesting photos out of them. 

What made it even more challenging was the fact that we had to shoot in one spot. We could move the objects around amongst this 'one spot' but couldn't change location altogether and had to have all 3 objects together. We couldn't do an individual shot of each object, BUT we could close in on one object with our camera so it was the only thing in the shot (thank god for zoom lenses!) So, with all these ground rules laid out, Sarah didn't make this assignment easy for us!

I kept thinking "how on earth am I going to get 100 different shots?!" I honestly was almost giving up the will to live...ok slight exaggeration! But never-the-less I was a tad stressed out! 

Luckily, once I got into the swing of things I seemed to be snapping away and I started to think "ok, this isn't so bad, I seem to be getting alot" only to look at my camera and find that I'd only shot 30 odd images! Still LOADS to do yet I was lacking creative ideas! There's only so many ways you can shoot a chair, a parasole and a guitar, right?! 

A little while later, after climbing on piano stools, lying on the floor and squatting in ways that no-ones leg muscles should have to endure, to get juuust that right height for my shot; to my surprise, I was finally getting there...50...76...94...almost done!

I was a bit worried that I was shooting the same angles and views of the objects multiple times, which stressed me a bit, but when I finally had my 100 shots and I looked back over them, it appeared to be okay...  at least I don't think I have duplicate or too similar images.

A few came out wrong, but apparently 'creative failure is the way to creative success'... or so Sarah tells us! I hope she's right! 

So anyway, it was an eventful afternoon, and even my dog was curious as to what I was up to (as one of my photos shows), and he liked to sit in my lap when I was laying on the floor trying to get my shot, but despite the curious dog getting in my way (and in my shots!) I succeeded! 

Hopefully my photos will reflect some creativity, rather than just looking like random photos! Hmm, we'll see... this creative thinking malarky is difficult! 

Until next time...

Katy 

Black and White Film Fun

Hello again!

Shooting film is a stressful thing for me at the moment - I'm constantly looking at the back of my camera after taking a shot and then realising *ITS NOT DIGITAL, THERE IS NO PREVIEW!* so then I'm worried that *what if my shot doesn't come out!?! what if its not correctly exposed!?! what if, what if, what if!?!*...

... but then, I get the pics developed and Im LOVING them! hehe! 

My assignment this past week for Analogue Techniques was to shoot a roll of black and white film taking into consideration 'simple subject composition'. Overall I'm super happy with the outcome of my shots, considering this is only the second time i've worked with film, so here are a few of my fave shots from the roll:

Laura posing for me, *bigging up* PrairieView with the brochure in hand! hehe.

Hannah posing with camera in hand

the medium format camera in the school reception

Bailey finding it really hard to keep still for me!  and was just interested in the biscuit I had in my hand for him, which I was using to try and bribe him to pose for me lol.

My piano looking shiny and pretty.

Random bike in Assiniboine Park; I thought it looked pretty cool.

The most beautiful Great Dane puppy called Indie. Only 3 months old and already knee height! 

My sister and Bailey sitting in the front garden

My Liam posing for me!

My Liam looking lovely again and letting me shove my camera in his face again! 

Liam and Bailey (but the fidgety dog moved his head as I snapped the shot)

Ornamental plant in the family room that I thought looked pretty cool! I was literally laying on the floor next to it shooting upwards to try and get all the cool lines of the plant.

So yeah, Im pleased with the outcome of my assignment :o)

Let me know what you think! Comments always welcome!!

Katy

xxx

Shoot, shoot shoot!!

Hey peeps,

So we're a couple weeks into school now... I'm really enjoying myself but I don't think I've ever done so much shooting in the space of 2 weeks! Just when I'm getting on top of things, I receive another assignment to keep me on my toes! Not that I'm complaining really! I am enjoying it a lot! But WOW at the stress factor! Im out of my comfort zone of photography at the moment, and as much as I know it's all to help me learn correct techniques and to grow into a bigger and better photographer, I'm still a big stress head at the moment all the same!!

I'm not the only one though, so that's comforting! :o) 

Today in Digital Techniques Gabrielle bombarded us with assignments lol, the first was given to us at about 2ish and it had to be completed by 4pm! At first I read the assignment and thought, *NO WAY am I gonna be able to do that and by 4pm! eeep!* But then when I got into the swing of things and started shooting, it didn't take me as long as I thought it would! 

We had to shoot 40-50 images of ONE shop/building front down Albert Street (a street a couple of blocks up from school) capturing it in as many different ways as possible, considering angles, composition and creativity! Thats one heck of a lot of photos of the front of ONE building! But anyways, I managed to get it done and I don't think I done too shabby a job! 

Here are 2 images from the bunch, that I had a little time to play around with in Lightroom! 

The images we submitted for the assignment had to be unedited, but after I finished, I had a little fiddle around in Lightroom to make them a little more interesting.

Until next time....

Katy

xxx

A Tribute to my Sister

So I was out and about downtown in the Exchange District earlier today shooting for my Digital Techniques 'Lines'  assignment, and whilst on my way down to Photo Central to pick up my prints for a previous assignment I came across this street:

HARRIET STREET! That (incase the title of this post doesn't give it away), is my sisters name. 

Lol, I got quite excited by this and thought "I HAVE to take a picture for her" haha! 

Anyway, this is just a little update on my downtown adventures whilst shooting assignments lol. More to come soon.

Katy

xxx