best of both worlds

While researching for my class presentation on a professional photographer, I really grew to like the photographer I chose. Her work is wonderful and she seems to have a great attitude to go along with her job. Annie Griffiths (much of her work is still listed under Annie Griffiths Belt) is one of the first female photographers to have worked for National Geographic. And not only did she make a big step for women photographers, but she is also inspiring when it comes to mothers who have careers. When she had her two children, she didn’t give up on her career. She kept right on going. Her daughter Lily and her son Charlie would come along with her on her assignments as she traveled the world. I think that she is a really inspiring person for doing this because I feel like a lot of women think they have to choose between family and career. Annie Griffiths showed that you can raise happy and successful children and still have a career. And her career was demanding to say the least. Photographing for National Geographic caused her to travel and live all over the world. Since she took her children with her, they constantly lived in different areas and spent a lot of time away from school. But now that her children are older (in their late teens and early twenties), she looks back on her decisions as a mother and thinks she made the right ones. I found a statement from her online that described that she still feels that her children grew up happy and educated. She said that since her children grew up all over the world it has made them sympathetic towards others and different cultures and caused them to be easygoing and outgoing. I was pretty impressed by her attitude and ability to juggle these two huge aspects of her life. She does, however, understand the importance of education and recognized that her children needed to attend school regularly for higher education. She now usually only takes on long assignments during the summer, when her children are not in class.

Overall, I was very impressed with Annie Griffiths’ attitude and ability. She is said to have a great sense of humor and that she is very easy going and friendly. Her ability to tell stories through beautiful travel photography is impressive. I think she is a great inspiration for anyone who is interested in making a career out of photography, but especially for those who do not want to give up the idea of having a family and a career at the same time.

Annie Griffiths Belt Photography

Closed eyes, back of the head, and blurry

Since it was Easter last weekend, I went home and spent some time with family. Because of this I got to spend some time with my boyfriend’s twin nieces, who are 16 months old. Of course I tried to take some pictures of them walking around and being held by various people. It’s so important to have nice pictures of the different stages of children’s lives. They grow and change so fast that you want to remember when they were little. However, taking pictures of them is so hard. If you’re trying to take a nice picture of them with someone else, they’re always either not looking or not smiling or doing something else. Cute candid shots are extremely hard to get. For some reason, they love to turn their head as soon as you push the shutter. It’s like they know exactly when you’re going to take the picture and that’s when they break their cute pose. So I ended up with a lot of pictures of the back of their heads. Not all that great. There were a few in there that happened to be cute, but I thought there have to be some tricks out there that would help with photographing children. Getting someone to make a weird face behind the camera is a classic, but that doesn’t help with candid photos when they’re interacting or just playing around. I looked through some websites about photographing children and found a couple of tips, although much of it is still going to be up to chance.

Some suggestions were: use a long lens so that you can stay further away and just zoom in – this will keep them from getting distracted from what they’re doing; try to shoot outdoors if at all possible, this prevents red eye and allows you to use a faster shutter speed, making it more likely that you’ll capture the shot than get a blurred turning face; take a LOT of pictures – if you just keep clicking away your chances of getting a cute expression or action will greatly improve. Don’t keep your camera in a bag or on a table and go to grab it when they’re doing something cute. Chances are that by the time you get your camera and turn it on, they’re already doing something else; get down to their level, always taking pictures from a standing position will make all your pictures look the same and might keep you from getting good facial expressions in your photos since their faces won’t necessarily be seen in the shot; some people also say to avoid “say cheese” at all costs, it causes kids to focus too much on smiling and usually ends up with that huge teethy grin that we all know from our elementary school photos. Instead, some people suggest coming up with a word that your children find funny, or using and inside joke to get them to laugh. Getting a real smile or laugh is always better than “cheese”; try to use a digital camera that has a fast recycle time – this refers to how long it takes the camera to be ready to take another picture; try to keep your gear/equipment simple – the more stuff you have to fiddle with while you’re shooting, the more likely it will be that you’ll miss a great shot.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tips and tricks out there to use as well. I plan on trying some of them out the next time I see the twins. But I think when it comes to young children and babies, a lot of it is going to have to come down to chance. All you can really do is be as prepared as possible so you have a greater chance of getting that cute expression of funny pose.

Final Project

The end of the semester has definitely snuck up on me. I can’t believe we only have another couple of weeks of class, and then a week of exams. We’ve all been asked to come up with our proposals for our final project. For the final we’re supposed to make a 2 minute presentation about a person, place, etc. and use still images along with audio. After some brainstorming I decided that I would really like to do my project on the Riverbanks Zoo. I couldn’t really think of a better place to collect some interesting sounds that would help make the background of my story really come to life. I hope to get interviews with people that work there to get some behind the scenes information on how the zoo is operated and maintained. I look forward to this project. I think overall it will be very fun. And i’m excited to see how it will turn out.

Aside from the final project, I am also working on our Pro Photographer presentation. We have to do a 5 minute presentation about a photographer. My presentation is on Annie Griffiths, an amazing travel photographer. She used to go by Annie Griffiths Belt, but apparently she recently got divorced. But a lot of the information online is still under her old name. I was somewhat disapointed when I was told she was divorced. One of the reasons I was interested in doing my presentation on her was because I thought it would be nice to highlight someone who has a very successful career in travel photography while at the same time maintainging a successful family and private life. However, she still takes amazing photographs and I’m still happy with my choice of photographer.

Event Coverage Gallery

This week we were asked to make a photo gallery of the event we shot for class. I went  to the Project Condom Season 3 fashion show at the Russell House on the USC campus. The idea behind the event was to draw attention to sexual health issues and to reduce the taboo associated with condoms. Designers represented groups from USC (like sororities and academic teams) and fashioned dresses or outfits using condoms.

The show was colorful and creative:

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

sun, sand and a broken camera

Since USC had their spring break last week, I thought it might be a bright idea to think about the issue of protecting your camera at the beach. “Fortunately” I didn’t have to deal with this problem during my spring break. Working in Columbia isn’t exactly putting your camera in great danger. Still, so many people setting off to Panama Beach, Miami, Cancun, etc, I couldn’t help but think how many great pictures can be taken at the beach, and in how many ways your camera can get ruined by sand, water, salt…

Turns out there are some steps you can take to protect your camera at a day on the beach. The most obvious is to keep it out of the water. (Unless you have a waterproof camera). Sand, however, is a little trickier. Many sites rave about the plain plastic zip lock bag. Always keep your camera in a clean plastic bag unless you’re taking photos. By always making sure the bag is tightly closed, your chances of getting sand in there are greatly reduced. Some people even double bag their camera, making it even less likely to get in.

Some other useful tips:

1. Never change a lens on the beach. If you plan on staying at the beach all day, pick the most practical lens and stick with it. If you change the lens, you expose the inside of the camera to the elements, and sand WILL get in.

2. Keep your camera -in a plastic bag- in soft cooler (like those little lunch boxes) while you’re not using it. And keep it out of the direct sunlight to prevent it from getting too hot.

3. Keep a clean towel inside your bag so you can dry off your hands and face before handling your camera.

4. Get someone else to put on your sunscreen. Try to avoid getting greased up hands since you’ll be handling your camera, and you don’t want that stuff on there.

5. Research if the company that made your camera makes underwater housing for your model. They’re bulky and expensive, but they protect your camera and you can actually take underwater pictures.

6. Don’t keep your camera in it’s little zip-lock bag all day. Yes, your camera will be relatively safe in there, but what’s the use of bringing it if you’re not going to take pictures. Have some fun playing around with different images you can shoot at the beach. (Some suggestions).

Aloha!

sports assignment

We had our sports assignment to turn in this week. This project was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I always kind of thought shooting sports would be annoying and tricky. I was wrong on the annoying part, but it is pretty tricky. Or at least it can be.

I ended up going to a USC mens tennis match against the ASU Mountaineers. I was glad I found a tennis event to go to, because I  played tennis for years when I was younger. Sometimes I just miss the atmosphere of tennis, so I thought this would a nice reason to go out to a game. Also, I figured I already kind of knew what was going on on the court, so I could better judge when something was going to happen that I might want a photo of. I was also looking for an outdoor event, because I thought the lighting would be nicer.

Shooting the match ended up pretty fun. I got side tracked every once in a while and started watching the game, instead of focusing on taking pictures. Other than that, I just kept my settings on Tv, used fast shutter speeds to capture the moment without blur, and set my ISO to 200 since it a sunny day. Unfortunately I didn’t bring a longer lens, so I couldn’t get the close ups I really wanted. I couldn’t get on the court, so I was stuck in the bleacher section. With a longer lens I could have gotten those closer shots and kept them in focus too. What I ended up turning in were some images I shot that I cropped in photoshop to be closer up. The quality would have been much better though if I had brought a longer lens, since most of my details are a little out of focus or blurry since I cropped so much. So the issue I ran into was that the players closest to me were facing the other direction, and the players facing me were just too far away to get really nice clear pictures of. Lesson learned. Next time I’ll be better prepared.

Even if I wasn’t 100% happy with these pictures, I still had a great time on this assignment. I think I definitely enjoyed this more than most of the projects we’ve had so far. Who knew that I would actually like sports photography? I guess it is exactly like people always say; you won’t know until you try.

Two of the many pictures I took for the assignment:

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

These two images are from two of the three doubles matches that USC played against ASU.

The USC tennis team went on to win the match-up with ASU 5-2.

More info about the USC Men’s Tennis team

Shake it like a Polaroid picture

Even though today’s digital photography lets you see, to some degree, how your photo turned out immediately after you take it, there is still something wonderful about having a hard copy to actually hold. It’s so rare nowadays to have lots of actual photos laying around. Instead of filling photo albums, most people just fill their iPhoto library. Digital film is easier and faster than 35mm, but you rarely get that nice concrete picture to hold. This is one of the reasons I love the idea of the good old Polaroid camera. You get to see your picture within minutes of taking it and you have a hard copy to hold on to.

I remember playing with my parents’ and even grandparents’ old school Polaroid cameras. It was always so fun to see your image develop right before your eyes as the chemicals mixed and worked their magic. For years now I’ve wanted to get my hands on just a plain old Polaroid camera to play around with. I was pretty upset when, not so recently (in 2004 I think), Polaroid announced that they were ending their production of the instant film for their cameras. Their film cartridges, which usually come with 10 exposures, are now an extremely pricey commodity. People are scrambling to buy all of what’s left of the already “expired” film. So when my wonderful boyfriend got me a Polaroid camera for Christmas, I couldn’t wait to go try it out. After I spent almost $80 on two packs of film, that is. Now I have the annoying problem of being afraid to use the camera to the extent I would like, since I don’t want to “waste” the costly exposures. I began to look around online for some interesting ideas for shots and techniques. There is plenty of really cool stuff out there. A lot polaroid related articles on line are now about how to recreate the look of a polaroid for your digital images. If so many people want the look of polaroids, why did they stop making them??? It’s so sad to think that once all the film that has been produced is used up, people will no longer be able to take these really unique and interesting images.

Polaroid did come out with a digitalized version of an instant camera, from which you can immediately print and share images you took (Polaroid PoGo), but the nostalgia and artistic look and feel of the original just isn’t there.

For now I will savor the 2 packs of Polaroid film I have, and try to create some nice images with them. I’ll try to buy some more film before the price increases to $100 a cartridge, or before there just isn’t any more. I wish Polaroid would see that there is still a significant demand for the classic, and restart a limited production on their film instead of killing it off all together.

Some interesting Polaroid related websites I’ve found:

New York Times: Reader’s Photos (a nice gallery)

Using Photoshop to recreate Polaroids

The Impossible Project tries to save instant film

Another Gallery (blog)

There are so many more polaroid inspired websites out there, and I refuse to accept that polaroid instant film is a thing of the past. It will not be a great classic lost in the digital age.

I hope.

the day weird white fluffy stuff fell from the sky

The unimaginable happened over the weekend. It snowed in Columbia. Not just a little snow, I think I approximated 6″ were on the roof of my car. My professor asked our class to post some of our pictures from the snow. I didn’t take my digital slr out in the snow, which was probably a good idea, since I ended up getting in a snowball fight. I would have been pretty upset if something happened to my camera. I did get to take some pictures with my point and shoot Lumix though. None of them turned out great as far as professional photos would go, but I did capture some idea of how much snow there was. Most of the pictures I took were at night, which made photographing the snow a little more difficult. I had gotten off work right before it started snowing hard, so by the time it was pretty deep on the ground it was 10 p.m. or so.

I usually think that I’m one of those people that don’t get all excited about the idea of snow being forecast on the news. I always think it’s strange how everyone suddenly has to run out and buy milk and bread because they think snow might fall. I guess after living in South Carolina for 12 years, one becomes somewhat skeptical of snow showing up whenever it’s predicted in the weather report. I found myself pretty excited though, about this snowfall. I had a great time playing in it, making a snowman, having a snowball fight, and just enjoying the look of it being white everywhere. I guess I hadn’t seen real significant snow for a while, and forgot how pretty it made everything.

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

This image is from pretty early on in the night, probably around 9:30 pm. It’s the parking lot in front of the apartment building. You can see that the snow is still coming down in the glare of the street lamp.

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

The first image shows how much snow fell within a 2 hour period or so. The pile of snow on the top of the side mirror of my car, is a pretty clear indicator of how much snow came down within such a short amount of time.

The second one is of the snowman we built before the snow got too slushy. It had already started melting a little while we were outside playing in it. But since it was so much in such a little time, much of it stayed on the ground for a while. The parking lot and streets cleared pretty quickly though. Our snowman was looking pretty ratty the next day in the sun, and another day after that, only a small pile of pine-straw filled snow remained. It was cool while it lasted though.

And I must admit, there is still a snowball or two in the freezer.

First Assignment

Turned our first assignment in today. Had some issues with the beginnings of this one, but I think it worked out alright. Our project was to photograph an object from different angles and with various views of depth of field. I picked a metal and glass lantern from my house that I really like. I thought it would make an interesting piece to photograph since parts of it allow light to pass through. Initially, the days and times I had set aside for this project all ended up not working out. The entire weekend was very cloudy, windy and rainy. I ended up squeezing in some time to shoot on a day I hadn’t planned on shooting, just because the sun finally came out again. I really needed the sun to be bright for the lamp to glow the way I wanted it to. I shot several days at dusk because the sun was nice and low and created some really nice effects with the glass.

This is one of the shots from where I was experimenting with the setting sun creating a backlit photo. I used a larger aperture to create the shallowest depth of field I could to keep the focus on the designs on the glass.

© Selina Westerwelle 2010

Some (not so recent) Photos

I’ve been assigned to share one (or some) of the photos I’ve taken. I’ve picked two out of the many photos that I’m attached to for various reasons.

#1.

The Falls Park in downtown Greenville. Photo by Selina Westerwelle

I took this photo on a sunny day in the Falls Park in downtown Greenville. This image probably means a lot to me for personal reasons rather than photographic value. When I see this picture, I get reminded of how pretty downtown Greenville is and it gives me that feeling of home. I grew up in Greenville and remember the days before the Falls Park was built and an ugly overpass was in the place of the bridge and park that’s there now. It reminds me of how much Greenville has changed and how areas that are not seen as particularly noteworthy can be transformed into something beautiful that can be enjoyed by so many.

#2.

The Louvre Museum in Paris. Photo by Selina Westerwelle

This photo is one of my favorites from my travels. I took this in 2008 from inside the pyramid at the Louvre in Paris. I loved the way the pyramid looked from an angle different from what photos of the Louvre usually show. I like taking abstract photos of concrete objects or places, bringing attention to the details that are often overseen in “pretty scenery”. Not only do I like this picture because of its abstract feeling, but it also reminds me of the wonderful trip I got to take with my brother through Europe. We packed so many cities into two weeks that we were on a very tight schedule. We spent about two days in each city. This caused me to act quickly while taking pictures. I didn’t have any time to plan out shots or go back to certain places at a different time if I wanted to photograph something in a different light. I took a couple of versions of this photo because it was hard to get it to look the way I wanted since the scene is backlit. Most of my images were overexposed and it was hard to correct because I didn’t take my dslr on the trip and only had a point-and-shoot with few manual options.

-SW