The Great Lake

Last year, I was asked by Dwayne McClain, former NBA player and current basketball coach of the men's team at Oxbridge, to document the building and renovation of Oxbridge's famous "Great Lake". It's funny, since the lake used to actually be hilariously small and really nasty. The lake has always been there; that size, that location, that filthiness. When Oxbridge moved in to this location last year, they decided that they didn't want to get rid of it, they just wanted to renovate it. They expanded the lake twice its size, and cleaned it out. 

Dwayne explained to me his frustration with the fact that nobody was documenting this apparent "leap in Oxbridge history", and he saw me one day snapping pictures for photography class outside, and asked if I wouldn't mind doing a little side project for him. I agreed, and we planned that I would take several pictures every week documenting the changes in the lake. When I look back at all of the pictures, I finally understood Dwayne's eagerness in having this event noted. The lake changed significantly, it just simply isn't the same lake anymore, for better or for worse. 

Some Lights

So for our next assignment we were allowed to take our cameras home with us and experiment with light some more. I took a photo shoot with my brother and found some really interesting ways to morph my pictures into something more than just simple photographs. I mostly stayed in my neighborhood and took pictures of random objects. We weren't allowed to edit the pictures in any way.

The pictures turned out pretty boring; except for a select few. I loved how we set out for our photo shoot right when the sun was going down, it gave every single picture a nice natural effect to it, and really bright feel to every individual photograph. Ms. Taylor really enjoyed the pictures and even printed out some of them to show to other classes to give an example of natural light pictures.

Precious Portraits

The next week Ms. Taylor sent our class to go and take advantage of all of the information that we know about PhotoShop and editing techniques, along with "setting up the scene" and other aspects of photography that we learned and assigned us to go into classrooms and ask to take pictures of students. Our mission was to snap shots of the students in a natural pose, either staring at the camera or not. If we were going to take pictures of the students, we also had to find one teacher that we could also take photographs of.

After we were told to come back into the photography studio we downloaded all of the photographs onto Adobe Bridge, which is the program that we were trained to use when editing professional photographs, and edit the pictures to either make them into Grayscale or turn them into "grainy" pictures. Our other interesting options was to drain out specific colors in particular photographs in order to make certain colors "pop". This effect was really useful in allowing me to play around with the colors in a picture, and to control the exact outcome of the photograph.

The Peculiar Moth

The next class in photography our teacher did something quite surprising. She handed out Canon Rebel cameras to everybody in the beginning of class, then instructed us that we would have exactly 8 minutes to take a creative photo shoot around school and download/edit the photographs on our computer. She exclaimed, "Go!", and the whole class burst out of the photography studio in a frantic style. Our teacher later explained that this was a simple yet challenging exercise to test our photographic skills by putting us in a timely situation and seeing if we can still apply all that we have learned to create beautiful photographs.

After I ran out of the classroom, I wanted to present something creative and extraordinary; I just didn't know how. Then it came to me-- It literally appeared before my eyes. This injured moth was stuck on a tree bark, and I was taken back by its intricate beauty. I instantly started snapping away pictures from my camera, and I had no clue that the results would be so fascinating.

Water Bottle Phenomenon

Our next huge project in photography was to choose an object--any object at all--- and take a photo shoot of it. This project was created in order to help us better understand how to take still pictures and use the correct amount of light and the right background at the same time while taking the picture. I was really excited to do this project- but I really had no clue what my object would be. I thought about this over and over in my head that day- but I couldn't think of the right object.

Then, it finally came to me- water bottles. Since another art class was doing a recycling project using water bottles by creating all of these abstract structures using water bottles and caps, I decided I could borrow their idea and utilize it in my project. I took four simple miniature water bottles and took them everywhere on the campus and snapped shots of them from all different types of angles. The results came out very nice and unique.

Documentary Photography

After finishing an exciting lesson on shadows, we preceded to discover documentary photography. When I first found out that we were doing documentary photography, I was not excited at all. I figured we would sit in class and talk about the history of all these old people who took really important pictures 50 years ago. However, the actual lesson, and the assignment that followed, turned out to be really captivating and enjoyable.

We learned about all different types of documentary photographers, from World War I photographers to Teen Vogue photographers. A documentary photographer is someone who goes out and records an event that occurred at that exact moment. They then become the primary source of that event. We were taught about the brave photographers and filmmakers that went into the warzone and battlefields to film or take pictures of what was really going on. Without these people, there would be no visual evidence of these events ever occurring.

So our assignment was simple- document. Document anything, or anyone; anywhere at anytime! We could partner up with someone in the class and by the end of the week have prepared en entire documentary presentation to show to the class. Me and my partner Miriam decided to document the work of our food crew at Oxbridge Academy. The chefs were really nice and welcoming, and by doing this project, I realized how hard they work to ensure that our students get meals and snacks every day, all day! When we finished our projects, our work was framed and hung up at the Exhibition Center at Oxbridge, and we were really proud.

Dark Shadows

Our next lesson in photography was all about shadows. We learned that shadows are a vital aspect of any picture, and depending on how you want your photograph to be interpreted, you can control the effect of the picture using shadows. We first were given numerous photographers to research about, so we could learn more about how to use shadows and develop some good influential ideas. The photographer that I was assigned to was named Ricky Montalbano. His photographs were so cool and really nice. Most of his pictures revolved around a guy or two riding on skateboards, and somehow Montalbano coordinated his pictures so that he would have the shadows of his riders appear in the picture.

When we finally had the chance to go out and take a photo shoot around school with our class, we had some difficulty. It was hard to find an area where the sun perfectly gave us an opportunity to form a shadow, and we needed creative ideas to portray our images in an interesting way. It took us about two days to take good pictures around the school, and later we downloaded them onto our computers and picked the best ones. I have to admit though, even though the challenge was difficult, the photographs turned out great.