Atlanta Supercross 2012

These are some shots I took at this weekend's Monster Energy AMA Supercross race in Atlanta.

Project One Progress

These are a few of the shots I took for my "iconic Wofford photos" project. The final product will be in black and white.

In-Class Shoot

Spray Painting a Fresco

For my third post of this week I took some photos of a unique spray paint piece that I did today. After doing spray paint art for one of my projects in Dean Neely's Intro to Studio course, I kind of got hooked. This piece is a visual aid for a presentation I am doing on fresco painting in the renaissance this coming friday. For this presentation I have to explain the fresco painting process, and what better way to do this than to create a fresco. I put a little modern spin on this style by using spray paint and it turned out pretty cool. I documented the whole process of the work with photos so that I can show the progression on a slideshow as well. I ended up taking some photos of it tonight, with a few cool angles and stuff. Here are a few of my favorites:

Weekend Photography Plans Ruined

Well I had planned to go home this weekend and get some scenic photography from where I live, the North Carolina mountains. Turns out that this weekend was full of rain and bad weather so, I didn't get to shoot the things I had originally planned. So, I had to make something up. I am an avid cyclist and on Friday after class, I drove to Asheville to pick up my new bike that I had custom built two weeks ago. Instead of scenic photography, I decided to take some artsy shots of my new road bike. Here are my two favorites:

Atlanta Supercross

Supercross is one of my favorite sports, and next weekend is the time when the tour makes its stop in Atlanta. Supercross is a form of motocross racing that is held indoors and it is awesome to watch. The main reason I got my camera was to do motocross photography and then my broader interest came about in photography. My first chance to really try my camera out was at this event last year, and it was a rude awakening to action photography. All of my shots from the pits of the bikes and riders turned out pretty good, while they were sitting still. Once we got into the Georgia Dome it was a different story. I didn't know how to properly use my equipment without getting an awfully blurry shot. So I went home with a lot of still shots from the pits, not that it was a bad thing, just not what I had expected. After some research and talking with a lot of professional motocross photographers, I asked for a 70-200 f/2.8 lens for my birthday which is in March. Supposedly it's the best all-around lens for shooting motocross. I ended up getting it for my birthday, and they were right, I started getting clear shots that I was very happy with. So now I have another birthday coming up and am wanting an external flash and a fisheye lens to expand my collection. I was hoping to have these items a little before my birthday so that I could use them at supercross this year, but it's not looking like that's going to happen. I guess I'll just have to make due with what I have, and hopefully I will come back with some great shots to use for my second project. That is if they will let me in the stadium with a big lens on my camera. Who knows?

Atlanta Supercross 2011

Taken with my new lens in Summer 2011

Experience

My experience with photography may be a little more than many of the people in the class, but as a photographer, I am still very inexperienced. This past Christmas marked the one year anniversary of me taking pictures for fun after I received my camera as a gift. I originally began taking motocross photos with it because motocross is my favorite sport. For my birthday last year I got a 70-200 f/2.8 lens, which is a good all around lens especially for taking high speed action shots. I have been very pleased with the results I have gotten out of the lens thus far. At my job this summer I was also able to get Adobe Photoshop for free, which has been a great tool and a lot of fun to play around with in my spare time. Before having Photoshop I had used similar programs, but nothing really compares to the Adobe in my opinion. Though my main interest in taking photos began with action shots, I am really open to photograph all kinds of things, including scenery, objects, people, as well as sports. Photography has been a fun way to get out and enjoy nature and different scenes. Now that I have my GoPro camera, I have gotten interested in making videos also, which has been a lot of fun as well. Though I am pretty confident with my skills as a photographer, there is always more to learn.

Interim 2012

During my interim this year I had the chance to to a little bit of photography. I was in Outdoors in the Upstate with Dr. Ware, where we went mountain biking, camping, and sea kayaking for our trips. During the mountain biking portion of the trip, I got to test out my new GoPro Hero 2 camera that I got for Christmas this year. For our end-of-interim project I made mountain biking videos and they turned out pretty cool in my opinion. During that portion of the class I didn't do much still photography. When we had our three day trip to Hunting Island State Park below Charleston was when I got to do some still photos. The weather was awesome and ended up being around 75 degrees the whole time we were there, I even went swimming in the ocean for a minute which was pretty cold, but not unbearable. We ended up kayaking around eight miles for our long trip and it was for the most part all against the current. It was definitely a good workout, but turned out to be painful. At night I broke out the camera and began to shoot some photos, trying to get some reflections in the water as well as sunset pictures. I ended up getting some pretty good shots and had a really great time during this interim trip. Above are some of my favorite shots from the three day trip to Hunting Island.

Post One for Art 255: Camera Phones

I have been shooting pictures for fun for over a year now and still continue to enjoy it. Today is the age of the camera phone and I found this out on a recent trip I took to the beach during Christmas break. For the family's Christmas present this year my aunt rented us a house at Bald Head Island (BHI), North Carolina where we usually go to the beach. The trip was awesome. I think we ended up having seventeen or eighteen family members present at one time or another, and it was good to have each other's company. During the trip some of my family members insisted that we go to the beach multiple times a day, Including in the evening to see the sunset. My brother had gotten a new lens for Christmas and he had that on hand testing that out. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take my camera along so I was stuck with my eight megapixel camera on my cell phone. Experimenting with this tool on this trip was a real eye opener. With the tiny camera on my phone, I was able to capture some great images of the sunset without any digital enhancement needed. This just shows that we are in the age of technology and we now are able to capture great photos when we least expect to with equipment that was inferior just a few short years ago. Seems pretty cool to me. I still wish I had my DSLR on hand on this trip, but I used what I had at my disposal and took some good shots.