country kids, meet the big city.

this past weekend our class was given the opportunity to visit new york for the PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo, thanks to a lovely scholarship from our school's photo foundation. lots of fun toys to look through on the showroom floor. lots of schmoozing. not as much time as i hoped there would be to get around the city and take lots of pictures.

for many of the toddlers in the department, this was their first trip to new york. i found myself jealous of them as they stared up at the skyscrapers for the first time in awe. i wish the novelty of the city still existed for me. instead i was annoyed by the crowds, the cost of a beer...and the snow! (in october???)

maybe i've been living in the boonies too long, but i was actually happy to get back to north carolina.

hot air balloon

assignment preview: business brochure

biocommunications photojournalism class:

our final project in the class was to find a business with at least 10 employees where we had access to the president/CEO and a handful of employees, as well as the offices, for the purposes of producing a brochure or annual report. in addition to employee portraits, we were asked to take some photos of other employees while they worked, detail shots of the company's product or service, and finally an exterior of the office. the photos were to be organized in a layout with copy related to the company's history and mission, along with captions to explain each photo. 

i chose to photograph HIGHLAND BREWERY in Asheville, NC for the project and cannot thank Nancy, Oscar, Erica enough for their willingness to help me out! the kindness and generosity of the entire staff made this a great learning experience!

looking over my instructor's notes, i've decided to make some adjustments to my final turn-in, but in the meantime i thought i'd post a few of the detail images from that photo shoot...

the lone ranger

assignment: on-location business portrait

chuck hall,  president

streetcars car wash

greesnboro, nc

dixie classic

oooh (ewww?) weee

krispy kreme burger

[dixie classic fair / winston-salem, nc]

white street landfill protest

     

    

assignment: lumen prints

  supplies needed:

-old b&w photo paper

-flowers (or any plant life)

-a piece of glass

-the sun

-time

the easiest image you could ever create! arrange flowers on b&w paper and cover with glass. using the sun as your light source, expose the paper (could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours). there's no real way to tell if the paper has "cooked" long enough, but once you think it's good, remove the glass and flowers and place the paper in a light safe box so it doesn't continue receiving light. go inside.

for the purposes of our class assignment, we scanned the original prints using a flatbed scanner to later print using an inkjet printer. (for a lasting effect, there is a process to keep the image you've created. 

i've read about it but haven't tried it yet, so i won't go into that) once scanned, we were also asked to play around with these images in photoshop and print our final version to share with the class. no other instructions were given and we were free to do whatever we wanted. since i'm still in the infant stages of understanding photoshop, this was a good exercise to practice different actions i already know, as well as learning other features within the program. 

[set-up]

[original scan]

[final version]

persian shield

nikon d7000

nikon 50mm f/1.8