TED Talk

I would just like to start off by saying this has been an incredible week. I am so, so impressed by the diverse passions that my fellow classmates have thrown themselves into these past seven weeks and every single presentation I learned something new. I love this project. And I really hope, Mr. Perlman and Mr. McDaniels, that this project will be incorperated into the Gifted curriculum in the future, because it was probably the most fun I have ever had doing a "school project".

I want to admit a little secret.

In fact, it's something that I've never told any of my friends, in fear that they would think me crazy. Which I probably am.

I actually....kind of enjoy presenting. I kind of enjoy being able to share something in front of a bunch of people and just talk with them. I love that moment on stage when everyone looks up at you expectantly, and you can either wither under their stares or rise up to the occassion and try your best to give the best possible speech you can.

So did I give the best possible speech I could? Well, I honestly think this was not my best presentation. I tried to memorize my notes, but with the spotlight on me, I think I reverted back to looking down at my notecards a little more than usual. I could have given a bit more detail about the organization of my project (the whole theme thing may have been confusing) and my process. I could have engaged the audience more. I did spend a lot of time editing my script though, so I hope at least I was able to get my message across, and that my passion for photography really came through in my talk.

So overall:

Delivery:  14,5/15
Process:    9/10
Preparation:   4.5/5

Total: 28/30 (93%)

Not bad. But always an opportunity to improve. Still, I think whatever grade I do get for this project doesn't overshadow the fact that I have gained this incredibly awesome hobby :) I must thank the Genius Project for helping me discover it.

Blog Comments!

I've commented on Annie's, Sun's and Kara's blog for week 5.

I've commented on Aayush's, Cara's and Ben's blog for week 6.

Things I Love

This is the final blog post!! Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to check out my photographs! It really has been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience for me. When I first started this project, I really did know very little about photography. Now, just about a month later, I am really proud to say that I really have become rather close to my beloved partner. Together, we've captured some pretty incredible moments.

This week, I was able to adjust all the settings for every photo that I took on the "Tv" mode on my camera. This meant shutter speed, ISO, brightness, flash exposure, and picture style could all be changed. I know I've already talked about shutter speed, so let me just quickly address ISO. Based on some research from here, ISO measures how sensitive the camera is to light. The lower the ISO, the less sensitive the camera will be to light. With lower light, you generally want to use a higher ISO (my camera goes up to 6400) if you are not planning on using flash. Under clear blue skies with good lighting, a lower ISO can be used. Kind of along the same line is flash exposure, explained here. Flash exposure basically adjusts the subject's brightness. Exposure compensation adjusts the darkness of the overall picture. And finally, with the picture style option you can choose the picture to be styled like a landscape, portrait, macro...etc. shot.

My final theme is "Things I Love". With this theme I really wanted to just reveal five things that I really enjoy or hold significent meaning to me. This was inspired by the "Ten Things I Love" challenge, this website I stumbled upon while trying to find inspiration for my theme. Of course, there are so many things I love, like coffee icecream, spring, and that moment when you think of something really funny and start laughing but no one else gets it so they think you're crazy (among many other things). But here are just five.  

 

 

1. My family. Kind of a no-brainer, but I'm blessed to have such a supportive family. My mom, in particular, has been very interested in this photography project and provides good suggestions sometimes.My sister loves critiquing my photos and telling me which ones suck. And my dad has been very accomadating in providing transportation when I think of a place to shoot. I love them so much and they are awesome.

 

 2. My culture. Being a second-generation Chinese-American, I have had the privilage of being a part of two very distinct cultures. I have the privilage of eating a Philly Cheese Steak for lunch and Mantou for dinner. Of getting presents on Christmas (and my birthday) and money on Chinese New Year. Of being able to watch "Shark Tank" and a random chinese drama. The photo below shows a jade necklace and a silk scarf.

 3. The ocean. My family goes to the shore every year and among my fondest memories are crabbing on the pier at sunset and  running on along the shoreline with no one else around. I love the feeling of walking on the cool sand and the cool breeze when the sun sets. I remember the first time I ever went down to the shore, I was terrified of the sound of the waves and I sat down and started crying and wouldn't stop. But now, I love that too.

4. Music. Okay, I admit this one didn't turn out the way I wanted to. You may be asking, "what's up with the apple?" Actually, if you look close enough the earbuds are actually connected to the apple, to symbolize an ipod. Get it? Apple? Like, the company? Yeah, thinking back I don't remember why I didn't just use my actual ipod :/  

 

 
 5. Travel. Being able to explore and journey to different places is something that I've always loved to do. I really enjoy experiencing different cultures (in particular their food) and something on my bucket list is to see all seven wonders of the world. I had all the settings adjusted, but photo credits go to my dad. It looks so much better in black and white than it did in color....

 

I'm so glad I choose photography because I have no doubt in my mind that it will become a wonderful hobby even after this project. I set out on this project with the goal of finding inspiration from just everyday objects and everday places. I wanted just ONE good picture that I could be proud of. But now I have 25. I hope that you have found at least one that you enjoy as well. Thanks for reading!

A Day in the Life

With Spring Break finally here, I'm doing my best to try and forget that TED talks are comming FAST. In fact, I'm still in denial mode right now, which means I basically I tell myself I still have five looong days and nights to ponder what exactly it is I plan on sharing to my panel of unimpressed peers and two teachers. Which is probably not a very good strategy. But even in the midst of my busy schedule of alternating between conciousness ( where I eat and stare blankly at my pile of homework) and unconciousness, I have managed to keep up with my scehdule of taking photos.
This week's focus was on action photography, which really built off of everything that I have learned so far. Besides being able to adjust the lens and capture the best lighting, action photography really required some more toggling with my camera. The mode also required some detailed reading, which, having some time on my hands, I did. Two important aspects of action phtography are 1. shutter speed and 2. 1st and 2nd Curtain Sync Flash. I found a lot of information about shutter speed here and here. I won't bore you terribly with the details, so here's just a quick synopsis about shutter speed:

Shutter speed: Basically shutter speed is the measure of time the shutter is open. A fast shutter speed freezes an image in action, while a slower shutter speed creates a blur of motion. The slowest possible shutter speed for my camera is one second, and the fastest is 1/800th of a second (which is pretty crazy). Shutter speed is important to action photography because a photographer needs to decide whether to use a slow shutter speed and capture that trail of motion, or a fast one, and capture the subject frozen in motion. I've experimented with both effects this week.

And then there's 1st and 2nd Curtain Sync Flash. These two options are really only used for slow shutter speeds. I read a little into it, but the first few sources I found made it seem really complicated. However, after reading this I basically understood the general idea.

Slow Sync Flash: The difference between 1st and 2nd Curtain is when the flash fires. A camera actually has two shutters that form the actual camera shutter; one that opens in the beginning of the shot and one at the end. These two flashes create that light trail behind a subject that you see in those night photos. In 1st curtain, the light trail appears in front of the subject, opposite the direction of motion, which doesn't make much visual sense to me. But 2nd Curtain creates a light trail in the direction of motion, behind the subject.

Whew. So now that that's over...

This week's theme came to me after watching this documentary called "Life in a Day", which is avaliable on youtube if you want to check it out. The whole premise behind the movie was that people all over the world just videotaped their lives on one day of the year, and basically the movie consistede of little snap shots of different people's lives arranged from morning to night. Which is actually a lot more interesting then it sounds. But anyways, I wanted to follow the same idea, so I decieded to take photos of just one day of my life. I know this goes against the one picture per day plan, but I just wanted to try something new. So today, I spent every moment of the day with a camera close at hand. I isolated five different moments in my day that I think were significent and photo-worthy.

10:00 am- I was put in charge of watching my sister for the day, so I decided to spend some time outside in the morning. We had been on the trampoline for about ten minutes before my sister, being eight, declared she was bored and wanted to do something else. I cleverly asked if she wanted to try jump-roping instead and got this picture. Actually, I also took about twenty others, all of her still on the ground, so it was a bit challenging getting the timing right. 



3:00 pm- Haha, this was such an enjoyable picture, mostly because I got to be in it. This just perfectly captures my feelings after trying to get through my science homework. Photo credits go to my mom on this one, although I should have made the room brighter because the lighting is kind of bad. Shutter speed was at about 1/640 (very fast) to capture all those papers in mid-air. Not to worry; those papers wern't very important. But I did consider ripping up my thirty page Social Studies midterm review.

 5:00 pm- Preparing for dinner! Probably my favorite photo of the day. For one thing, I really spent some time trying to stage this display. The black-lidded appliance is probably not something you have at home: it's a rice cooker. Rice is a major part of the chinese diet. In mandarin, the term for "it's time to eat" is "che fan", which literally translates to "eat rice". And yes, I do eat rice most days for dinner. The hand you see is my sister's. She had a great time spilling the rice everywhere. I had less of a great time cleaning that up.

7:00 pm- My sister wanted  to go to the mall after dinner. I really don't like going to the Plymouth Meeting Mall because it's eerily silent, but they also have a pretty cool carousel So yeah, while other teenage girls walked by with their bags, I stayed for fifteen minutes in front of a carousel watching the horses go up and down while spinning slowly. I took this one after it just stopped, but you can see the spinny chair thing is still going. The girl on it looked like she was having a great time, but quite frankly, I'd choose a horse over a spinny chair any day. 

8:00 pm- Just before we left the mall, I HAD to take a night photo of cars. So I set up my tripod in front of TD Bank on Germantown Pike, right before the entrance to the highway, and snapped away. It was actually pretty exhilarating because most of the cars were going over the speed limit and you could almost feel them zoom by. I really slowed the shutter speed here ( 1/5) to get that blurry effect. After about five minutes though, my fingers were almost too frozen to click the shutter.


This was by far the most challenging mode yet. Which is good, because it means that I'm making progress and tackling bigger challenges in photography throughout the course of this project. But I also have sixty four photos of cars in the night that I had to go through before finding the one above. For all my photos, I had to take MANY many shots before I found one that got the motion at the perfect time. Next theme, I will be adjusting all my settings! With the deadline coming fast I might have to cram a little....

Vlog!

Oh wow I am so awkward in this....

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/62215667" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/62215667">Vlog</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user17176404">Carolyn C</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

I'm really sorry that the vlog isn't showing up! Above should be the embed code, I don't know why the video isn't comming up. If you click on the first highlighted link, you should be brought directly to the video. Again, really sorry for this technical difficulty. I've been trying to fix it, but it isn't working.

Other People's Blogs!

Please take a look at these blogs! I've commented on these and all of them are really interesting!

O'Neill: http://oneill-luxem.blogspot.com
Jess: allraveledup.blogspot.com
Arielle: aripianoprodigy.blogspot.com

Still Life

I started Theme 3 with a pretty clear goal in mind. After all, the setting was macro photography, and based on what I gathered from my resources on this setting (listed here and here) all I needed to do was find some pretty flowers and maybe some insects lurking around and I would have my perfect set of brillliant nature photos. I don't understand how somewhere along the way I failed to realize that it's around forty degrees outside and still practically lifeless. And yes, I understand how good photographers are supposed to make anything turn out looking absolutely breathtaking and whatever, but try taking pictures of tree bark for half an hour (which, after about five minutes, I stopped doing). The problem with outdoor macro photography during the winter is that not only are there no insects, plants, or flowers, which usually are the subject of these photos, there's almost no color whatsoever. Color is a very important detail in such photos because it provides a heightened sense of closeness to the subject. And the only thing that I felt could spice up my photos, snow, was missing (minus a few flurries that I managed to capture one day). Photography in this setting is also a lot harder than auto and even black and white setting because camera adjustment takes a lot of patience. When I first started, some of my photos came out unfocused. This occurs because of the Depth Field Rule, which I learned a little about from a youtube video. Apparently the closer you zoom towards a subject, the less in-focus most of the subject will become because the thinner the depth field you have. I experienced this rule multiple times while trying to take my photos, which is why the photos below are not zoomed in incredibly close. For this particular week, I took all outdoor shots. I know I promised that the themes would be more personal topics rather than general ones like "nature". But since macro photography is most associated with nature shots, this set was a bit less personal and more focused on the outside world rather than myself. This theme is offically called "Still Life".


In case you are unfamiliar with art and don't know what a still life is, it's a genre of painting or drawing that deals with an arrangement of objects. Still life is a depiction of usually inaniminate objects, like cups, bowls, and fruits. But in this case, I thought "Still Life" was the perfect term to describe winter photography. As I stated in the beginning, I viewed outdoor macro photography as a huge challenge at first. But after I actually started taking my photos, I realized that winter did have life. It was subtle life, like a flash of green from the moss clinging to a rotting log, or the young flowerbuds protected in their shells from the cold. Before, I would have never noticed it, but now I really admire how even in seemingly the most barren of seasons there is a quiet promise of Spring.

This log was very interesting, mostly because it had a blend of so many shades of green and brown on it. Had it been in the midde of Spring, I'm sure that it would have been teaming with bugs and all kinds of other creepy-crawlies, which would have been perfect for a another close up. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't zoom in even closer to really get the texture of this log.

These berries seemed to particually stand out in the winter landscape.They're such a glossy, vibrant red. And they're clusetered so thickly I'm almost reminded of a pomagrantae. After seeing browns and dull greens all day, this pop of color really caught my attention.

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The first hint of Spring, daffadoils, have just poked up from the soil. This picture was a bit unfocused , probably because I was lying in the grass with the shutter practically in the middle of the leaves. But I guess it does give the picture a softer glow

 Remember when I said that I couldn't wait to see the woods evolve over time? Well, two weeks later, they look practically the same. Which is pretty disappointing. I mean, shouldn't trees be practically in full bloom by now? In the woods surrounded by bare branches, this evergreen stands out. Even a trace of snow still on it too.

Of course, these buds, protected against the cold by a thick, furry shell (not quite sure the technical term for it), remind me that even throughout the winter, life remains, ready to emerge in full force come warmer weather. Can't wait to see these bloom!

 

 It was great to be outside again, although holding my camera with my numb fingers was not as awesome. But what was awesome was the fact that my photos were in COLOR! Oh color, how I've missed you. After my first two weeks of  just playing around and not really focusing on an actual camera setting, the macro setting was really a reminder that I have much to learn. I'm really glad that I have had the chance to explore these different modes of photography though. Action mode shots next week! My old camera was really bad and motion photos never turned out pretty, but I'm really excited to see how they will look with this one! 

 

 

Amazing blogs that you should look at!!

I've commented on Kara's blog, Alyssa's blog, and Chloe's blog. Please check them out!

Childhood Relics

So I'll admit that this week's theme was a bit challenging to think of. I spent the first day of the week, camera in hand, running around exploring every nook and cranny of the house like a madman. After my last theme, which consisted of almost all outdoorsy shots, I was ready to spend some time indoors. I did some quick research to find some tips about taking black and white photos and found a useful link here. But even after taking a bunch of random black-and-white photos, all I saw were many pictures that just lacked that "spark". I don't really know how to describe this "spark" and I'm not even sure if it's a legitament thing. But I feel like the best photos are ones that you can just take in and somehow become transfixed upon, because there's some quality in that photo, a graceful line, an interesting shadow, that just draws you closer. But anyways, day two of theme two wasn't much better either and I was getting kind of frustrated, when suddenly I realized that I never went down to the basement while on my hunt for a good photo. There's a good reason why I never go down to the basement, mostly because it's like a daddy-long-leg haven down there, but also because my basement isn't finished. Through the years, it's kind of become like a massive storage room, with tettering christmas decorations on one end, old bycicles on the other, and just about everything in between. Anyways, I made my down and started looking around when suddenly I saw baskets upon baskets of my childhood things. Dollhouses, stuffed animals, Burger King toys, everything. I found this stuffed monkey from my childhood, who I'm pretty sure I got in China the year we went back there on my seventh birthday. I felt rather bad for the neglegted monkey, so I vowed to bring her back up the world of day with me. But then I suddenl noticed in the corner, directly under a shaft of light, was my rocking horse, Rain (named after the character in the movie Spirit). Rain wasn't technically my rocking horse, she was actually my sister's, but just looking at her made me remember all the times my sister and I played together when we were little, and how once upon a time the two of us were both able to fit on that rocking horse. And then suddenly, inspiration hit me for my next theme:childhood relics. This was my first true photo of the week. The lighting comes from this little window (not in the photo) right above the chair.

So the next day I sat in my room and looked around for anything that had sentimental value. On top of my dresser is this carousel, which I remember I've had FOREVER. I'm pretty sure it made the move from our apartment to our house, which was probably eleven years ago. So I took it downstairs and asked my mom if she remembered when she had bought it, and my mom told me her friend had actually given it to her when they were in college. So yeah, the thing's practically an antique.

I love trinkets and pretty things, especially from different countries. I have carved elephants from India, a Kimmidoll from Japan, and of course a bunch of inexpensive little things that I get when I go back to China, like fans, clay dolls, paper cuttings, etc. I love them so much. But my favorite object is probably this silk plush jewelery box that my grandmother gave me when I was younger. The setting of objects that I have here is actually exactly how they are situated on top of my nightstand. If you notice the picture frame in the back, the image is actually cut from colored paper. The fan I got from China last time I went back.

 

So the whole week I was thinking about my childhood and then suddenly the topic of games came into mind. I remember back when I was probably three or four I found some marbles on a little playground that I used to always go to. I never really knew how to actually play with them, so I rememeber that I would just take them out of my desk and kind of admire how pretty they were. So my next photo is about marbles. I really tried to experiement with the lighting here and get that interesting shadow. I love how no two of the marbles were exactly alike.

The next day I decieded I photograph one of my favorite games: chess. Just to set the record straight I actually suck at chess. But I love the strategy involved. The rules are rather basic, and yet the game is so complex. Since my parents didn't know how to play, as a child I kind of figured it out on my own, which is why I'm not very good. With this shot, I wanted to make the chess pieces more realistic and life-like. The king, of course, is the centerpiece in this photo.

 

Taking pictures outdoors was a lot of fun, but I think I actually enjoy indoor photography even more. Just the stability of the setting and the variety of objects to work with make indoor photography extremely interesting. I loved being able to adjust the lighting to my needs, something that I can't do outdoors since I depend on sunlight. Next week's pictures will all be in the macro setting, so look foward to some more outdoor shots, especially of tiny details! I'll also probably be getting my clothes REALLY messy next time too. Joy.

 

 

Awesome Blogs!

I've commented on Rebekah's, Annie's and Jenny's blog.

My Happy Place

After carefully studying the owner's manual for my camera, and finally understanding what all the little pictures for the settings mean, I decided that the theme for week 1 would be "My Happy Place". To me, a happy place is anywhere quiet and rather secluded. In order to find some inspiration, day 1  I decided to bike around the community a bit. After taking my dusty bike for a quick loop on the driveway, I realized that the brake was broken. Awesome. Unfortunately, my mom hadn't been too keen on the idea of just "driving around" so that I could find some good landscapes. So brake or no brake, I armed myself with my camera and set off to find some worthy photos that wouldn't completely put me to shame when compared to what others were probably doing this week. Ten seconds after leaving the driveway, I realized just how awkward riding a bike in the middle of winter looked. People driving by gave me some curious glances, and I imagine that to them I was this random girl wearing a giant trench coat on a bright pink bike with a Cannon camera slung over her shoulder. The first stop I wanted to make was to The Creek. Just outside of my neighborhood is the beginning of Stony Creek, which is basically a trickle of water, small enough to not quite hold the majesty of a flowing river, and big enough to never dry into a muddy waterbed during the summer. The Creek is one of those forgotten holy grounds that I pass by everyday without really seeing. After almost crashing into  tree while trying to slow my bike down effectively without the help of an actual brake, I stood on the bridge overlooking the Creek and looked down. Immediately, memories of elementary school summers spent exploring the creek, looking for turtles, and trying to "fish" from the shallow water came into mind.

I spent probably about ten minutes just poking around the creek, sitting on rocks, exploring the stretch of woods nearby, and getting my jeans muddy.After ten minutes of plodding around in mud, I finally emerged victorious, triumphantly holding my camera. (I now have a newly-found respect for professional nature photographers.) Here I wasn't really going for an artsy shot or anything, just displaying the wild natural beauty of the river. Still, the branches in the forefround of the photo kind of bother me. But not too bad for my first photo in a while. The highlight of my first day, though, was this herd of deer that I spotted while riding back. I'm pretty sure that they're the same herd that keeps on visiting my backyard and eating my grandma's vegetables in the spring.

Yeah, that didn't really have anything to do with my theme. But I stalked them through people's backyard's for about another ten minutes and came home pretty proud at my efforts.

I visited my elementary school, Stony Creek, the second day to walk the nature trail. (The bike ride there was terrifying. I definitely need to get my bike fixed for next week.)  This tree, which I found at the start of the trail, really stood out. It was the really giant sycamore. And since I wanted to get a better shot, I decided to climb it. You can't really see from the picture, but there was actually a bunch of picture carvings on the higher branches that people had left behind that I never noticed before. Again, this brought back many happy memories of Elementary School days.

Anyways, I found a dry log by the trail and sat there for a while. Kinda wish I had brought Les Miserables or something to read. Even though it's winter, the monotony of the woods and its shade of the grey-brown makes it seem even more quiet this time of year.

Wednesday I decided to experiment a little with indoor too. Outside was rather cloudy and I had to do a little research about how to shoot better on overcast days, since the lighting is not as good. I read an article about it from here which did help me a lot.  Still, too many cloudy days this week for my liking. I hope the sun comes back out next week! (Actually, it wouldn't really matter because my photos next week will all be in black and white.) I think the best one was taken in my room though. My study desk is actually facing this window, and the view outside is gorgeous. I have probably spend countless evenings with a bunch of textbooks or my laptop just gazing out this window. I like the simplicity of the photo.

Thursday I took this photo during a rare sunny moment. Yep, more trees. Trees are probably one of the most beautiful things in this world. I imagine that my true happy place is probably somewhere in the middle of the woods. I've never taken many nature photos during the winter except after snowfall since there's not really much color, and this has been a very new experience for me. After reviewing the photo though, I think the dark color of the trees and the color of the sky complement each other really well. I'm really excited to continue as the weeks pass and witness the changes in these woods as Spring comes around. Hopefully I might even be able to photograph these changes.

 

 

Today after a long week I sat down with a cup of tea at the kitchen table. Honestly our table is probably ancient, but it's probably my favorite piece of furniture in the whole house. This picture also brings back memories of late night snacks. I think the teacup should have been a bit smaller; it looks rather obnoxiously large in the photo. The glare in the otherwise black background is from one of the chairs. In this photo, I was trying to capture that gentle glow from the hanging light overhead to achieve a tranquil kind of feel. Is it just me or does the shadow below the teacup kind of make look like it's floating?

 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how my photos turned out this week. This has turned out to be even more exciting than I thought, and I can't wait to continue my adventure and complete my next five themes. Next week's focus is the contrast between light and dark. All pictures will probably be in black and white, which I feel will probably be harder. I will have to read more into the differences between taking color photography and black and white photography. Can't wait to give it a shot! (Sorry, that was a terrible pun.)

The Beginning

At first glance, the Genius Project seemed a bit intimidating. Never once have I had such an open-ended project with literally endless choices. And to me, it was a bit overwhelming because I personally am most comfortable with a little more structure. But the more I thought about this project, the more I realized that there were literally endless choices. Meaning, I could choose anything at all and just learn about it. And have a lot of fun doing so.


The first thought I had was art. Art is something I really love, but have never really had the time to pursue. I did dabble a bit in oil painting, pastel and sketch when I was younger, and really enjoyed all those mediums. But I wanted to try something completely different. And this is when photography came into mind, because unlike other forms of art, the idea of photography is based on the present moment. It's based upon the real world, and finding beauty rather than creating it. (I also just received a new camera for Christmas, and have been dying to play around with it, which helped make my choice a bit easier). As far as my experience in photography goes, it's pretty much limited to taking family photos and pictures of squirrels, although I have begun picking up some pretty neat tips from National Geographic magazine in their photography section here. National Geographic, by the way, produces some of the most AMAZING photos I've ever seen. I actually just recently began subscribing to the magazine, and the sheer beauty of some of the photos in it is  incredible. Of course, I can't travel to the distant corners of the globe to find inspiration for my pictures, so I plan on wandering around my own community to maybe catch a glimpse of beauty that we see everyday, but never really think of.

                                                               Me and my camera :)

The goal for this project is to make a photo album of 25 pictures. In the six weeks I have left, I will spend five weeks taking photos. This first week I will spend learning how to work my Cannon Rebel T3i, which has an awful lot of buttons and settings. I'm not even sure if I still have the manual lying around in a dusty corner of a drawer somewhere, but thankfully, I also found a really helpful webesite here which describes a lot of the settings so I can adjust to take a photo in the style I want it. As far as the modes go, I will probably be focusing mostly on landscape and close-up, although each theme will introduce different modes. Once I get more used to the camera, I may begin switching to creative mode and adjust all the settings myself. I will be spending the next few days familiarizing myself with my lovely camera, who will be my dearest companion in the weeks to come. Starting next week, I will choose a theme, or something that my pictures for that week will focus around. Potential themes could be things about me, like "fears". I think that the pictures will all be in color, but none will contain any people. I want to focus on environment rather than a person. Week 1 photos will be taken with autoflash, but starting Week 2, I will focus on more complex settings on my camera. By the end of the project, I hope to have a bunch of unique pictures documenting my experience. I really am excited to start taking photos and maybe, just maybe getting that perfect shot! Hopefully, even after this project, photography will become an enjoyable hobby for me.

End Goal:
Photo Album containing...

- 5 photos from Theme 1 (just autoflash photos)
-5 photos from Theme 2 (emphasis on dark and light)
-5 photos from Theme 3 (emphasis on macro/ closeup mode)
-5 photos from Theme 4 (emphasis on action mode)
-5 photos from Theme 5 ( self-adjust all settings)
-Quick description of time and place of each photo

The themes are still being worked out, so stay tuned! Feel free to comment or leave any suggestions!