meerarajphotography

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Week 29

In our last week of photography we worked on our personal projects in an area of photography that we are interested in. I was focusing on photojournalism that documents human rights across then world. Obviously, in this lockdown I couldn’t go abroad and document any human rights atrocities, so I worked on editing pictures I already had in the style of those photos I discussed last week. Here they are, hope you enjoy! 

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Week 28: Photography Inspiration

This week we were asked to research two photographers who’s work inspired our preferred photography style. I am very interested in photojournalism, specially work documenting cultures and lives abroad. I chose two contemporary photojournalists, Steve McCurry and Stephanie Sinclair. 

Steve McCurry is an American photographer who is most known for his photo entitled “Afghan Girl” which was featured in famous publications such as National Geographic among other large dailies and times. Below are some of his photos that I found most compelling and spoke the most to me. 

The next photographer I chose was Stephanie Sinclair. Sinclair is not only a photojournalist but an activist who uses her art to document gender and human rights issues. Her most famous work divulges into child marriage and self immolation. I loved what Sinclair was doing with her work, here are some of my favorites. 

I am very interesting in international human rights issues and I love how these photos told a story of struggle. I hope this was informative! Can’t wait to take more photos :) 

[meerarajphotography]

Week 27:

This week we our project was to depict lightness or darkness. I chose to depict darkness. I used black and white filters, dark exposure, and high contrast to achieve the dark look that my photos got. I had a lot of fun with this project> Hope you like it :) 

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Week 26

This week we were asked to do two things: review a photography app of our choice and look over some photos featured in the New York Times. 

The app I chose to review was the photo editing app called vsco. I use vsco frequently and have my own account. I like it a lot because it has some of the same features as instagram meaning it’s a photo sharing app with followers and likes. However, I find it to be a lot less public than instagram because users can’t see other peoples followers or likes, meaning it’s all about the photos. In addition to this, the editing aspect has all sorts of features that can enhance a photo a lot and make it look very professional. Overall, I could give vsco a 10/10 :)

I though that the New York Times photos were really interesting and unique. I especially liked how each photo was from a different part of the country and told it’s own story. But that the same time, these photos as a collection reflect a universal story that every American is experiencing during this pandemic. I find in really cool that all these photos have nothing to do with each other yet each one tells such a complex story and the photos as a collection tell an even bigger story that could potentially define our lifetime. 

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Week 25

This week we worked on capturing a moment in time. I chose to document the blowing out of a candle. I thought it would be cool to document action that takes place in a mere millisecond that is often missed my the human eye. The first photo if the candle fully lit, the second is the blue flame that occurs right before the candle goes out, and the last is the candle with no flame. Hope you like it! 

[meerarajphotography]

Week 24:

This week we shot food photography inspired by many different food photographers and artists. I chose two different styles of photography. The first two were up close action shots of preparing food that I saw on some sites. In the last one I tried to cut and place the fruit in some sort of pattern to make the the photo better and more interesting which is something I saw other artists do. I’m very happy with how these turned out :) I hope you like them too! 

[meerarajphotography]

Weeks 22 & 23

In these two weeks we are asked to do some portraits of out family documenting the quarantine. My family was not very willing to let me take photos of them but I did manage to take these photos of my mom. Since I didn’t get that many photos this time around, I decided to focus primarily on the editing. I edited both of this photos in vsco as well as snap speed. I have multiple versions of them both in color and in black and white but these two were my favorite. I hope you like them! 

[meerarajphotography]

Week 21

This week we worked on photographing landscaping. Due to the shelter in place it was a little harder to do this. However, I tries to use this to my advantage and tailor my photos to represent life durning the quarantine. I was inspired by a collection of photos featured in the New York Times documenting landscapes around the world. Below are some of my favorites!! 

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Week 20

This week we are starting mobile photography using our phones and an editing app called snapspeed. I learned about all the different features of snapspeed and how to edit all types of photos. I tried incorporating 4-5 effects per photo to get the most out of the app and explore all it had to offer. Additionally, I tried to work with both black and white and color photos. Below are some of my favorites, I hope you like them! 

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Week 19

This week we worked on surrealism by experimenting with new features in photoshop. I used different layers on top of each other to create a surreal looking photo of max. Unfortunately, due to the covid-19 school closure I wasn’t able to fully finish my piece. None the less, I am pretty happy with how it turned out and can’t wait for more fun in photo during distance learning. 

[meerarajphotography]

Weeks 17&18

In these two weeks we’ve been working on photoshop basics. We learned about photoshop tools such as selection, masking, and liquefaction. We mostly focused on realistically combining two or more photos to make one semi-realistic photograph. Mine don’t exactly look too realistic, I was still getting the hang of things :) None the less, I did two projects, I started with the photo of Mr. Devitt and then moved on to photoshopping max onto cartoon dragons. Neither of them are particularly goos, however, hopefully the one of max is a little bit better. Whether or not I succeeded in creating a realistic looking photo, I learned a lot about photoshop and feel a lot more confident using the software. Below are my two projects!

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Weeks 15&16

Our latest assignment was to shoot photos inspired by certain artists or styles of art from a list that was given to that. I chose to work on feminist inspired art.

In this project, I wanted to highlight the societal struggles that face both men and women face in today’s society. Often times, when people think of feminism, they only think of women and have a lot of pre established notions of what feminism means. I wanted to make clear through my photos that feminism means equality for all genders.

In these photos I started by editing them in light room. I made them black and white and wanted to make them look more like professional portraits. Then, I exported them into photoshop and added google autocomplete sentences in accordance with their gender identification. 

Hope you like my work! :) 

[meerarajphotography]

Weeks 13&14

In these two weeks, we were introduced to digital photography. We stared with abstraction. The goal of this project was to take pictures of ordinary things and make them interesting or unrecognizable. After this, we uploaded the photos into light room and playing with settings like exposure, contrast, and texture (and a lot of others). Here are the before and after of my favorite photos I edited. (They are probably still recognizable though :))

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Week 12: Art with Photos

This week we “decorated” the prints we made. I thought it would be interesting to use a needle and thread on my prints. Here is the photo I made! It doesn’t look like a lot but it took me a lot of time!

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Week 11: Exhibit

This week I prepared photos for the exhibit we had in the library. I’ve included the photos I chose for the exhibit! It was really fun to see other students’ work and get more ideas for what I can do with my photos in the future. Very exited for the second semester in photography.

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Week 10: Lenses

This week we used different lenses for our photos. I mostly used a zoom lens so the use of a different lens is not too noticeable but it was still fun to play around with them. I shot some good portraits with these lenses, here they are!!

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Week 9: Motion

This week we worked on motion. I tried to play with both long shutter speeds and short ones. For example, on the photos of carson and max jumping, i wanted to freeze the motion so i used a quick shutter speed. For the photo of carolina playing soccer, however, I wanted to capture the movement of the ball ao i used a slower shutter speed. Above are my favorites!