EOC Week 1: Voice

“Voice”

"Photography" when many people hear that all they think of is just grabbing a camera and taking a simple picture yes partially true, but photography takes skill, patients, and creativity. Photography probably takes a lot more than those three words, but for me that is what I believe it all comes down to. You have to have the skill to understand every part, functions, and details about your camera, as well as understanding the concept of lighting. You have to have patients with your clients; patients while taking your pictures so you can capture that right moment, and at the right time. And last but not least, you must be creative when choosing what you want to photograph, how you want to photograph your subject, and how you may want to capture someone’s eye into liking your work.

I am a photographer that’s just about to graduate from school. I will be graduating from The Art Institute of Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 22, 2012. I transferred from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At UNLV I was studying to become a nurse but then realized that was not the right path for me, so photography is what I switched to and I am so happy learning and gaining great knowledge to take amazing photos. While finishing up school I do have a part time job at a golf course. Yes it is not in my career field but this is a job that helps me interact with all different types of people, and helps me become comfortable being able to confront people and strength my “people skills.” Besides working at a golf shop I have worked retail, and a dental office. All that which have gave me very great experience it different subjects.

I have had experience in the field of wedding photography, and also my own freelance photography. With the experience I have had with wedding photography, I helped assist the photographer to get the feel of how much work gets put in per wedding. I worked with JD photography. JD photography specializes in weddings, but also does the engagement photos and also portrait photography. Interning has really opening my eyes up of all that I have to do and what I am looking forward to doing. I’m so excited to be done with school and start my own business, and get my own work out there for the world to see.

 With my freelance work I have photographed engagement photos, portraits of people, and also photos of babies and little children. I have photographed more than just those I have listed, but that type of photography is what I like to photograph the most. Lately for part of my freelance work I have been photographing sports. I would have to say sports photography is a challenge. Being able to capture the right moment with your subjects in focus is difficult. But I think that once you can concur your challenges then you are able to concur anything else that seems to be challenging. Other things that I have been photographing currently are of little children, and commercial items. Children are probably one of the most exciting subjects to photograph. They have so much natural personality. Yes they do have a low attention span, but you can always get the best facial expression out of them.

One of the main reasons why my top favorite things to photograph are weddings children/babies, and portraits of people is because of their expressions. That to me tells the story of the photo. The expression on their face set the mood of the photo; help tell a story to the viewers of what that person may be feeling and or thinking. Wedding photography is my career goal one day, and with this I know that I will capture so many great expressive faces from the guests that attend the wedding and from the bride and groom, and everyone else that is there celebrating the happy moment.

My latest project I did actually involved people’s facial expressions. My project was called “Personalities.” What my project was about was I took ten different people, and I had them try different facial expressions, such as happy, sad, excited, etc. With that emotion I had a colored background that matched that expression. So if the expression was sad, I had a blue background. I did a total of 20 different facial expressions, and with the colored background I did the positive and negative feel of what facial expression would fit those colors best. For the models I had them pose twice. I just photographed shoulders and up, so a basic head shot. I had each model do the negative and the positive of the background colors. The ending results were fabulous. So I then decided to name this project “Personalities.” The book was a success, and maybe one day it will become popular.

I try to keep in open mind, so if a job opportunity opens up to me I am able to say, “yes! I have experience in that area of photography.” Then hopefully I will get hired for that job.  

Besides currently photographing sports at this time, I am also working on photographing commercial items that can be a bit of a challenge as well. You have to make sure you use the right lighting and also make sure you do not have any bad reflections. All types of photography have its little challenges.

As I mentioned earlier, my career goal is wedding photography. One day I do hope to have my own business running from home. I do plan on becoming well know in the field of wedding photography as well as doing engagement photos. I’m planning on having my home run business in Puerto Rico. That is where I plan to move in the next few months. It seems crazy to pick up and go, but I did grow up in Seattle, Washington, then I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada for college. I did do quite a bit of traveling when I was younger and did get to visit Puerto Rico, and I absolutely fell in love with that place. So since I fell in love with that location I knew right then and there that’s where I wanted to start my business. I will like I said keep my options open to do all different types of photography, because if I realize that maybe wedding photography is not for me, at least I had my self practicing ad bettering myself with other types of photography.

Wedding photography is my first option but if I figure out later on that is not the area of photography for me then I will do another type of photography. Seeing that something isn’t for me doesn’t mean I will quit and give up, it will just make me work harder to figure out what fits me best, and what I will enjoy doing every day of my life.