(P25) Using Layers

I enjoyed this project, as I practice photoshop techniques like this fairly often. The photos I combined were not taken exactly from the same position, as I did not use a tripod. I've isolated Eva painstakingly using the quick select tool. I am still pleased with the results, had I not known the origins of this photo I would have believed a tripod was involved. I increased the vibrance, saturation, and sharpness of the image as well.

Warm Ups

Warm Up 55: What jobs can photography experts hold?

Photographers tend to be good directors of photography in the realm of video, film and television. They also make good graphic designers. Photographers can work in journalism as well. Photographers can work in advertising. Pursuing photography independently, on commission can be difficult but also profitable.

warm Up 56: What publication (magazine) would you want to take photos and write for? Why? What do you like about that publication?

Given the choice, I would love to be a photographer and/or writer for National Geographic. The photos of Nat Geo are gorgeous and capture unforgettable natural and human stories. I'd be able to travel to get photos of the most beautiful locations on earth. Being able to capture the human experience will be eye opening. The spread of unique and exotic animal an plant species I could capture would be better than any sum of money I would receive for the job.

Warm Up 57: Happy Friday! What are your plans for the weekend?

Tomorrow, I will be competing in the CIF  swimming finals in the 50 and 100 freestyle. For these I am seeded 7th and 5th, respectively. I was able to reduce my time in the 100 free to 47.5 seconds, which was a near-second drop from my previous best. Hopefully I will be able to match that tomorrow. I'll spend Sunday with my family most likely, seeing as it is mother's day.

Warm Up 58: Take a look at these easy "photo hacks." What do you think? Which one would you try first, and why?

These are some neat photography tricks. I found all of them to be interesting, maybe I will try some. I particularly  liked the instant studio with the laptop and pane of glass, very creative. I also enjoyed the creation of colored gels to affect coloration of the image. Honorable mention: The CD lens flare trick.

Warm Up 59: Take a look at this site.

In portraits, ensuring that the model is dynamic is very important. This guide addresses this issue in detail. The involvement of a subject in any shot is paramount. Even in landscape photography there should be some central figure that stands out in the composition. This is an important guide, which I agree with.

Warm Up 60: What are your plans for the summer?

I will mostly be working and swimming this summer. Tuition is not cheap, and I will need to be able to pay it and have some disposable income throughout my freshman year. I will socialize as much as I can however, as many of my friends will be leaving for far away  come fall. A friend of mine from Michigan will be visiting me later on, and I might travel to Michigan myself. I also plan to compete in some swim meets.

(P24) Green Screen

I've always been interested in modifying images in photoshop, so this has been a fun project for me. I wanted to achieve a higher degree of realism in these images. For this, I made adjustments such as modifying colors and making subjects interact with the background. I used the color range selector in conjunction with the quick-select tool to isolate my subjects. You may need to look a little bit in the last image for Karina.

(P21) Personality Portraits

A note: I had some images of Karina in our studio in the classroom, however I lost possession of them when my SD card disappeared.  This was the major challenge of completing this project. I took these photos of my girlfriend at La Jolla Cove. This is a favorite shooting place of mine due to the natural beauty and range of positions to shoot from. I tried shooting closer to sunset, however I was a bit early. I adjusted the temperature of the image slightly to compensate for this. I felt that these three photos went together nicely. I tried to compose them in a triptych, as I felt this would well suit the nature of the project.

(P23) Photoshop Filters

Original:

The filters photoshop offers are fun to use, and I have explored them a bit on my own. Most are fairly simple to use. The blur effects were a bit more difficult as I had to carefully select myself and Eva in order to keep us in clarity. The flames involved more steps than the others as well. I experimented with the oil paint effect, however it was not much to my liking.

(P22) Photoshop

I chose to try color isolation for this project. I've dabbled in this trick before, but never achieved the results I really wanted before now. I'll explain how I achieved this effect.

1.) Once your desired image is open in Photoshop, duplicate it once.

2.) Select your top layer. In the toolbar, click Select > Color Range. Use the dropper tool to select the color you'd like to isolate.*

3.) Adjust "fuzziness" to impact the area of your selection.

4.) Confirm your selection. Right click inside your selection and click "select inverse."

5.) Delete the selection.

6.) Select your bottom layer. In the toolbar, select Image > Adjustments > Black and White. Adjust color balances as you'd like and confirm your edit.

*You can use the Quick Selection Tool to improve the accuracy of your selection.

Before:

 After:

Something I'd also like to try is cosmetic modifications in Photoshop, such as skin smoothing and tooth whitening. Some consider this unethical, but I believe that in small doses cosmetic enhancements in Photoshop are harmless. I would also like to learn other special effects, such as removing items from an image and replacing a background. I enjoy color isolation, and it is a good looking effect. I am fairly familiar with Photoshop so these skills shouldn't be extremely hard to learn.

(P19) Light Painting

This was personally among my favorite projects, as long exposure photography has been an interest of mine for a while now. I've always wanted to use steel wool for light painting, and I finally got the opportunity to try it. Lighting the steel wool was difficult at first, as the wind was strong and the wool was packed too densely to light. After a few tries, we managed to capture a couple good takes. I'd definitely like to explore light painting more in the future.

Warm Ups

(42) What are your observations about the photos? What would photos of today’s “rebellious youth” look like?

I notice many of these youth are embracing the counter-culture of the 1970's. At this time many youth were questioning the values on which they were raised. Kids and teens pursued social freedom. Today kids are moving away from tradition in a similar way. I've noticed many that embrace technology more so than adults.

(43) How do you think this photo was created?

This appears to be a sort of long exposure shot. One way or another the dancer was suspended in the air. This was probably so that a solid image of her is created in the center of the frame. I am surprised at the crispness of the image. I usually have a hard time with this in long exposure shots.

(44) Tell me about a funny, random, or scary encounter you’ve had with an animal.

I had a cat when I was younger. He was orange and white, and named Fluffy. Fluffy was a sadist. He would often attack my family and I without warning. He typically showed little affection to any of us except for my father. He would typically attack my father as well. No one was safe.

(45) We are going to be doing another set of portraits soon, using the lighting studio in the back of the room. What kind of portraits would you like to take?

I'd like my studio portraits to look very professional. I'll tweak my lighting to appear very soft and cast few shadows. Props will spice it up a bit. I will likely use my own camera, as I am most familiar with it. I'll edit the photos in Photoshop.

(46) We are going to start an studio portrait project. I 've had you look at a few sites like this before, but take a look at these and jot down 2 things from each site that you think will be helpful. The first one has more to do with how you work with your subject. The second one focuses more on camera stuff.

Shooting candidly will help make my portraits more interesting. Altering perspective is also something I'd like to try. Lens choice is key. Altering shutter speed and aperture also affects how the portraits will turn out. It will be interesting to try out these techniques.

(47) For your warm up today, look at the links below and tell me which category seems most interesting and why. You need to COPY and PASTE the links, don't click on them.

I am most interested in the culture category. Exploring cultures is fascinating to me and I want to try and capture as many as possible. There are many cultures both domestic and abroad worth exploring. I've already experimented with culture photography. It has been greatly rewarding.

(48) What's been going on with you lately?

I've been quite tired because of school and training for swimming. I am training to swim as best as I can in Cities and CIF, and I'd also like to stay in shape for my college season this fall. School has eased up a bit, which has been nice. I am in anticipation of graduation and other senior events. This summer I'm going to have a friend from Michigan in town so I'm looking forward to and preparing for that.

(49) We will begin doing some Photoshop stuffs in a few weeks. Brainstorm three ideas of things you might want to learn how to do. You don't need to know how to do the things, just come up with three things you would want to learn.

I'd like to learn how to isolate colors better in Photoshop. I've experimented with it but haven't perfected it. Also I'd like to learn to better touch up my photos and make them look more professional in Photoshop.  A last skill I'd like to learn is the better isolating of shapes and forms from an image.

(50) How have you been editing your photos? Are you still using Lightroom? Do you use an app on your phone, or just the basic editing programs on your computer or phone? What do you usually do to edit your photos?

I only use Photoshop to edit my photos. I usually use it to adjust colors. I will adjust brightness and contrast. I'll also adjust hue and saturation. Sometimes I'll add vignetting.

(51) If you don't drink coffee, what's your favorite drink? From where?

I do in fact drink coffee. Apart from water, it is my favorite drink. I make it myself most of the time but if I need to I may stop by whichever coffee shop is nearest to me. I have an espresso machine and I know how to make my own americanos, lattes, and cappuchinos. 

(P20) Animals

I've had mixed experiences trying to take pictures of animals. With my dog it is fairly easy, as he is generally lethargic and slow moving. With my bird, it can be a bit more difficult, as she moves quickly and generally doesn't look at the camera, and is generally uncooperative. Capturing wildlife can also be difficult, as wild animals tend to shy away from humans. The seagulls are easier as they are accustomed to human presence in their habitat. I'd like to experiment with more wildlife photography, and more exotic animals in particular.

(P18) Choice Project (Top: Raw, Bottom: Edited)

The beach front skate park in Venice Beach is a highlight of LA, so when I was in the area I of course wanted to capture it. I took these pictures at dusk, which required me to brighten them up in photoshop quite a bit. I wanted to capture some moments of intense action, skateboarders in the air and whatnot. I had to balance my settings appropriately to avoid crazy motion blur and maintain some lighting in the picture.The sunset  is a very nice backdrop for this action though!

Warm Ups

Describe the photo. This photo has interesting perspective, and no Photoshop was used. How was it created? What elements do you see and where?

- This is a risky photo to take, but the payoff is evident. It was likely created as the subject sticks his head out of the window of a moving train, and the photographer takes a photo holding his camera out of the next window. A clear element here is line, as diagonals direct our line of sight to our subject's head. The train tracks, the treeline and the electrical wires all do this. This photo has a lot of depth to it, which I like.

A lot of magazines are trying to use more realistic and natural photos, however many magazines still use extreme Photoshopping for their ads and covers. What do you think of this practice? What do you think it says to consumers?

-I consider the process of over-editing models to be unnecessary, and misleading to consumers. I could understand touching up a skin blemish or fixing a model's posture, but making them look like they weight eighty-five pounds is a waste of time from a management standpoint. It can create an intangible standard of beauty among the public as well. I don't think photoshopping the models make them more attractive. This is especially true when I know that they are photoshopped.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

-I would love to travel to Spain. European art and culture fascinates me, as does language. I would need to brush up my Spanish a bit before I went, but it would be worth it. Seeing the Classical and Baroque architecture would thrill me. Watching a professional soccer game would also be a fun activity. I would surely check out every art museum that I could.

Which (light painting) images do you like (choose 5) and how do you think they were created?

-I particularly enjoy the orangey swirl in the tunnel. I believe this is done by lighting steel wool on fire and whipping it around on a string. I also like the ones that look like domes. From what I can tell these ise some special tool to achieve that shape.The one that looks like light is being poured from a wine bottle, the kid under the "christmas tree" of lights, and the cards surrounded by green lights are also favorites of mine. This lighting is likely done by hand with small, simple lights.

What did you do over the long weekend?

-I participated in a swim meet over the long weekend. Fun. Some races I managed to get good times, others I didn't quite reach the times I wanted. Aside from this meet, I also watched the PL v. Coronado basketball game, which we won. Our side and Coronado's side was involved in much heckling but I suppose that's just part of the game. I hung out with some friends on Saturday.

What is your favorite thing about living in San Diego?

-First off, the weather. I grew up for the most part in Ann Arbor which, while being a beautiful and awesome college town, tends to reach a bitter cold in the winter with a lot of unwelcome precipitation. Wearing a T-Shirt in February was a foreign thought until 2014 for me. The beach is pretty nice, even though I don't go there very often. Believe it or not, I still prefer the indoor swimming of Michigan, as when it gets cold on pool decks here, it tends to mess up your races.

Choose 5 Social Issue ideas and brainstorm how you might go about taking or creating photos.

-The first I would choose is insufficient pollution control, for which I would photograph sources of pollution such as traffic congestion and factories. I would also consider the unequal distribution of funding towards schools, for which I would take photos to juxtapose the quality of various high schools around the county. Another issue which I take issue with is the neglect for natural habitats when it comes to building roads and other infrastructure. I would take photos of highways that subdivide animal habitats and industry centers which are built on previously undeveloped land. Another interesting topic for me is internet addiction. I would stage some photos of my friends on my phones for this.

What is this project about?

-This project honors the greatest living photographers and their work. It is interesting to see this famous photos and the faces behind the camera. One of my favorites is Jeff Widener and "Tank Man." This is an inspirational image, and without Widener it would not exist. This photo resonates culturally with anyone who wants to stand up to an oppressive authority and should be an awe-inspiring image for anyone else. I also like Nick Ut and "Terror of War."

If you could be any animal, what would you be?

-I'd love to be a bird. Any kind of bird would be cool, but especially a larger bird like a hawk or eagle. The ability to fly and fly at great speeds is enviable. Their stoicism and calm are something I admire. They are also quite beautiful. Yes, being a bird would be quite nice.

Write down ten things you think might be helpful when trying to photograph your subject’s emotions.

-Playing with perspective will make your photos unique.

-Have variation in where the subject is looking.

-Play with composition.

-Play with lighting.

-Test your subject's comfort zone.

-Candid is key.

-Use props, possibly.

-Focus on a certain body part.

-Obscure your subject, partly.

-Get a lot of images.

Choose three bloggers who you feel showcased a variety of emotions well.

-I enjoyed Brandon Mendoza's photos. Not only are they beautiful photos, but his subject is able to express very natural yet intense emotions. Kailani William's photos were also good. I like the dynamism of the subject here. Kyle Miller's photos I also enjoyed, the photos are of good quality and I like the color depth.

(P17) Emotions

The main challenge I faced was my own acting skills. I am both the subject and photographer here, so that's twice the burden on me. I needed to find out how to properly express the emotions that I wanted and make each photo unique. I incorporated some props to assist with my expression in sending the correct message. I set my camera up on a tripod and used a phone app to allow me to take pictures with a live view of myself. I wanted to make these pictures dynamic and interesting, and different from the rest of the projects you are receiving.

(P16) Social Issue

   

     The social issue I have chosen to tackle for this project regards the working world and its effect on our climate and the world's people. Most adults have jobs, that's how we survive. Some are lucky enough to work outdoors, but for the most part we find ourselves confined under a roof, fluorescent lights shining down on us. And with this work comes consequences to our health and that of our environment. Every day, millions drive themselves to work nine to five and traffic congestion from this trek releases pollutants such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which provide a spread of negative affects to human and environmental health. Humans living within 300 meters of major roadways display heightened risk of developing asthma and lung cancer from exposure to particulate matter. The presence of major roadways subdivides animal habitats and restricts their area of activity. This is known as the "edge effect." Working life limits human exposure to nature which can create depression in those affected. Rapid, unchecked urbanization amplifies these adverse effects and can be difficult to control, as corporations behind environmental degradation are difficult to control.
     The causes and effects of these problems are not hard to find. The consequences of our unsustainable practices pervade the world we live in. Any vehicle I photograph is part of the problem. Any body of water I photograph is being adversely impacted by excessive water diversion, or even experiencing acidification due to carbon contents in our atmosphere. I tried capturing a spread of causes and effects of our issues. Most vehicles produce emissions, which is why I captured ships, planes and cars. I took pictures of the animals which suffer from air and water pollution, and of the nature that we miss out on with such a strict work schedule.
     If humans can begin to understand how they directly affect their surroundings, they may be more reluctant to act the way they do towards our environment. The working world must develop solutions to expose workers to nature and physical activities. I believe firmly that this will increase productivity and overall happiness. We must make efforts to expand public transportation to reduce net vehicle miles traveled over all commuting workers, and ensure that other types of vehicles are regulated and monitored for contributions to air quality. Together we can save this planet and secure our happiness.

(P15) Who am I?

 My name is Miles Koupal, and I hope you already know that seeing as I'm in your class. As of the time of my posting this, I am eighteen years old and a senior in high school. You probably know that as well. I am thrilled to be sharing the details of my life with you now, most teachers I've had don't allow for that kind of opportunity. I'm sure you will discover something you never knew about me. Enjoy!

 I should start by saying that my favorite time of year is summer. I come from a place where summer is the only time you can leave your house without a down jacket, so it does hold a special place in my heart. It is a time where I can relax and recover from the school year, and focus my energy on other activities. I can visit my friends and family who live far away, and also visit places I've never been before. Plus it's nice and warm.

 I love both playing and watching sports. I've also recently taken up photographing them. I grew up in in Ann Arbor, Michigan which is a big sports town. It's a fun weekend activity to go see a U of M football game in the big house, or a basketball game in the Chrysler Arena. I still keep up with my favorite teams here in San Diego, and have also gained a few more favorites since the move.

 Experiencing other cultures is something I enjoy and find necessary. I've spent the last few years learning Spanish and have visited Mexico a few times. I would love to go to Spain someday, or other Spanish speaking countries. Learning about the way they do things around the world is worthwhile in my opinion. I would consider it essential.

 For the better half of my life, I have been swimming competitively. I swim for PL, and have swam with several club teams as well. I also plan to continue swimming for Occidental College, which is an NCAA Division 3 school. The picture above was taken at USC's pool, at the Los Angeles Invitational meet. This is my favorite meet of the year because many well known swimmers appear for races. Recently, Olympians Tom Shields and Vladimir Morozov made appearances at this meet.

 I work as a lifeguard currently. The picture above is a bit misleading seeing as I guard at a YMCA and not the beach, however I wanted to use a picture I took for this one. I am responsible for observing the pools and maintaining order among members. I must also be ready to jump in and perform rescues and emergency aid at any given time. We are all highly trained and practice our skills together every month.

 I am a big music lover. I love both listening to and making music. I learned how to play the piano in elementary school. I have become a bit rusty since, but I am practicing more now. I learned how to play the trumpet in middle school, and I am trying to teach myself guitar right now. I really enjoy rock and alternative music, but also listen to some hip hop.

 This fall, I will be attending Occidental College. It is a small, liberal arts college in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. As I mentioned before, I will be a part of Occidental's swim team, and this team is one of the main reasons I chose Oxy, as we call it. It is a beautiful school with strong academics. It boasts many notable alumni, including former president Barack Obama.

 As I mentioned before, I love to travel. I have been all over the United States, but I would like to branch out to other countries as well. A couple times, I have driven across the country and allowed me to see much of our beautiful nation. Some favorite spots of mine are Yosemite, Breckinridge, Flagstaff, and New York City. I have been to Mexico City twice and absolutely loved it.

I have always been interested in creating art, both physically and digitally. I recently have become more interested in photography and editing these photos digitally. I enjoy taking photos with my DSLR and my film point-and-shoot alike. Later altering these photos in Photoshop has proven interesting to me, and I enjoy seeing my photos improve after being edited. I have recently learned to isolate specific colors, which is exhibited in the image you see above.