Final Project: A Story of a Traveler

This is a traveler's story.

The journey will soon begin. Packing doesn't necessarily require perfect skills. Mental preparation is more important.


With money and a credit card, she can do anything at the new place. Camera is for keeping the memories. And sunglasses, haha, some people just need them.

Always keep her schedule in mind. The plane is taking off.

She can give up a lot of things before and on the trip, but not the passport. Passport is the life of the traveler.

On board. Take a deep breath and enjoy the weird feeling of her ears.

Here we go! She's finally at the destination, but no one will pick her up. Cars go by, but none of them is for her.

Before she gets a new cell, or an international phone card, public phone is her only choice to be connected with her family, her friends, and ...


Unpacking is an art. She doesn't want to overdo it. But it's not optional.

On the road, signs help you choose which way to take. In your life, "signs" help you choose which way to take.

Endless road trips. They could be boring sometimes. But looking back, she never regrets.

Cars get dirty.

And suitcases get worn out. This is a traveler's life, adventurous, exciting, nostalgic, but unforgettable.

So this is my final project, a picture story. Having worked on techniques a lot throughout the whole term, I'm sort of confident of my techniques. So this time I decided to focus on story-telling. I would say technically, some pictures of this assignment were not perfect. A couple of them had too much exposure. And looking at individual pictures, I didn't get amazed by my own works. But looking at the whole project overall, I think it was a success. When I chose these 12 pictures from about 500 shots, I considered more about if the picture fit into the story rather than if it's cool-looking or stuff like that.

This is it. THIS IS IT.

"And the wind will set me racing, as my journey nears its end, and the path I'll be retracing, and I'm homeward bound again..." --Homeward Bound

Done with shooting... FINALLY

Yeah you read it right. I got done with shooting this final project TODAY. And I'm aware that it's due TOMORROW before class. As long as I don't sleep in tomorrow and miss the first class, I will get it done. And it won't be very crappy. I'm confident of that.

So something fun about the shooting this time. I tried some new things.

First, it's the first time I actually took a road trip to go shooting. After I had "begged" Kathleen to take me to the airport for about 3 weeks, she finally had time to take me there. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but I did get some good pictures. Surprisingly, I had a lot of fun shooting on the highway. It was hard to control because the car was moving all the time, but I enjoyed it.

Shooting at the airport was embarrassing. I could tell everybody was thinking, "What's this girl doing here without any luggage but a camera?" I tried to shoot the moving checked-in luggage on the machine, but a person in uniform came over to me and stopped me. Dude I'm not a spy, Okay? I'm just a high school student who's doing a photo assignment. Geez! And I saw some good photo moments, such as family hug, saying bye, and things like that. I was too nice to interrupt and take a photo. Hmm... interesting experience.

Also my shooting is more spontaneous than usual. Some people might think it's a bad thing because it means I didn't pose my objects deliberately, but I think it can be a good thing because they're all real things. Things look the most natural in this way. It's hard to control, but I like it.

Anyway, tomorrow at 8 a.m., I'll show up in the photo lab on time and finish printing this project. See ya!

Final Project Proposal Round 3

This new proposal is an extension of Round 2. Round 2 is the basic. And this round 3 will add some details and new ideas to it.

So I read a photo book called Aren't You Happy Today? The author organized a series of photos to tell a complete story about fighting depression. It came to my mind when Mr. Slade talked about some steps of being a traveler. It's the same idea. I think I'll go for it. It can be "A Traveler's Book". The first few pictures will be packing and other preparations. Then I'll show the traveler's life on the trip. His/Her emotions, memories, ...

It should be really fun! I can't wait to do it! But right now I'm still stuck in the AP forest...

Final Project Proposal Round 2

Hey I just came up with this idea: Travelers.
Remember that picture of suitcases under my bed? I named it "Traveler" and I was inspired by that.

I figured I'll have a strong connection with this topic because I'm basically a traveler in the US. And also I can shoot still posed things, at which I'm good. And I can relate my emotions in the photos, in which I'm interested.

So yeah the big idea is a combination of still posed things+emotions (lonely? independent? adventurous?)

Here're some details about what I wanna try:

1. suitcases

2. packing

3. Moving

4. Family photos

5. A book about culture shock

6. Learning new things

7. Find a person to pretend to be a traveler

8. Shooting at the airport

9. Flight tickets

I believe I'll come up with other cool ideas when shooting.

It's time to start shooting!

Final Project Proposal Round 1

This is gonna take me a long time until I come up with the final idea. So let's put this as round 1.
I don't know what I'm gonna shoot, not at all. But at least I know what I'm not gonna do:
1. Shooting indoors
2. Portraits (0r people-involved shooting)
3. Repetitive things like trees, roads, buildings, ... even though I love these things. It's possible to make them beautiful, but it's really hard to be creative.

And I want to make it:
1. outdoors with good light
2. story-telling
3. something that I care about (actually that means everything in the world)

Geez... No idea. This blog didn't help at all.

Assignment #8-Re-do-Numbers

I think of this assignment as a successful re-do. The happy and confident Tracy is back again. :)

I chose to re-do the numbers because as is known to all, it was a crappy assignment. I was pretty sure what I wanted to do: outdoor shots, Chinese calligraphy, and taking my time... But I didn't know what it would turn out to be. I guessed I would just try and see.

Here's my 10 new numbers:

64

This thermometer is beautiful. You can think of it as four if you want. But I prefer it to be 64. It's easy to tell that I did something to the mercury because it can't be so dark naturally in daylight. Yes, I used the "magic" brush in LightRoom. That was a good practice. I think it looks fine.

26

A random price on the newspaper. I actually took a lot of similar pictures. This one stood out because of the good composition, contrast, and sharpness.

23

To me, the key point of this photo is not the number or the bench. Instead, it's my shadow on the bench. Mr. Slade said this is just a bench, JUST a bench. I think it's more than that. This kind of light is the reason why I love outdoor shooting. I can be creative only with good light, and I love playing with sunlight. This photo has absolutely good contrast and composition. I like the story-telling feeling in it, although it's not really telling a story.

22

Building shot again. I just like it and I'm good at it. My passion for building shots is largely related to the photographer research I did last term in Mr. Patteson's class. I even think about doing my final project on it. But it can easily be repetitive and boring.

14

I LOVE love my creativity in this photo. I know I'm not the first person to shoot shadows, but mine is a combination of sweet light, shadow, the idea of a number, and beauty. The Nilsens' big house looks attractive to me because of these beautiful little details. I'm glad I found this scene accidentally.

9

This is #9 in Chinese. You can think of it as twelve if you want to. I don't know what else to say except "Beautiful"! I love it. The cool thing about it when I wrote it down, its length was actually almost equal to its width. But this view changed its proportion. It's extended horizontally. Cool!

8

Haha I would say this photo is a "freshman" shot. I don't know why but a definition of stereotypical "freshman" shots formed in my head after all the critiques. The moment I looked at this photo on the small screen, I was like, "Wow! That looks familiar. That's a freshman shot!" Their photos mainly just fulfilled the requirement of the assignment, but they didn't spend a lot of time composing the photo. They often look like spontaneous shots. No offence to the freshmen. I'm actually jealous of their inspiring creativity. But photo is more serious to me than to them, I think. I want every photo I did to say something about what I'm thinking. It's ok. The freshmen have 3 years to go, and they definitely have some potential.

5

This shot didn't really tell a story. But it looks nice. And that's it.

3

Beautiful! I'm convinced that "Number is everywhere." I poured some ink in the bowl and moved the bowl around. Suddenly a "3" appeared, and I excitedly but carefully set the bowl down and took a photo. Black-white-gray: good contrast. And it also has sweet light.

1

Beautiful again! I love Chinese calligraphy ink because it's pure black and it's natural. The texture on the pure white calligraphy paper is good, too. Actually I kinda learned this view from the assignment "Get on Your Belly". It's the same idea, and we can see that in the "9" photo too. See? I did learn something from different assignments.

Overall, it's a good assignment. I tried what I wanted to try and get good results. It's absolutely worthwhile to re-do this one. I'm glad. It's time to start the final project. It's gonna be challenging but fun! I'm psyched!

Assignment #7-Numbers

It's a bad bad week for me. I don't really have any bad bad week before in my entire life. But this week is just horrible. My junior buddies can feel me. Anyway, I don't blame this assignment. It's totally my bad. I can't even handle all the academic work, so I can only lower the priority of photos.
I'll talk more about the challenges after I show all the photos.

1

This is basically core of my week. Academic, AP US History, stress, ... So it means a lot to me. Also, as a "1", it's typical. As far as I know, Columbus Era can be viewed as the beginning of America history. Good contrast, I'd say. I like the subtle light on the left side. And also I like how I put objects in the middle of the frame on purpose. I used to think I should never do that. But it's a good way to express what I really want to express and reduce distractions.

2

A lame photo. It's just not creative at all. But to me, "2" means "a pair". And the most interesting pair of things I can find are these earrings, IN THE WARM SUNLIGHT.

4

It's not sharp enough. I hate shooting indoors because the Nilsen's house is super dark. This is right next to the biggest window of the house, but still, the exposure time had to be long. But I like how I focused on the bass, and made the background blurry.

5

It's a random shot of 5. But I like it because of the focus and the details in the photo.

6

Ping pong. Haha! As a Chinese, I'm always proud of it. This is that kind of photo where I love using "Manual focus".

7

Technically it's a good picture. But it's not interesting. This is the main problem I have in this photo.

10

This is the kind of thing I like shooting: outdoors, peaceful, still, good light, good position, shadow, contrast, ... I'm obsessed with shooting buildings or things on a building. (Hmm... Maybe this should be my final project.) But the only thing is: IT'S NOT INTERESTING!!! Ahhh!!

14

Building again. It's a balcony. I love this picture except that it's not interesting. Oh well...

83

This is my favorite photo of this assignment. I know a lot of people who have shooted car licenses. I know it's a cliche. But I just love it. I think this one is visually strong. The contrast, the sharpness, the compostition... It's a good photo.

93

I don't know what to say about this one. It's lame.

Ok, so challenges:
1. I had literally no time for shooting! I experienced the worst emotional crash this week because of the stress. I'm literally stressed out by all the AP tests. And I haven't slept well since last week. It's a bad bad week. I feel so sorry for this photo assignment. I really wanna do it well. But there's no way that I can do it when I'm stressed out.
2. I'm not creative! Seriously. I can take #6 in the State Math Contest, but I can't create amazing number photos. How ridiculous is this?
3. Shooting in order and "no more, no less" bugged me. I'm a perfectionist. When I don't like a frame I've made, I can't just move on and forget about it. It's not me.
4. I definitely will re-shoot this. I've been thinking about this for two weeks. But I still have no idea what to do. Ahhh!!

Ahh! Numbers!

I wonder how many people will do this assignment over the weekend. This weekend is crazy. For me, it means math competition and prom. What's more, I have an AP Calc BC test on Monday, AP Stats test on Monday, AP US History test on Tuesday, English mid-term test on Wednesday. Ahh! I'm so stressed. And there's also the PHOTO ASSIGNMENT. Numbers, numbers, numbers, ...

I don't dare to start shooting because we can only make one picture of each number. No bracketing, no deleting... It's gonna be tough. What if I'm not creative enough to make good pictures?

Ah! I'm so stressed!

Everybody said that they hated this assignment. I don't think I'll hate it. I think it'll be fun to do. However, it's hard.

This is absolutely a pointless whining blog article.

Assignment #6-Portraits

This assignment was challenging, but it was a great fun! I experienced funny moments, awkward moments, silent moments, self-tortured moments, ... Good times!
I shot the first round over the weekend before. I shot every kid of the Nilsen family. It turned out that the young ones are way better models than Jenny and Josh. Jack (age 9) and Wills (age 13) are naive and funny. They're spontaneous, so they don't really care about how they look like in the photo. They can always be themselves. And also they have rich emotions. I love them. Jen, as a typical teenage girl, cares a lot about if she looks pretty. It makes things harder because she actually looks natural when she doesn't smile. Josh is a way funny guy, but he's not comfortable with the camera. He kept laughing and repeated, "This is so weird." I got some good emotions from Josh and Jack when they played together. But unfortunately it was almost dinner time so I didn't have good light. I could only give them up.
A big fail in the first shooting was that I wasted a lot of photos on some wrong backgrounds. After the first round, I realized that I wanted the backgrounds to be as simple as possible. That made the second round a lot better.

So here're some good photos I got from the first round.
Wills Nilsen

This is an typical epic Wills moment. When I think about what expressions Wills can do well, it pops out in my mind. So I said to him, "Wills, remember in Vegas you shocked me with a shocking gum?" Immediately he showed his evil smile. And snap! I got it. This photo is sharp. His shirt is dark enough to form the contrast.

Self-Portrait 1

This is me stuck in the "forest of make-up". People who know me well all know that I'm a no-make-up person. Before I came to America, I had no make-up and never wore it. Even now I only had a lip gloss. So this photo is NOT me at all. I borrowed all these things from Jenny and tried to arrange them in an overwhelming way. I like the "forest" feeling. But I think I can have better facial expressions to show my emotions towards make-up. Lighting is so-so. And the door in the background is a little distracting.

Bob Nilsen

This is my host dad, Bob, who is also the owner of Cafe Rio. I got inspired by the portraits of the politicians I saw. I figured depicting him as a successful businessman is the best way to do it because it's genuine. He looks absolutely confident.

Kat Nilsen

There's a saying in China that says, "Behind a successful man, there must be a successful woman." For me, Kat is a woman like that. She's charming, nice, knowledgeable, caring, and smiley. Without her, the family could fall apart. When shooting, I told her to ba happy about the family and show her confidence because I think she should be proud of her family. Technically, I still think the background can be brighter.

Two nerds. This is a typical Wills-and-Jack moment. When they are together, you can only hear endless arguments. Wills always plays on Jack, but Jack is too nice so he got fooled all the time. Honestly, Wills is so mean to Jack, as you can tell from the angry expression on his face. But Jack is a nice little kid who always laughs happily. Pay attention to the needle on Wills' shirt because that's why he's mad. I don't like the line on the background. It's distracting. But I simply couldn't find a cleaner background.

Susyn

Susyn is a friend of the Nilsens from Australia. Right now she's in some severe trouble. Her husband gambles too much and takes away her money and credit card. So she came to America to calm down and to sort a way out. Once she stood in front of my camera, she said, "I hate pictures. I don't like my pictures to be taken." And she did show some signs of not being comfortable. So I talked to her and asked her random questions to calm her down. In this picture, she's thoughtful and we can tell that a lot of things are going on in her mind. The subtle little smile shows that she's trying hard to have a optimistic attitude towards her life. I like the nice outdoor afternoon light.

Steven Bennett

I took a lot of pictures of him but the ones in which his whole face was showed all turned out to be too cheesy. Haha. He's a nice guy, and he smiles a lot. So all the other pictures looked very facebooky. This one, on the contrary, showed a "dark" side of Steven. Some people will say it's his real side and they talk about bad things about him. I took the picture only because I think it would look cool and I wanted to try the one-spot light in a pretty dark room. And you know, the "cool" looking fits him well.

Sadie Stockham

I love Sadie to be my model! She's a girl that has a lot of personality. She can control herself well in front of the camera and fully show her emotions through some subtle things. I love this photo, and I'll love it more if it's sharper. And I burnt the left part. It was a successful experiment. It looks natural.


Sadie again. And I like her genuine smile. She's a great model. And I LOVE the white wall in her house! I wish I could take more pictures on that background.

Self-Portrait 2

Oh my gosh! I still can't look at it. Let me throw it away!! Please!
Ok, calm down, Tracy. Calm down. This photo, to be honest, is a candid shot. I didn't expect to print it at all. It was just a random try. That's why my hair is not messy enough. I tried a lot more in my bedroom in a dark corner. The composition was better there, but unfortunately they were all out of focus. When my host mom saw this, she said, "Tracy, I've never seen this side of you." I said, "Of course not! I don't even have this side." Generally I'm a calm person, never hysteric.

Ok. I really wanna finish this long blog as soon as possible.
Things I learned:
1. MOST IMPORTANT (in portraits shooting): Figure/Background relationship. Never let the background distract the attention. And it's better if the background can help.
2. Young kids(not too young) are good at controlling themselves. (Yep that's my conclusion.) High schools kids and adults often feel awkward and uncomfortable in front of the camera.
3. Having the person folding his/her arms is a cliche. But it does look better. I have to say this. Kat and Bob look way more confident when folding their arms. And Susyn folded her arms to show a sense of lack of protection and safety. I think they SHOULD fold their arms.
4. Who they are DO matter in my photos. If I don't tell people who these people are, they will just think these are too common. They're not so charming. But the expressions in my photos this time all showed the people's personality really really well. They were all their typical moments.
5. Self-portrait: I gotta be brave! Bahaha.

Assignment #5-Get on Your Belly/Back

Before I did this assignment, I had heard a lot of people saying this is their favorite assignment. I didn't understand why. It seemed to me just rolling on the ground and taking pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't "wake up" from the last assignment in time--I forgot to bring my camera home during weekend. So I could only do all the shooting on Monday. Apparently it's not a good idea to rush, but I had to. The result was that I didn't have a lot of fun shooting or try anything risky, funny or creative. So I'll remember: TAKE YOUR TIME! It's very important.

Alright. Here're my photos. They are not amazing. But they're not bad.


This is an Easter Bunny. Honestly I don't know the story about it. I only know Easter is a religious festival. So it's actually my story in this photo: What does Easter Bunny do? What's the story of the festival? I really like this photo, and it didn't take me a long time to edit it. Good contrast. And I put it next to the window on purpose so there's nice light on it. The bunny is shot from an "arrogant" view. It's holding its chin up. Anyway I think this pose matches its heroic image. One thing I'm not satisfied about is that it's not low enough. It's actually on the ground and I'm on the ground.


A drain and a broken wire box with its lid on the ground. This one is definitely low enough. It's sharp, but I would prefer a little bit more contrast. The broken wire box is the story. There's not a whole lot to say about this photo, but it looks good.


Haha this one actually means something to me. It's the stairs upstairs. But what I wanna show is not just the stairs. I wanna show the sense of mystery formed by dark stairs and strong daylight from throught the windows. It's interesting to me because when I looked at the scene, I thought of something about religion. Like I said, I'm not religious at all. But when I looked at the strong light through the window contrasting the stairs, I suddenly thought of "a road to the heaven". I know little about religions, but this picture can show that the awareness of religions is growing in my mind.

This is Jack Nilsen, the youngest child of the Nilsens, reaching for the branch. Shooting toward sky is hard, which is what I learned when editing this photo on my computer screen. It's hard to balance the pure white of the sky and the darkness over Jack. This photo wasted several pieces of photo paper. As for the composition, I like this pose because Jack looks heroic. He seems to be eager to achieve something. It's like: A little boy with a big dream.


My bed at the Nilsens. I know the contrast might be too strong but I like how the natural light lightened the wall, the top of bed and the ceiling. The story in this photo is that the Nilsens gave me a bedroom where the boys used to stay. So the bedroom is SO NOT MY STYLE. I don't like a high bed away from the ground which I need to climb on every night. I don't like the bed to have a top because I feel like I'm in a cage. And I don't like the motorcyclist's poster on the wall. It's apparently a boy thing. Haha. Anyway the bedroom is not my style.

This is a series of posters of great mathematicians on the wall. It's easy to tell that I was at a low position when shooting it. And I think this skill is very suitable for a photo like this. These mathematicians were all world-famous, so they were heroic. Getting on my belly to shoot it definitely helped show their great images. And I like how all the postes are lined up.


The Nilsens use the word "nerd" a lot. It can mean a lot of things. This photo shows Jack's "nerdiness". He's a naughty 9-year-old boy but he wants to be a hero. However, if you pay attention to his feet, you'll find the shoe lace needs to be tied. It's funny. And it's very Jack. Again, shooting toward sky is hard. It's too hard to edit so I give up printing this one.


I saved my favorite photo of the assignment to the last. This photo of suitcases under the bed has good contrast and it's sharp. Also it's a story-teller. I can tell you three stories from it: 1. My bed is high so I can put my suitcases under it; 2. I'm a traveller; 3. I accidentally found there's a pillow down here. Apparently someone lost it a long time ago.

Overall I think this assignment is so-so, according to the criteria of a perfectionist. Things I learned:

1. Take my time!

2. Be careful with the sky.

3. Trust the computer screen and print few pictures. (Environmentally, save the paper.)

4. To be a good photographer, I need to sacrifice myself, like rolling on the ground when it's raining. I'm glad I was in uniform though. :p

5. Try different views and angles of the same object. Things can be completely changed.

6. I'm kinda good at story-telling, which makes photo shooting more interesting.

I'm so ready to move on to the next assignment!