Snapchat me some selfies

For my "Choice" portrait (literally anything we wanted to do), I thought it would be amusing to do some "selfie" shots of someone else a la Snapchat. For those of you who don't know what Snapchat is, it's essentially an application that lets you send pictures that self-destruct after a certain amount of time. While I'm sure the entire teenage population has been using this for sexting (bad! never send naked photos of yourself! it never leaves the internet!), I usually use it with my close friends to send really really ugly photos of myself. It's hilarious, it won't be saved (although people can screen shot them, but the app notifies you if that happens), and somewhat cathartic. Usually my own photos range from looking like the girl from the Ring, blowing kisses, how many chins can I make etc? Strictly stupid stuff. For the shoot, I asked my wonderful wonderful friend Julio to pose for me! We were on the same Alternate Spring Break trip to Punta Gorda, Florida last year, and I knew that he would be perfect for this because of his enormous range of facial expressions. This kid is seriously the most hilarious and entertaining person I've met at Penn, and I love him for it!

For a lot of the photos, I had Julio put his hand on the camera to make it look like he was taking the photo himself. Of course, the irony is that the photo is being taken on a high quality DSLR. (so hipster). This one was my favorite pose:

A range of Julio funny faces:

Finally, I just love this photo of Julio. It captures so much happiness! I'm still learning how to play around with Black & White. I'd gladly welcome any tips!

Thanks so much to Julio for doing ridiculous faces for my project! You da best.

Snapchat safely, my friends!

On Self-Portraits

Our Digital Photography course has moved along to portraiture which has been...very interesting. We have 4 categories: Strangers, Intimacy (Friends/Family), Self-Portrait, and Choice. I've found self-portraits and strangers particularly difficult to shoot, but it's definitely a learning experience! On one hand, there's instant embarrassment. I'm essentially taking glorified selfies! Except it's way harder with a DSLR... I had to play around with timers, shooting with my hand on the trigger, and being able to frame myself without being able to look through the view finder! At the same time, there's the question of "What do I want to convey?" Of course, my first instinct is to shoot photos where I like how I look! Our professor asked us to think about what we wanted to show a viewer. Certain artists like Cindy Sherman and Nikki S. Lee take on characters for their self portraits - does that still count? Does the photo have to be an accurate representation of who you are and what you look like? What if it represents how you view yourself? There are so many different things to question and debate! We've also been talking about naming photographs and how that affects a viewer's interpretation. I think personally that I prefer to have my words/photos/etc. interpreted the way I originally intended. I mean, I have a blog to explain my photos! But maybe for this post, I'll put my captions and explanations below my photos. For my first photo in particular, I'm curious as to how people will interpret it without my explanation! I've made my explanation in white font, so just highlight over it to read my own take!

Highlight over the paragraph to read my explanation:

This first photo is inspired by my own coming to terms with my Asian identity. I thought it would be interesting to borrow a blonde wig from my friend Cameron and try to capture the inside turmoil of "trying to be White." When I was little, I defined beauty as blonde hair and blue eyes. I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to test that theory out. I wish I had more props - I would have loved to get some pictures of myself putting in blue contacts or putting on a much paler shade of makeup. So many options! This was also one of the first photos that I started using photoshop on. My face was much darker than the rest of the photo because of the wig, and I was able to use the Dodge tool to expose just my face - very cool!

I love this photo because I think it captures my laugh perfectly! I really wish I had a dainty laugh, but instead I throw my head back, laugh with a HUGE open smile, make one HAHA and then silently laugh the rest of the way through. It's utterly embarrassing and unattractive, but hey - it's how I laugh!

Finally I wanted to play around with gaze. It's really interesting how the subject's gaze can change the entire feel of the photo. In this photo, I wanted my gaze to go straight through to the viewer. The natural lighting from the window also casts some shadows which adds to this level of emotion that I don't think would be there otherwise.

At the end of it all, I'm going through hundreds of photos of myself on Bridge and still can't take myself seriously. I burst out laughing at some of the more ridiculous faces/emotions I try on, and I'm almost embarrassed for myself. But alas, I guess these are the emotions that come with self-portraits!

Any thoughts?

Puerto Plata: Hilarious friends, sliding off waterfalls, and dancing until your body hurts

After two years of going home, and one year of doing Alternate Spring Break, I decided it was time to do a "real spring break" trip and go to the Dominican Republic with my friends! 40 of us Penn kids dominated the Puerto Plata all inclusive resort and spent 6 days relaxing, celebrating, and stuffing ourselves on a buffet 3 meals a day! It was my first time to the Caribbean, and wow was it amazing. It was the perfect combination of meeting new people, relaxing (ie sleeping on the beach and taking a nap each day), and being able to dance like a lunatic with some of the best people!

The lobby had some of the coolest light fixtures: Chloe organized a City Tour for us, and it was one of the few opportunities I could use my DSLR on the trip! All the other times I was too afraid to get sand or water near it! We went to the Brugal Rum Factory! I couldn't take any photos inside the factory itself, but I snagged a bottle for my dad! On returning home, I found out shipping alcohol across state borders is a federal offense or something hahah. Sorry, Dad! Guess you're going to have to wait a few months:

Unfortunately, we din't really feel like we got to see the real city. Most of the places the tour guide took us was clearly set up just for tourists - all of the shops we went to were souveneirs which was kind of a bummer. One thing I did love, though, was how beautiful and bright all of the houses were painted. Houses in America are all beige and white - how boring!

Some beautiful stained glass at the cathedral: The best part of the City Tour was definitely being able to do a Cable Car excursion! Hilariously, some of the girls thought this was a "historic display" of what they used to transport people in...nope, we were riding it! We took a 10-15 minute ride all the way up Mount Isabel de Torres to see a full view of Puerto Plata.

Me and Madeline at the top of the mountain!

Such a cool view - and it was on an overcast day too! Can't even imagine what it would look like on a clear day!

Giant Jesus statute! There's a gift shop inside (but of course):

One of the other days we went on a Jeep Tour which ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. Seriously, this was one of those cross-it-off-your-bucket-list moments. In Puerto Plata, there is Damajagua Cascades also known as the 27 Waterfalls. Essentially, it's possible to climb, jump, and slide down 27 waterfalls on this mountain. Doing all 27 takes almost all day and is pretty intense, so most groups just do 7 which was fine by me! Before we left for the trip, I decided to invest in a waterproof camera case for my Canon PowerShot. I got the DicaPac WP410, and it was perfect! It ended up being one of the best decisions on the trip because we were able to document our entire excursion. I was able to tie the camera to one hand while I swam and snap some phenomenal photos!

Here we are in our gear! We hiked for about 25 minutes following a river in our gear and tennis shoes. Little did we know our soggy socks were the least of our concern:

At the first waterfall! Our route required us to walk UP the waterfalls first and then to slide/jump down them on our return route. We started off by diving into the extremely chilly pool, but had it easy with a ladder to help us out:

The next few waterfalls weren't quite as easy!

Climbing up this waterfall was definitely one of the most terrifying aspects. There was one guide at the bottom with his hands propped out for one foot & another guide at the top of the waterfall with one hand reaching out for your hand. The bottom guide would throw you forward as you took a step, and the top guide would yank you with all his force. All the while, a rushing waterfall is cascading into your face pushing you backwards hahah. We watched a few people go at first and it literally looked like they were getting tossed up a waterfall it was terrifying! We all made it through, though:

Waist deep by one of the waterfalls!

Now it was time to start jumping and sliding off the waterfalls! Here is where the waterproof camera case came in REALLY handy: I was able to record my trips down the waterfall and then capture everybody else after I popped back up! Apologies because the first few seconds are insanely shaky - I wasn't exactly concerned with getting the perfect recording when I was about to make a 10 foot drop in rushing water!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mIFZ0zKvxnE

Some more videos: Waterfall 1 (0:25), Waterfall 2 (0:42), and Waterfall 4 (0:42)

Katie after sliding down one of the crazy ones!

Our victory photo at the end!

Of course, those two excursions only took up a few of the days of our entire trip! The rest of the time was spent enjoying the beach, lounging, napping, eating, napping more, eating more, and going to some clubs!

Jeremy really taking advantage of my underwater camera hahah: One of the days at the beach! It was rainy and overcast for about half of our trip which was a major bummer. When the sun finally came out in full force later in the week, I was too excited to remember to take photos so I don't have any sunny pictures hahah. I love this group of girls!

Chicken fighting! Sophie & Jeremy vs Me & Krystal hahah - we lost...

Almost all of the ladies (plus Johnny):

Some of the boys!:

Overall, it was a trip I'll never forget, and just what I needed after finishing my 90+ paged thesis (more on that later!). Thank you to all the amazing people who initiated this trip, planned the lengthy traveling back and forth, figured out our excursions, and just made this a hilariously fun vacation!

Light, Form & Abstraction

For my second Digital Photography assignment, we were tasked with capturing "Light, Form & Abstraction." I'm starting to realize that I am really uninspired by wandering around my neighborhood and much prefer creating my own studio within my house....or maybe that's just my laziness and trying to avoid the cold! Either way, I find it much more enjoyable to take the time in my own house to set up my tripod, fiddle with my settings, and shoot the same thing 3000 times without needing to worry about a) my fingers freezing off, b) my subject flying away, c) people staring at me because I'm taking a super close shot of tin foil in public, d) all of the above. For the assignment, we were encouraged to play around with different types of lights and to point them in different directions to play with shadows and reflections.

We also have been learning how to use Camera Raw to edit our photos in the most basic ways: changing exposure, clarity, color hues, etc. It's a non-destructive editing format and it's the "pre" step to Photoshop.

The inside of an umbrella

Lamp stand

Handheld mirror with a clamp light at the side

Perfume bottle. I actually bought black poster board for my backgrounds! It looks much better than using an old black sweater, don't you think?

Wooden puzzle pieces

Perfume bottle with left low light

What do you think this below picture is? It's the inside of a boot! I thought it looked oddly cavernous.