Finishing up

I spent the entire day packing everything from my Bernardston, MA apartment! My place is all boxed up and I am just waiting for my pop to come up on Monday to move everything out. There are a few big days coming up quick on me. The life of Riley Open is June 19th, Riley Dancers support Malawi golf day is the 21st, graduation is the 25th, my graduation party is the 26th and I leave for Malawi on the 28th. I am getting really excited for my adventure in Malawi. Here is a map so you can see where I will be!



I will be north of Tanzania and south of Zimbabwe in the Southeast corner! I am staying in Chigamba village at Little Field orphanage. To check out their website click here!

I got my computer fixed and the programs I need downloaded. I purchased a blackberry and an international plan so I can make phone calls while I am traveling. I have purchased 15 digital cameras and 50 memory cards for the children. Now I need to get the cameras set up and the memory cards formated and buy a few things here and there so I can execute my project once I get there! I still need to buy things for me as well. I can only wear long skirts and T-shirts. I have a million T-shirts but not one long skirt. So I am well on my way :)

I am heading to NH to visit people before I leave for Africa tuesday and wednesday of next week. Then I will be back in CT until I leave!

Jess and Frank Photo Booth

Jess and Frankie got married this past weekend. Jess looked gorgeous and the wedding was very beautiful. I put up a little photo booth at the reception for people to have fun with. Some of the pictures are not in the best focus because I think people played with the camera, but it is fun and cute anyways. Enjoy!

Click here to view the Photo Booth

Composite

I went home to CT today to re-shoot my portrait of children. I like the shot, but I still think I can do better. Here it is!


This is my composite shot. I shot the hut, then I shot Dave and then I added one of my textures over the photo. I really like it. Two more to go!

Lovely Flowers

I bought some pretty flowers today and shot them in commercial. I am using one as my still life one as my CD insert and one for my glass. The last one is just an edited one that I threw in for fun!


CD Insert


Still Life


Glass Shot

Grand Prize Winner Article

An article was published about me in the Hartford Courant. Click below to read the article in full!

Click Here

Reading the article was an amazing feeling. Hopefully there will be more to come!

New stuff. will write later.

Urban Ad | Bess

I turned the green eyed photo of bess into my fashion illustration for final portfolio. What do you think?

Baby James

When I went to Fairfield to attend the gallery, I slept at Lucy's who is so lucky to live with her baby nephew, James. Mrs. Reinhardt and I took about a half hour to dress James in a cute blue outfit and take some adorable shots. I don't think he liked the experience as much as we did. I got some of him in a daze, a few of him bopping around and of course the cute crying ones. Here are two that I worked on. I added a texture but I am not sure they need it yet. Let me know what you think?

Grand Prize Winner

Friday started of awful and then turned into an amazing night. Thursday and Friday at school I received negative comments from three different teachers. I quote "Kelley, you just are not technically there yet" (remember that for later on in this post). I was feeling like rotten taco beef so I left school and took a drive to Hadley to pick up some cat food for Arnold. The ride relieved some stress. I drove back to school, checked out equipment at 3:00, left school around 3:40 and got to my mother's by 5:30 to leave for the Fairfield gallery that my photo of Bess was selected for. We arrived at the gallery around 6:30, I walked in, met up with Lucy who had been there 15 minutes before us and she walked me to my print which had . . . . . drum roll please . . . the grand prize winner sticker next to it! At first I thought "good one Lucy. Way to bring in a gold sticker and write grand prize winner on it." But the truth is, I was indeed the grand prize winner. It felt amazing. My print looked great! Michael and my prints both stood out from everyone elses. Oh . . . Michael Esposito submitted and was chosen as well. His photo was amazing as well and I later found out that the judges were very impressed by both of them.
I was introduced to the head of the museum who introduced me to two of the judges, Howard Bernstein and Stephen Wilkes. I asked them why they chose my photo (remember the quote from my teacher now) and they said because it was the most techinically correct and stood out from the rest! The grand prize is to have my portfolio judged by Stephen Wilkes which is actually really awesome! I have to call him and schedule a time. I am really looking forward to it. I will be in the Fairfield paper this Wednesday. I am going to scan the article and post it on my blog, unless I look like an overweight calf. What a day!

Some new stuff to look at

I really wish TJ would let me upload my pet and owner picture but he doesn't want it on the web soooooo basically you are all missing out on something great! I have that one and two more edited pictures for you to check out. I don't really feel like writing much but one is my movie poster which still needs some editing and the other is my portrait of children. Enjoy!


Fish-Man


Portrait of Children

Anxiety . . it has been a while.

So I do have a new picture edited but I am not able to post it due to the models request. Boo . . . I know. It is pretty awesome and my teacher has already told me I should try to send it to a card company, but if the model doesn't want it blogged, he obviously doesn't want people opening their birthday/sympathy/happy marriage/its a boy/it's a girl cards with his face on it. The point of this is, sorry I don't have anything new to show you at this point.
Which now brings us to last night. I had a migraine all day from the moment I woke up. I went on a hike with Michael and Josh and then to a park with Michael, Josh and Sam. Anywho, later on we watched Requiem for a dream which was for sure a head spinner. Although the plot was sad and disturbing, I really enjoyed the way it was filmed. I left Michaels and dropped Sam off went home, got in bed, had a short wierd dream and woke up at around 1:20am with anxiety. The heat was incredible. My room was 74 degrees, but felt like 100 and I was without a fan. I first thought, I need to drink water so I guzzled down a gallon of it. Didn't work. Then I thought, I need to eat something. The only thing to eat in my house is frozen veggies and smoothie ingredients. Green beans it is! Didn't work. Okay so my next step . . . . obviously facebook. I will facebook for a while and that will make me feel better. Didn't work. Deep Breathing was the next step. In and out. In and out. Didn't work.

Strange craving while in the midst of anxiety: All I wanted to was to kiss with someone.

So here I am downing green beans and water completley naked. Now . . . who wouldn't want to makeout with that, right?
4am rolls around and it is time. I popped a full xanax and slowly my muscles relaxed and my eyes shut. I was suppose to return equipment at 7am but xanex got the best of me and I slept like a baby until 10:30.
It has been a while since my last panic attack and this one wasn't that bad. I bet it was the heat that brought it on and the stress of my life in 2 months.

PS: green beans taste better with oil, salt and pepper.

Bess Seidler | best blogger | Inspired

My friend Bess started a blog and I find myself actually very excited to read her posts. She is an awesome writer and never fails to make me laugh. After reading her blog, I thought, "my blog is so boring." I need to use my other creative outlets to make it better. So here I am, writing away. I am not the best writer but maybe it will help me feel inspired for my photography.


I have been skipping school. Not because I think I am cool, but I needed to just get out and shoot. I went home Monday and stayed until today. I shot some strange idea I had of my cousins reflection in a puddle and the bottom of her feet. I shot it at 6400 ISO; for those of you who don't speak photography, basically, i'm an idiot. I went into my next shoot with Chris Chase and did the same exact thing. So, needless to say, I got off to a pretty lame start. Then I interuptted my aunts dance class and shot a group of children on the bar for my portrait of children. That was the last shoot of the day. Lets hope it was successful


That night my cousin, Brenna and I went to the gas station to pick up some food. It was raining and there was a man on a mo-ped. Bren says "who the hell is driving a mo-ped in the rain." Obviously it was the man who later on told me that he has only owned mo-peds his entire driving life and this is his 20th one. Anyway, I got an ice tea and some whole wheat goldfish and decided that I wasn't having the luckiest of day so maybe I will have a lucky night . . .

ME: "scratch ticket please?"
CASHIER: "That will come to $5.31."
ME: "Oh man, I only have $5
MAN ON THE MO-PED: "oh here, have a dollar."
ME: "Well that's awful nice of you."
......SCRATCHING THE TICKET ......
ME: 2 dollars
MAN ON THE MOPED: 4 dollars
ME: 6 dollars, 8 dollars, 10 dollars, Can I cash this in please?
CASHIER: "Sorry, the lottery is closed."
MAN ON THE MO-PED : "Here have $10, I will take your ticket."
ME: "Do you want to kiss me or something?
.........Just kidding, that last part didn't happen. But the worst thing and what this story really is about is the fact that I feel like an awful person because I realized when I got home that I only made $8 on the ticket. Not only did I take a dollar from the man but he gave me two extra dollars. . . AND THE POOR MAN DRIVES A MO-PED IN THE RAIN.

PS: For those of you interested in Bess's blog click this link http://bessseidler.blogspot.com
She is awesome!

Lula

Lucy came to my school today. She is staying tonight and spending the morning with me tomorrow. I shot her for my CD cover. I got the front and back cover done tonight and I am shooting the middle spread tomorrow in a field! She looks amazing and I am very happy with them! YAY! Enjoy.

Here are the single shots!





Here is the CD cover!

The Front


The Back


The Middle Spread

Heisler/Turner Location Class

Today my class had a location shoot in Greenfield MA at this really nice location. I was not ecstatic about shooting indoors but I found this amazing spot outside that I had to shoot Anne in. The color scheme is perfect and I love her pose. I went here thinking I wasn't going to get anything because I had nothing planned and now it is my favorite shot. Hope you like it too. Give me feedback!


Anne looking SASS.

Rhode Island for the weekend!

I went to Rhode Island this weekend to re shoot my family portrait and to do my outdoor shot! I am so happy with the outcome. I still have a ton of editing to do on them but here are some rough edits. My family portrait in Niantic did not come out because I tried compositing the entire picture and it didn't work out so I shot everyone together in RI and then just added the balloons. I am going to add popped balloons by Abby's feet. I love my outdoor portrait of Jane. She looks beautiful!
Jane, Phil and I went to pizza lady and scouted locations Saturday night when I arrived. Then we watched the celtics game with the family. It was a lot of Jane. Jane's mom is full of jokes and made the night very entertaining!! Then we drove to Phil's and slept in the basement. The three of us!! I slept okay except for the cricketing and cracketing of pipes and things. Jane and I woke up around 8am and drove to her house. Spencer and I went to by balloons and then to the beach to set up. We shot for about an hour and I am extremely happy with the outcome! Yay! Enjoy . . .


The Zimmerman Family!


Beautiful Jane!

Environmental/Occupational Portraits

I went home on Thursday with Mike and shot a ton. Despite the fact that my mind was everywhere and I broke the back of my camera, Mike tripped on a cord and broke a light and last but not least . . . . drumroll please . . . . . I met Mike at 8am at his house and he drove to CT. I left my car on his street, keys in the ignition, running all day long. Oh yeah . . . music was on. Someone called the cops, they broke in, "secured the car," took my keys, and then called me telling me about how big of a safety issue I caused and how they could have charged me. blah blah blah. We got to Enfield at 9am, shot Gerald in a pile of garbage, drove to the mill to figure out what we wanted to shoot there, drove to the crematory, I did a shot of Kevin Davidson in a swamp on a stretcher next to a stretcher with Mike in it and his feet sticking out!! Mikey shot Davidson in the crematory against the machine. Then we drove back to Somers, picked jennie up from home and shot Michael's couple portrait in the mill. I saw the shot and it is ammaazzing. So cool! Anyway, I am not done editing these two shots yet but here they are! Enjoy.

PS: They are weird, but they are me :)


Gerald in a pile of garbage. He was a good sport and I love him!


Davidson doing his thing!! Also a good sport.

Good News/Bad News

So I uploaded and began editing my shots from the weekend. Bad news is that I absolutly failed at focusing the camera .....grrrrr and my leaf back is dirty. I like this shot of Brooke that I composited but I can't use it because it is out of focus. I haven't started editing Burt and my family portrait was an absolute failure. I didn't have the lighting ratios right on all of them and the back of my camera was way too dirty :( Here are some new shots that I am adding to my phase 4. let me know what you think.


this is the shot of Brooke that is out of focus but I love it.



This is the only one in focus that I liked so I am using it as my phase 4 high key :)


This is the metal shot I am using!


This is my attempted metal shot but I am not using it because its more about Sebastian, my mouse, than it is about the metal.


This shot is my couple shot. I love it!

Okay the good news is that I am one of the selected 22 students at Hallmark to have a their photo printed huge and sold at our open house on April 25th! Also, I submitted to a gallery show in Fairfield CT and was one of 49 photographers chosen out of 700! The Gallery show is in May sometime but tickets are very expensive! Today was a good day!

It has been so long

Okay . . . so I have been slacking a little bit on the updates. I guess there is not much to update though until this past weekend. This past week I was feeling a little down, depressed and uninspired but I got some great shots this weekend that I can't wait to edit. I shot my old next door neighbor, Burt, on his motorcycle. I also shot a Riley dancer for my high key portrait and the Walsh family for my family portrait. I have had a slow start to Phase 4, and all these ideas that I just can't seem to juggle. Burt, Boo and I had a really nice time Saturday day. We chatted for the majority of the time and shot for about a half hour. I think I am going to use his shot as an environmental portrait but I am not sure yet. The shoot with Brooke was a lot of fun and I am very happy with what I got. Yay! I drove to Niantic with my momma this morning and shot the Walsh family at the beach. It is a composited image so it will probably take a while to edit but I think the outcome with be SUPERB. So I am back to writing and if you follow me and would like to model for me please let me know. I will post my shots sometime this week :)

Syd and Jo

Here are some of Sydney and Jordan shots. I don't know how anyone could take a bad picture of these gorgeous children. Cuties :)

Phase 3 APS work

Here are my additional personal submissions for my phase three portfolio. I am happy with most of them. Some of them have issues but I always have time in phase 4 to do better :) Enjoy

Steph Justin and Logan

Here are all the shots from steph, justin and logan's baby bump shoot! I played with a few shots in InDesign. Steph let me know what you think.