Week Six - Editing Your Photos

For week six the theme was "Free Shoot" and I took the opportunity to capture images from the Dia De Los Muertos event held at LBCC on November 2nd.

Dia De Los Muertos is an event where everyone can honor the memories of deceased friends/family. The event included sugar skull painting, face painting, tamales and was completely free for those that visited.

Kylie McLoude and Bianca Pulido intently paint sugar skulls at the Dia De Los Muertos event.

This event is held annually at LBCC on the Albany Campus.

First year LBCC student Keyna Hurd paints the face of Mextli Palacios at the Day of the Dead festivities on November 2^nd while Obed Aguirre watches after he had his face painted. Keyna learned about the opportunity to do face painting at this celebration when she checked LBLive on her phone. She is a Psychology Major and was able to express her creative side at this event.

Topic One: My Hometown
For the "My Hometown" photo shoot I will be capturing photos in the City of Albany. I have lived here for nearly twenty years and truly consider Albany my home. For the portrait shot I am going to try and get a picture of Mayor Sharon Konopa on the steps of court house. A visit to the local skatepark is where I am headed to obtain an activity shot. There are always skaters down there and I am excited to try and get some stop motion action shots. The final shot is a landmark shot and I am going to try and get photos of Hasty Freeze in downtown Albany. My biggest challenge will probably be the Hasty Freeze shot because I want to get photos of people that don't know I am there taking pictures. People tend to start posing or hiding when a camera shows up so I am going to have challenges with that shoot.

Topic Two: Photo Editing
Chapter 7 of Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach is on the subject of Photo Editing. Two tips that I found most useful were in regards to cropping. It is important to "crop ruthlessly" but also be mindful not to change the story by cropping. As a photographer you want to cut out anything that is not essential to telling the story so that the viewer is not distracted by unnecessary images. At the same time, you don't want to crop out the story that the photo is telling. A crop can change the overall feeling of a photo and change the viewers final perspective. It is important to not deceive the viewer with a crop.
For the rest of this term I am going to try and be mindful of my cropping techniques. I will be always try to balance getting rid of the unnecessary part of a photograph but also stay true to the story that I am trying to tell.