Done done done

I am officially done with my documentary. It was a great experience to get to work with Colby and April, hear their story, and spend time out fishing with them. I learned about the importance of being persistent, and making sure to have an exact plan of what I’m actually doing before I go do it. I thought I was well organized but I know now that I could have been so much better. Overall I’m really happy with the shots and the audio I got from the interview and how the story all came together. I did have some issues getting the right music to use that allowed me to show on TV. Music licenses get really expensive and so it was important for me to find songs with a free license for any kind of use. This was probably the biggest problem I had. But I got everything figured out and I couldn’t be happier!

 

Finishing Up

It’s finally time to start bringing everything to a close. Thank goodness! I am transforming my rough (very rough) cut into a final cut. I will be doing some color correction along with choosing my music and rearranging a couple of things to help the story flow better. I’ve learned a lot this past semester, and especially about the importance of communication and getting things done early on. Overall I’m extremely happy with how my documentary turns out, and I sure hope that people enjoy watching it!

 

Film Time!

I finally was able to go out and film. Yay! I had a blast with Colby and April. We went out on the river near Heisi in Idaho and it was beautiful. I hooked Colby up to to a Zoom recorder and clipped a lav mic to the collar of his shirt so I could get audio of him as he shares his wisdom on fly fishing. And let me tell you… this guy definitely knows what he’s doing. I filmed mostly free hand, occasionally using my tripod and slider. The sun was shining very bright and so I had to work around that a bit, but it still made for some amazing shots. I even got to take a turn and learn the basics of fly fishing. It was a perfect day. I’m getting everything organized now and going through my shots in premiere. Here is my set up:

 

 

Equipment

Plans have changed quite a bit. We were set to go out and film yesterday but we were having poor weather and so we had to reschedule. We will also be doing the more formal interviews sometime next week. Because I don’t have any visuals for this yet, I wanted to show what kind of equipment I will be using and for what. I am using all of my own equipment and then I will be rented a 70-200mm lens to get a better variety of shots.

Camera:

• Canon 6D
• GoPro Hero 3+
• Sigma 50mm lens
• Sigma 24-105 lens
• 70-200mm lens

Stabilization:

• Tripod
• Slider

Audio:

• Zoom h1
• lav mic

 

 

Location Scouting

Right now I’m trying to figure out where is the best place to go film. I was given a couple of different areas as to where he likes going fishing. One place is the river in Heise, and the other is in Ashton. I’m including a couple of those pictures that I found while researching those two areas. Colby’s wife also sent me a picture of the stone flys that come out in the spring time. We are trying to figure out when a good time would be to film so we make sure that the flys will be out so we can get some neat shots of them.

 

picture found from http://waterdata.usgs.gov/id/nwis/uv?site_no=13037500

 

picture found from http://www.flyfishingfrenzy.com/2009/04/13/fly-fishing-idahos-warm-river/

 

Interview and Shot List

These next two weeks I will be doing my interviews and filming the fly fishing action. I will be interviewing there at the office and then doing some more casual interviewing while the fishing gear is getting set up. Since I am still in the planning stages, I don’t have any footage or pictures that I can provide. However, I have mapped  out exactly what I want to do when I’m filming so that I get everything I want and I don’t forget anything. This includes what shots I want to get, and what exact questions I am going to ask during the interviews. I am excited to get this going and bring my ideas to life. I just hope that we have some good weather!

Here are my interview questions and shot list:

Photo Contest

I entered in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2016 contest. I chose this one because I am familiar with Adobe, I use the creative suite and I thought it would be fun to get involved and see what comes of it. Part of the requirements for entering your work was to submit one picture or up to 10 of the same theme. I decided to do a few pictures I have taken this semester in the ghost town of Bannack, Montana. I used three pictures with the same theme of a “ghost.” I had to create a post on Behance.com which is a portfolio site that the judges look at the photo submissions from. Once I did that, I linked the site to my profile I created for the contest. I submitted my photos on April 2, 2016.

The link to my Behance post: https://www.behance.net/gallery/35695981/Lifted-Spirit

Link to the contest site: http://www.adobeawards.com/us/

 

Here are the photos I used:

Raising the dead

Photobook Final(ly)

Hi there! I have just finished my final project of Comm 300- a photobook! All of the pictures in my book come from almost all of my blog posts throughout this semester. I organized all of the pictures into different categories and displayed them across 22 different pages. I designed the book in Adobe InDesign and then got it printed from MyPublisher so that I can have a hard copy of it as well.

I’m super happy with how everything turned out, and I can’t believe all that I have learned about composition, lighting, editing in Photoshop, and much more through this Digital Imaging class.

Enjoy!

 

 

Link to my photobook

 

 

 

Fine Art Print

Original Photo:

 

After Edits:

 

I love this photo because silhouettes make for some beautiful portraits, and I loved the background through the window. I took the photo in the ghost town of Bannack, Montana. This is one of the only shots that I had pre-planned before I got there, and I knew that when I saw the cowboy standing right in front of the window that it was my chance!

When I went to edit the photo, I made a lot of little edits. The major edits I did was an adjustment layer using match color and turned up the luminance and color intensity to deepen the colors a bit. I turned down the blacks and shadows in the image so that it looked more like a silhouette rather than just a dark portrait of the cowboy. The last major change I did was turn up the contrast to deepen the blacks and other colors even more. To print the picture at Quick Ship & Copy I lightened it up a bit because I knew that it would be darker after printing. The colors didn’t turn up exactly as I had hoped for but overall I do love it and I’m very happy with the turnout!

Here’s a video of me explaining the process of shooting, editing, and printing.

 

Top 5 Favorite

These are my top five favorite pictures that I have taken this semester. Enjoy!