bts
Lately I have been trying to expand my product and commercial side of my website since I have less images inside that book on my website.
What better way to start a new project than by using my favorite color as a base?! In this series of fruit and products, I really experimented with duo color backgrounds, which is something new to me.
I genuinely had fun doing these, and I hope you enjoy them. Let me know what you think!
I have been trying to add more images to my product side of my portfolio lately, These images of the watch were really fun to do. When I was in school, I made a watch image that I like a lot and put a lot of effort into, but this one trumps it, therefore this one stays, and the other must go.
These images were really fun to make, because I do not work with male models as much, so it becomes more challenging for me in the sense of posing, and things that look natural.
Let me know what you think!
In my last blog, I mentioned things were going to be written a little bit differently. This one is going to be co-wrote with my boyfriend, Chris, and his experiences with the video process though the year so far. If you like the change of pace, let me know!
*The next three paragraphs were written by Chris.*
With the year winding down, this project is almost complete. I have contributed a few videos here and there, like the video of Elise bowling, but overall less than one percent of this video has been done by me. Elise has spent many hours choosing videos, editing, and much more. On a typical day it usually is pretty easy for her to choose a video because we both work full time and she tries to include everyday activities in the video as well. We also like to travel quite a bit so when we are visiting areas such as Miami, it can be much more difficult for her to narrow down what video she wants to use for that specific day.
Another thing I would like to point out is the equipment she uses. Almost all of the filming has been done just using an iPhone so naturally she wanted to find creative ways to use it. Something that has really helped with this has been the wide lens and waterproof case. She takes them every time we go near the water, and has used both of these numerous times. Since we live beside the Gulf of Mexico, it has really added some unique footage.
Finally, I would like to encourage anyone to do this sort of project. Even if you think you don’t do much day to day, it will be something that you will look back on and consider worthwhile. This project isn’t easy as it forces you to stay motivated and organized for it daily but I know she is going to be happy with it, even when it has caused her some stress in the past. I also know she enjoys this sort of video project because it gives her an opportunity to use her creativity to show you her everyday life.
Thanks for reading! as always here is the sneak peak of the month, and below it are the previous sneak peak blogs! enjoy!
Below are links the the other A Second A Day Sneak Peak videos and the blogs to go with them just incase you ever miss one, or want to rewatch/reread them.
Links to the other sneak peak videos in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
7. ASAD July Sneak Peak
8. ASAD August Sneak Peak
9. ASAD September Sneak Peak
September was another wild month. I spent two weeks of the month on vacation, and exploring new areas. The first vacation you will see is Miami which was an absolute blast, The food, zoo, and atmosphere was a lot of fun, but I can say with full confidence that our beaches in the gulf are way better.
For our second vacation, we went home to my parents house in Michigan. This was the first time in almost two years since I moved to Florida that we had been back to Michigan. It will also be the last time I ever go back to that house since my parents have since sold it to move more south and get away from the harsh, cold winters we have always lived around.
Enjoy the next sneak peak in the series, and next months sneak peak will be written a little bit differently so be looking out for that as well!
Below are links the the other A Second A Day Sneak Peak videos and the blogs to go with them just incase you ever miss one, or want to rewatch/reread them.
Links to the other sneak peak videos in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
Since starting this video project, I have not been posting as much photography work. I will start posting some of these images and blogs to go with them soon. Many of you have messaged me asking me to start a before and after image series to show my process, I wanted to use an image slider, but I because my website already has extra coding in it, when I added the image slider coding in, it effected the way my website looked a way I was not fond of. I just want you to know that I hear you! and i’m trying.
The month of August was full of sunny days on the beach, work, and friends. Here is the August monthly A Second A Day sneak peak video. I hope you enjoy, and as always feel free to message me.
Below are links the the other A Second A Day Sneak Peak videos and the blogs to go with them just incase you ever miss one, or want to rewatch/reread them.
Links to the other sneak peak videos in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
WOW! June flew by way too fast. I barely had time to edit my video through out June! Between my friends going away party, my birthday, my best friend coming to visit, and Chris’s birthday, It’s safe to say June was one of the best months I ever had. This was a significant birthday for me, and i’m thankful for all my loved ones that helped to celebrate it with me. My 25th birthday was definitely one of my top birthdays maybe even the very best one.
Thank you to all my loyal followers that have been asking me about the videos. As always, I linked all my blogs to the previous months below in order. Feel free to check them out!
Links to other blogs in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
This is the next ASAD monthly sneak peak! The month of May! Just in case you missed the previous posts, I will be linking them at the bottom of each these blogs in order so you can catch up on all the months leading up to my year finale!
May was a fun month, but for me, May is always the month of anticipation for June. Here are some of my favorite moments along the way through the month, and stay tuned for June I’ll be posting it very soon.
P.s. This video has sound. It is a test, so let me know what you think!
Links to other blogs in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
As promised, here is the monthly a second a day sneak peak for the month of April. This sneak peak so far is definitely one of my favorites.
April was filled with lots of adventure, friends and laughs. the month started out with a trip to New York, and ended with priceless times with my great friends.
I’m sorry but i’m standing by my “no sound in sneak peaks rule”. you will just have to watch the final product for the full experience! The video below is the sneak peak for April. I also have the links to all the previous months sneak peak blogs below, in order.
Links to other blogs in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
3. March’s ASAD Sneak Peak
This is March’s ASAD monthly sneak peak! Just in case you missed the previous posts, I will be linking them at the bottom of each these blogs in order so you can catch up or stay up to date on the sneak peaks before the big preview at the end of the year.
Everyday i’m learning more and more about video editing and myself which is getting me very excited about the final. I might even extend this into a full time project! Thanks for watching this sneak peak, and check out the other links below!
Links to other blogs in order:
1. Exciting Projects in the Work/ ASAD January Sneak PeaK
2. February’s ASAD Sneak Peak
So just in case you missed my first post (link below) I am working on a new project that will last me the entire year. Its a video project called A Second A Day or ASAD for short. I have been working hard to stay updated on this project to keep it from being a daunting folder of 365 videos at the end of the year. Since I am keeping up with the editing of the videos, I am also abled to look through each month and pick out some of my favorite moments from that month and share them with you.
So far I’m learning a lot about myself and video editing from this project and I can’t wait to see how the final project turns out. I have been getting lots of great questions about this project, and my blogs. One of the most frequently asked questions was “why is there no sound in the video?” and my answer to you all is simply I have not yet picked out music for it yet, and I don’t want to give everything away in these sneak peaks. Since I am letting you see some of the seconds ahead of time, I need to have another element for your engagement in the final video at the end of the year.
Thanks for watching this sneak peak and all the ones to come!
Link to previous video: January Sneak Peak/Full Explaination
I have quite a few new and exciting things planned for you this year!
The project I want to tell you about today is called A Second A Day. It’s a video project which is pretty self explanatory, but I am filming a second (or two) a day of my life. I decided to do this to help me get motivated to think differently on a daily basis, and not just while on set doing a photoshoot. Another reason I chose to do this project is so I can better my video editing skills. Many photographers this day and age shoot video and still photographs, as most of you know I have done a few videos here and there, but this I hope will help me really learn a lot more techniques and also to better myself in the job market.
Every few weeks (probably once a month I’ll show little sneak peaks of my project so far. These sneak peaks will be about 8-10 second videos of my favorite moments captured per month! i’m really excited to show you all and see how it turns out at the end of the year!
Don’t worry i’m still shooting and working hard to show you my next photo project, so be on the lookout for those too! without further ado, here is my some of my favorite January moments!
Over the July fourth weekend I experimented with slow motion video. Since I don’t usually shoot slow motion, I thought it might be a good exercise for me. I used my iPhone, as well as my DSLR (Nikon D810) to capture video, and slow motion videos. I experimented with colored smoke bombs among other fireworks to study the patterns of smoke for a future project in the works! I took the videos into a few apps and sped the videos up and down until I thought they were perfect for looking at patterns. Below are some of my favorite images, and videos from the night. Hope you enjoy!
This Memorial Day weekend I got a chance to visit my grandparents in the middle of nowhere. Also known as Van Wert Ohio. I used this opportunity to photograph the area around me. Coming from living in downtown Pittsburgh, to the suburbs of Michigan has been a little bit of adjustment scenery wise, but with my head still used to downtown living, the country was a huge change. These are few photos that I took on my phone while taking walks along the cornfields, with my boyfriend and family, as well as a few personal usage images from my weekend. Hope you enjoy!
Many of you know, I graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh at the end of March. In order to graduate, we had a few requirements. One of those was a print portfolio to show the faculty, future employers, friends, and family at the portfolio show (see my last blog to learn about the process and requirements titled “I Graduated”). My portfolio contains my best work created up until graduation and an artist statement. I worked very hard to try to find cases and designs that I felt best suited my style and aesthetic. Each of these decisions such as what color to make my case, design aesthetics, plastic sleeves or no plastic sleeves, what type of paper would look best, choosing the images that I think best fit my personal brand and style, the layout of the images on the pages, the image pairings and orders, and many other technical issues that happen behind the scenes. Although the prep work is behind the scenes, some people might not realize exactly how much time and thought goes into it.
After a lot of research, I chose to go with KLO Portfolios and use plastic sleeves to protect my print from fingerprints or other potential accidents. My portfolio is 11x14 because I couldn’t imagine people looking through an 11x17 portrait sized book. Unfortunately that meant not all of my images could be as full bleed as I wanted them to be since I cropped the book smaller, but I still went for full bleed and gave the other images dark borders behind. To push my portfolio even further, I added two pictures on every page, but in three different instances, I used one image on a page as a page break, and transition. The average number of pages you should have in a portfolio book is 15-20 that display your best technical and creative skills in a constant manner that reflects you’re branding and aesthetic. Before all the images, I have a cover page with my logo and contact information, then an artist statement. The artist statement describes my work and how I became the photographer I am.(all in the same dark blue color as my logo “B”) My portfolio book itself, is white, and has my logo in the middle.
I have been getting quite a few requests to see my printed portfolio from people that could not make it to my graduation. I thought this would be a good way to show it, in order. Although I realize seeing a digital image and seeing a print are very different in all aspects, I tried my best to show you the flow, sequencing, and the images themselves. So here it is everyone from beginning to end. I hope you enjoy it.
The moment I have been waiting for the last (almost) 4 years has came and gone. Let me start from the beginning. I started college at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in August of 2012. In that time I worked my butt off to get as much information, work, and experience that I could get. I was even the President of the Circular Photo Club in my school. Then all of a sudden, I was graduating. March 25, 2016. I want to say this came out of nowhere, but Id be lying. It came up too quickly is more of an appropriate phrasing. I graduated with my Bachelors of Science in Photography.
The week of March 20-26th was one of the busiest weeks of my life. Many people know that my boyfriend lived in West Virginia. So I would go see him every weekend. In the beginning of the week I was in West Virginia helping him pack since he moved up to Michigan with me. When my portfolio show came around, the next day, it was one of the most stressful days of my life, and the very next day at 6:30 am,. my boyfriend and family were packing up my apartment, and I moved to Michigan. That was just a little bit of a life update for you all on where I am. Now I’ll tell you more about graduation!
At the Art Institute, we have these quarterly portfolio shows where all the graduates present their best work. These get show to our professors, employers, friends, family, and the general public. In order to graduate, not only must you participate in the show, you need to put together a print portfolio, web portfolio, resume, show you have social media platforms, promotional pieces, and a display. For your displays, you can do just about anything you want as long as it fits your brand. I have seen some amazing and creative displays. Being the perfectionist I am, I spent many hours and days stressing over every detail.
I started with drawing out ideas for my display. I had a lot of help on my display. I could not have done it without them actually. the four wonderful people that helped me were Mel, who got was able to help show us what we needed to make this happen, and also was able to borrow a truck and bring all the materials to the school. The other three fantastic people that helped me out were Paige Piotti, Jackie Pickens, and Jackie’s dad who came in super early and put my board together. Shelves, legs and all. They were also both graduating that day which makes them even more amazing. The most nerve wracking part of it did not know until the morning of portfolio show if my display would actually stand because the ceilings were too low to bring it in finished and had to be put together on site. I decided to keep my design simple. The board was painted dark blue, to match the dark blue in my logo, and I had my logo with pictures on all sides to draw you in to my table.
My promotional pieces were a lot of fun. I made two variations of chopstick labels, both blue raspberry flavor to match the color of my logo. One was a clear tube; the other had a white tube. I also had stickers on my table of my images, and my logo. I also had goodie bags. Blue drawstring bags each filled with 4 blueberry hard candies, a candy bracelet, my business card, and one of each tube of chopstick. They were a hit. I made 50 and had 1 left at the end.
On my display I had two PGH You magazines that are student published magazines that I had work in, as well as my iPad with my website up I also had my business cards, and resumes.. My business cards and resumes are all he same fonts and colors as my logo. I also had a contest drawing where people put their name and number on a slip of paper, and you could win a print of your choice. (Winner revealed soon!)
Finally, the biggest part of the entire display, my print portfolio. I chose to work with KLO Portfolios based out of Vancouver. I just love how it came out and would recommend using them for your portfolio case. I went with white acrylic case with my logo both in the middle. The “b” was surface printed, and the “e” and “photography” were both engraved and color filled around with the same colors as my logo as well. Inside. Along with my cover and artist statement are full bleed fashion and advertising images.
With all the running around of the day, I completely forgot to take a lot of pictures. I only got a few of me and my display by myself unfortunately. But here is the final display, which so much work went into, and so many people helped me make this happen. I would like to thank everyone that came to support me and everyone who pushed me through as well as making this possible.
Although I did not take any other pictures myself, there was a student photographer going around. These are some of my favorites as well as my fellow friends and photography graduates. I want to give them special thanks for all of your advice and options. I’ve spent a lot of time with great friends and great artists. Which helped make this an awesome presentation? This blog post is dedicated to everyone that turned this into a reality! Thank you so so much for all your hard work and stress relieving tactics!
in the above images are some great friends and fellow photographers/graduates. you can see some of their websites below:
Jeanette Shustack: http://www.shustackphotography.com/
Amanda Vinecourt: http://www.amandavinecourt.com/
Mackenzie Cowan: https://www.facebook.com/Mackenzie-Lynn-Photography-640012992722983/?pnref=lhc
Tyshane: n/a
Just For fun, here are a few behind the scenes images from my social media platforms about graduation.
Lately I have been working on adding color into my portfolio. So, I took I sat down and brainstormed on colorful brands to come up with a photograph. I came up with using the colorful coach purse because the branding that they use for this section of their bags are very bold, and colorful, trying to add fun to the otherwise classy brand. Which was just what I was trying to do!
The purse quickly became a very challenging image for me because the background I chose to use to liven up the image was luster photography paper so I could get that brightness and color. I had to deal with a lot of glare, but in the end I think the product shot came out just as I imaged it!
I hope you enjoy it!
I have really been thinking about how much water we use on a daily basis lately as well as how much trash we as humans put out into the world daily. That is why I tried my very first PSA, To show how important it is to keep the world clean, before we are all stuck drinking trash filled water, and living in a see of plastic bottles.
Making this PSA took a lot of strange combinations of objects. The water in the bottle itself came from a water treatment park called Wingfield Pines, so in order to get the natural rust water in the bottle, I had to actually get in the water! That was definitely not the high point of my day, but totally worth it. The second part of this process was going through my apartment and grabbing anything and everything that would fit in a bottle. There is even a plastic knife and tin foil ball that got shoved into the bottle. The last part of the shot process was trying to move the objects in the bottle around while in the bottle of water. (Just as hard as it sounds). well, I hope you enjoy the image!
Just in case you have not seen my website in a few months, I just wanted to let everyone know that I updated it! I am very excited about a few new shoots that were added. This blog is for the retro styled bus stop shoot! But there will be another one coming soon about the sunglasses, and other new shoots so keep checking back!
This fashion shoot is called bus stop fashion, because we literally shot on location at a bus stop! This was a very challenging but definitely a rewarding experience.
My thoughts behind doing this, were very simple actually. I wanted to practice my location lighting, and I wanted to add color to my portfolio. After a few weeks of brainstorming, and a long day of waiting for the evening light, we started shooting. When ever I am shooting, or before I shoot, I just become a ball of nerves until it is over because I always expect the worst. Some of the problems I was expecting with this shoot include not being able to find a nice bus stop without people around, finding enough assistants, the models' safety, and the glare of the glass bus stop to name a few.
Here are a few images that you can now see on my website! i hope you like them! I would also like to give a special thanks to my assistant, Tyler Malkowski, and my beautiful model, Hayley Garrison. And again, keep stopping by to see the next blog, about the sunglasses shoot!
A few weeks ago, I got together with three fellow friends and photographers to do a cinemagraph. (check last blog post to read about it!)
A behind the scenes video is just what it sounds like. a video to see what all went in to making this cinemagraph happen.
Below is the behind the scenes of the cinemagraph that we came up with, this video could be shorter, but we wanted to show all the great moments we had making this, including our silly moments! also, the ending cinemagraph is another version in the video to help with variety of our ideas!
Hope you liked it! here are the names and links to everyone in my group!
Leah Schonauer:
www.faiththroughfotos.com
Chelsea Thokar:
n/a
Shiloh Leath:
www.facebook.com/ShilohLeathPhotography
