Weekly Plan

     So my plan for this week is to finish going through all my pictures and figure out which ones I want to use. As I said earlier I have 44 that I like so far but I still have the rest of the year for more pictures so I need to see if I can trim those down into a more reasonable number. Once I have trimmed down the number of photos I would like to get started on my portfolio / iLife book. I don't want to leave everything till the last minute in June so I would like to start soon; however the starting of it requires iLife '11 and for that I have to talk to my parents. In the mean time I can start learning how to use Lightroom which is a new program my Dad got for me and continue to edit and take photos.
    My Mom got me a book at Borders,  :( they're closing, tonight and it was amazing, to say the least. It is a memoir about how Susan Richards overcame her alcoholism with the love of her animals and especially a Morgan mare.  Richards was brutally honest about her addiction, childhood and the reasons behind her drinking as well as her relationship with Georgia, a spirited mare who was full of heart and very self-assured. What truly struck me about this book was how Richards described her relationship with Georgia. She did not paint Georgia as the perfect horse who knew just what to do and listened to her every command, instead Richards painted a picture of a horse that was perfectly imperfect. One who did not feel the need to change her ways for any human. Some would call Georgia stubborn and bratty but Richards saw a beautiful soul who was confident and knew what she wanted from those around her. The way Georgia is described by Richards shows the love and understanding between the two. Richards was able to put into words what every true horse person struggles with. We understand what each other mean but we can never express it quite right to a non-horse person so that they get our obsession. Richards says it just right and for that I give her tremendous credit.

Progress!!

     So I have been very productive this week :D.  I went over to a friend's barn on Thursday and took pictures of her jumping and doing some flat work. Thank you sooo much Nicole!!!!!! I absolutely love some of the pictures I got and have already started to edit some of them. Polo co-ed regionals are also on this weekend so I have been at the barn taking tons of pictures, I hope they turn out well! Congrats to Cedar Valley for winning regionals! Good luck at nationals!


Here are some of my favorite pictures from break. I have a total of 44 photos that I like a lot so far. I haven't looked at the ones from today yet. These are the ones that will definitely be going into my portfolio.

  














The picture above is probably my favorite picture I have taken to date. I love the contrast and the movement in this picture.
     I like the picture on the left as well because the sense of movement is there as well as the action of polo.

This was taken at a friend's barn. She was jumping in a lesson and invited me to come up an photograph it. I like the different angle this was taken at.








This is Blondie. She was recently bought and is just starting to get the hang of jumping. She has the cutest little face that is so expressive. She definitely jumps her heart out.

This is Chris, he plays on the open Cornell Interscholastic team. I like this one because it shows how open the arena is and it shows a good bump.

I really like this picture because it shows all three pairs coming at the camera. This is exactly what I love about polo.

I just love this shot because I think it really shows how flexible and agile polo horses are. I also think that there is a certain grace about polo ponies that really comes through in this photo.











I love the bunching of muscle on this horse. I think it shows the strength of horses really well.










So, there it is. I will have more to put up soon. Please leave comments on your opinions.

Hmm New Direction?

   So I was reading one of my fellow WISE classmates most recent entry ( Jackie's What a Project!
@ http://wise-scaping.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-project.html) and it got me thinking. Why can't I incorporate everything I want to as well?
    So here is my semi-formed might actually happen plan. I still want to do equine photography and that would be the focus of my project but I have always loved music and I wanted to incorporate that into my project at the beginning of the semester however I couldn't figure out how it would work. Now that I have been inspired to incorporate anything I want into my project I think I'll try. Basically what I want to do is record a song (perhaps "Wild Horses?" listen to it in 2 posts before "Wild Horses".) and set my powerpoint to that song. I don't have all the details figured out in my head yet; however, I do want to do a cover of that song. Hmmmmm. Lots of details to be figured out. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated.

No "Cliche" Photos For Me!

   I was reading an article the other day and it was about cliche horse photos. It include a list of five most common set ups for horse photos. So in response I give you my list of cliche horse photos. I agreed with the ones from the article so I am including some of them.

  1.   The silhouette of a horse in the sunset.
  
Yeah its pretty and all but we've all seen this picture before and I think that it has stopped being a meaningful picture because we have seen it before. There is no novelty of this picture. Everyone is doing it, there is no more excitement I get from this picture. Its like a postcard picture. Gorgeous picture but nothing more.

2.  A close up of a horse's eye.

    Once again I think this is gorgeous but once again it is used and taken soo often now that it has ceased to mean anything. I am guilty of doing this myself. At the time I felt super cool because I was taking these amazing pictures and the idea was original but then you Google "horse eye close ups" and you get millions of photos. It just goes to show that good ideas quickly become popular and then are no longer "ground breaking."

    3.    Mare and foal photos in which the foal is hiding/doing something that is undeniably cute.

      Thats all it is though. Cute. Nothing more nothing less. And thats not a bad thing, however I am looking to produce photos that have meaning beneath them and make the viewer feel something, anything at all. Whether it be anger, sadness or joy, the fact that my photo makes someone react is an accomplishment. I hope that my photos elicit some sort of reaction and if they don't then I will need to figure out if they are meaningful to me. If they are then great I won't change them but if they don't then I will need to figure out a way to take more meaningful photos.

4.  A girl and her horse.

    Now I think that these can be beautifully done and some are very unique; but, I feel that the majority of these photos are the same thing over and over again. Personally I think that these pictures can say a lot and appeal to many people; however, I think that they are too widely produced which makes them mean less.

5. And the last one. A horse running through the ocean.

Like number 4 I believe that a horse running on the beach can be done well and effectively but the generic shot of the horse running parallel to the camera with mane and tail flowing bores me. If this picture had a more interesting angle, different color choices and was cropped I think it would be elevated to another level, rather than just a pretty picture.




So what do you think? Are there some obvious cliche horse pictures I left out? Do you disagree with any of the ones I have on my list? 

Wild Horses

     So as I am writing this post I am listening to "Wild Horses" from the Flicka soundtrack. I absolutely love this song and I think that it captures what I want to portray in my photography. Here is a Youtube video of the song.

    I have never been one to blend into the crowd but I have sometimes not done what I wanted to do for fear of being made fun of. As independent as I am I still wanted to be accepted, which I think is part of human nature. I think the chorus and second verse really hit on my feelings towards horses and high school life in general.


Chorus:
Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
Run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!


Second Verse:
I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare back, care free along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head first headlong without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free


    So what does this have to do with my project? Well, I want to do a collection, that could appear in my portfolio, that reflects the spirit of this song. I want it so that there are up to 8 photos (maybe less) in some arrangement with either the chorus or second verse of "Wild Horses" below or twisting through the photos. I did a project in photo that incorporated text into the photos and I really liked how some of the shots turned out so I would like to go into that some more. As an aside, I DO NOT want to produce quote on quote cliche horse pictures. I will expand on that more at a later date.
    I had my second mentor meeting with Mrs. G today and I realized that I really need to formulate a plan at the beginning of each week so that I am able to stay on track during this project. She also suggested that once in a while I take photos of things other than horses so that my project is not monotonous. I think that this is an excellent idea because I do tend to lose focus if I am doing the same thing over and over. I saw a contest in my uncle's photography magazine about long exposure photos. These are photos taken at night but light is allowed in to the camera for so long that the picture, once developed, looks as though it was taken during the day. I thought this was a really cool technique so I thought I might try that as a break from horses.
       So here is my plan for this coming week. There will be polo this weekend so I am hoping to adjust my camera settings according to suggestions from the Nikon D3100 for Dummies book and that will help to solve some of the problems I am having. I will post some photos that I didn't like at a later date to be compared with the better pictures (hopefully!) from this weekend. Also I need to decide whether or not I want to look into getting a second lens. I need to talk to my horsey friends with ponies and see if they would be willing to jump and pose for me. 
       Thats all for now. My latest mentor meeting has reenergized me. We'll see what happens.

Time to get Inspired!!

       So this past weekend was crazy for me. I had hockey all weekend in Massena and we ended up winning the State Championship  :D for the first time since 2003. Please forgive me for not updating the status of my project sooner.
      So this week I plan to finish reading A Dummy's Guide to the Nikon D3100 I have read through the sections I have thought would be most useful to me but I haven't read through the entire thing yet. I am also hoping to play around with the settings on my camera so that by the polo games on either Friday or Saturday I am able to take shots that I am happy with and that would be useful to me in my project.

  

    One of my Community Contacts,  JC lent me her copy of Spirit Horses by Tony Stromberg. Spirit Horses is a collection of photographs taken and edited by Stromberg. Many of these shots are in sepia tones or black and white JC had said, when I interviewed her that she preferred horse pictures in either black and white or sepia and I have to agree. There is something about the sepia and black and white tones that brings out the majestic qualities in a horse. I am planning on getting this book eventually because I think that it would be an inspiration. Here is one of the pictures from his book.

Thank you to Jenna at Jenna Leigh Teti Photography

    My WISE teacher Mrs. G. had mentioned that people in previous years had started doing questions of the week and suggested that I do a photo of the week. So every week I will choose a different photo that inspires me while working on my project. Hopefully once I start shooting I will do a follow up post that has a that I took that was inspired by my photo of the week. We'll see how well that works out. I decided on this one for my first week. I absolutely love that this shot shows the game of polo as it truly is: an intense sport that can be dangerous but more often than not is fun and exhilarating. I like that this shot is a stop action shot, meaning that there is little or no blur to the picture. It really captures the motion of the horses and the intensity of the game.

And so the Day has Arrived

      The day that I will be exited from WISE class is almost here!!! I 'm soo excited to start working on my project. Congrats to J and E for being the first to exit. I can't explain how excited I am for this. It seems like all we did was talk about the second semester when we would be doing our projects but now the second semester is actually here :O and we're actually starting our projects. Its rather daunting but also exciting.
       So luckily the college team worked Saturday's polo game so I was free to take pictures. I'm happy with some and very unhappy with others but over all it was a good time to get the feel of how fast my shutter really needs to be and what my aperture should be. I got some good shots but I don't think I'll be using them for my portfolio.
        One problem I'm having is that the lenses my dad and I have are not fast enough to capture polo using the lighting in the arena. Which means that either I need to buy a faster lens or open my aperture as big as it can be. But opening up my aperture is going to make less and less of the picture be in focus so I think I am going to need a faster lens. However a faster lens means money. We'll see how that works out.
         In the mean time I'm going to put up some of the pictures I did in my photography and advanced photography courses last year.

This is quote and photo really sum up my thoughts on a girl's relationship with her horse.

This is my friend A and her horse Rosco.

I took this right at dinner time. A was going down aisle and Trudy, who is in the foreground, was whinnying like it was her last supper.

Once again this is Rosco. I think this one speaks for itself.

My Two Week Plan

So I have to come up with this plan for what I am hoping to accomplish in the next two weeks. I set the expectaion that I would figure out the outline for my projects by the end of February so I need to start figuring out each of my pieces and start planning specifically when I need to have pictures shot by. I am going to publish a portfolio as one of my pieces, another one is going to be a collage of pictures of horse parts and I am going to mesh them into one photo of a horse. So I might have the legs of a dressage horse under the body of a polo pony, with the head of a jumper and so on. I think this is the piece I am most excited for. As of right now I am also planning to create a PowerPoint or a slideshow, which would show the progression of chaos between dressage, show jumping and indoor polo.
By the end of these two weeks I hope I have extensively planned out my collage of horses and have started shooting for it. I am going to a polo game tonight so hopefully *Crossing My Fingers* I won't have to work during the games and I can take pictures instead. I will be using my Nikon D3100, this will be my first time using the camera for polo so it will be interesting to see how it goes. If you haven't been to a polo game I suggest you go immediately! It is soo much fun.
TTYL

So What is WISE?

WISE is a program that was created at Woodlands High School. It is a senior experience program that is desgined to allow seniors the opportunity to pursue a project they are interested in during their second semester. Each senior that participates in the course has to write up a project proposal outlining what they want to do for a project. After the proposals have been approved each senior then gets a WISE mentor. A Wise mentor is someone who is employed by that senior's school district. The purpose of a WISE mentor is to meet weekly with the senior and help to keep them on track and focused on their project. My WISE mentor is going to be my WISE teacher actually. I think that Mrs. G and I work well together and she thinks of things that I would not normally think of. I can't wait to get started!!

Well here it is: My First Post

So here it is. I am starting this blog as a journal for my WISE project. I decided to do equine photography because I love horses and photography. I have been riding western for 8 years and just started polo this winter which I have fallen in love with. I took photography courses last year and loved it, so I decided to combine two things that I love. I am planning to create three pieces total with one being a book or portfolio of all the pictures I have taken over the semester.