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.