Updates and Changes

I made a few changes to the blog that you might notice as you look around. The first thing is I’m changing my name(twitter username as well). Christina Amparano is the name I will be changing to soon. :) The short story is that Amparano is my father in-law’s birth name (Diaz is his step dad). It is a rare name that will die out soon, so we took it upon ourselves (hubby and myself) to try to keep it alive! :)

Another thing that I hope you’ll notice is that I added two portfolio pages. One for my commercial work (like the things I do in studio lighting class) and the other is for my fine art work. I felt like I needed a place for new readers/visitors to look at and at glance what my work is about and what I’m capable of.

I hope you enjoy these changes and my new header. :) It was designed by Ryan and I think he did an amazing job! I love it! He made a few changes to his blog as well. You should check it out! :)

Muffins!

I finally did a foodie shot. I’ve been putting off food shots because they seem so… I don’t know… not so exciting? But I was SO wrong! I had such a great time working on this one! :)

I had this vision in my head of a window lit kitchen counter with muffins cooling and an ingredient off to the side. Shallow depth of field was a must! Everyone loves nice blurry bokeh!

So, we went to my favorite grocery store- Sprouts (yes I have a favorite grocery store, I know you have one too, so don’t judge!). I knew that they have freshly baked muffins there. You can’t go wrong with muffins! They had more to chose from than I remembered. It was glorious! :D So I picked four nice blueberry muffins with raw sugar on top. YUM! I grabbed some blueberries and I was good to go!!!

Good to go!

This shot was done outside of class time. That means that I had to go into the studio and work on it solo- no teacher and no assistant. :O I was on my own! Below you’ll find an Instagram pic of my set up. Going counter clockwise, you can see the soft box to the top-left; the black thing to the left of the camera is a flag (used it to block flare[light] from the soft box); and the white thing to the right of the camera is a white card that I used as a reflector (to reflect light into shadowy areas). The perspective is kinda weird in the photo below cuz everything looks really close together, but it wasn’t that close in reality.

Muffin Set Up

As scary as it may sound, it went pretty well. I tried to look at it critically, think of what my instructor, Ann Mitchell, would say and compare it to other food photography shots that I seen in the past. Maybe it’s not super great, but I think it’s pretty good for my first one. :)

Yummy Muffin!

-Christina

Midterm Grades

Although I have three classes, I only had a real midterm in my Portrait class. Half of the midterm was to know 20 photographers and know them by their work. My instructor, Brian Doan, projected 20 images onto a screen and had us write down who the photographer was for each one. I’m happy that I got an A on that! YAY! We had to write an essay for the second part of the midterm which I also got an A on! Double YAY! Wednesday night, he handed back a museum report that we did a few weeks ago and I got an A! Triple YAY!!!

In Studio Lighting class, we had our one and only writing assignment. It was an essay about the lighting used in our favorite movie or music video. We were to analyze what type of lighting was used and how it effected the mood. I got an A! Quadruple YAY!!!

The only midterm type thing that I can think of that we had in the Marketing class was that presentation I did about a month back. I told you about that before, but I don’t think we’re getting an actual grade on that. *shrug*

Everything's coming up A's :)

-Christina

Toned Brassiere

I love them. You love them. Everyone loves them! What am I talking about? Boobs, of course! That’s why I decided to do a shot of a cute bra! Another requirement of the section (other than to shoot at a 45 degree angle from the surface) was to do a vintaged toned image. My favorite bygone era is the 40′s and 50′s so, I thought I’d do a shoot to try and capture that lost time. I gathered together vintage items that I had: garter belt, stockings, slips, and gloves. I found a cute lacy bra at Target and not exactly but close enough matching panties.

This was my most difficult shot yet! I had wanted it to look like clothing thrown on the bed as a woman was deciding what to wear for the night. Sounds like an easy set up right? Well, it wasn’t for me. :-/ I tried a dozen different ways to lay the items and still was only barely satisfied. Time was running short so I made due and shot the image below.

Brassiere in color and unfinished.

I was satisfied enough with this so I went home content. Now came time to put it into Photoshop and give it a vintage tone. Another thing that you have to keep in mind when shooting something then convert it to black and white or tone, is that you can’t look at your subject as if it’s colored. Yes, the red slip and the green blanket under it looks weird, but then tonal value of the colors are similar enough that they read as the same shade of grey (or brown after toned).

Something else that I did was add a blur to the over all image (per my instructor, Ann Mitchel’s suggestion). This gives the overall image a very soft feel. It’s a different blur than that if something was out of focus. You can still see that the lace on the top of the near cup is still in focus through the soft blur. Check it out below!

Brassiere with Tint and Blur.

Once I got home and opened this up I realized that I really didn’t like crop. :-/ Way too much dead space to the right and below the brassiere. While in studio, I had played around with putting lipstick or some other item in that dead space near the bottom, but I felt that it stole too much attention from the brassiere. I decided to crop out as much of that emptiness that I could.

Finished Brassiere

I’m content with the way this turned out. I’ve learned that prop styling isn’t my strong point. lol I’ll admit that straight up! :) Maybe I’ll learn as I go, but I would much prefer to have someone else do it.

-Christina

My Product Shot

For this section of Studio Lighting Class, we were required to do all three shoots with the camera at a 45 degree angle from our surface (you’ll see the other 2 images in my next two posts). With this, we were given many options for our subject matter. I chose to do a product shot and to do it as a serial multiple to get that requirement out of the way. Ryan suggested that I use the gift basket from The Body Shop that my aunt got me for Christmas.

My instructor, Ann, suggested that I do my main shot first then work out from there. This was a great idea! lol It gave me a basis to work from and something coherent to keep in mind as I did the other shots. Since I did this first shot at the 45 degree angle, I was free to do the remaining items at any viewpoint. I did the luffa and the soap with the same 45 degree angle, whereas I shot the body wash straight on and the body butter from directly above.

After shooting, I put all the images into Photoshop, did the touch ups they needed and arranged them as you see below. I decided to put the surrounding images in the opposite position that the items are in the basket.  I’m pretty happy with the way this all turned out. :)

Product Shot for The Body Shop

- Christina

The Crunch Before Spring Break

Hey guys! Sorry I didn’t do a post last week. :( I’ve been really swamped with the group assignment I had in my Portrait Class and my busy shooting schedule for Studio Lighting Class. Now that the group assignment is over, I can finally breathe!

Last week, I also did a rough presentation in my Marketing Class. We were to bring our 5 strongest images and present ourselves as if we were meeting with a client that we hope to work with in two years. Mine was so rough! Lol Luckily, we get to do a final presentation at the end of the semester. I learned a lot from the experience and from my peer’s feedback.

Today, I finished the last photograph for the current section for Studio Lighting. I’m feeling really confident about the three images I made. Tomorrow is the class critique where we will see what my peers think of them. Getting these done was the last on my list before I can start my Spring Break. The day after, my Spring Break begins!

For me, Spring Break is only a break from school, not from photography. I look forward to being able to sleep in a little and let myself be creative. The week is going to go much much too fast, but I’m going to enjoy it. :)

- Christina

Greens and Grades

The last assignment that we had in Studio Lighting class was to do dutch master’s style. We were to research the paintings of dutch masters such as Pieter Claesz, Franscisco de Zuberan, etc. then come into the studio and do our own photographic versions.

Below you will find such a painting by Jean Simeon Chardin. My shot is similar to this in content and elements. We were to light our subject and edge with one source of light and our background with another. “Breaking the edge” was also required. In the image below and my image, you can see that the line of edge of the table is interrupted by the end of the onion.

Still life by Jean Simeon Chardin

As you can see below, I chose to do a simple composition of unprepared food utilizing a monochromatic color relationship. My subjects are all different tones of green, whereas my surface and background are tones of brown. The brown supports the green and allows it to step forward and speak of it’s freshness. Choosing the brown to support the green also allows the green to pop because brown is one of its complimentary colors.

Green- My Still Life Shot

I received an A on this. That surprised me. I wasn’t very excited to do this project, but I guess I had all the elements that I needed to make it successful. So, I won’t complain! LoL I also got a B on my glass glow and an A+ on my nude portrait. :)

I think I’ve gained momentum. I really want to keep it going and continue getting A’s. :)

-Christina