How the Market Works #3

From my previous blogposts, you can tell that I'm wasn't sure on whether to take a bullish or bearish approach to my portfolio since I didn't feel like I was educated enough on the stock market to do so. Finally, after talking to my dad and learning more about the market, I decided that I needed to be more bullish and invest much more money that I had previously done so in order to gain a profit. Although there has been talk of an economic recession happening for a while, it's highly unlikely that there will be one before winter break so it only makes sense to invest large amounts of money right now. Therefore, after conversing with a family friend in business, the biggest tip I learnt was that you should invest lots of cash into companies that you use. So, after a spending spree on blue chip companies, in total I invested around $60,000, which I feel like is a good amount to invest in as should the market crash, I still have some remaining money to keep me afloat. The companies that I invested in were Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, The Walt Disney Company, and Berkshire Hathaway Class B.

I don't want to go too much into detail for the first four companies that I listed above because they are all fairly self explanatory so I will simply give a brief summary. Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft are tech giants that dominate the technology industry and therefore provide blue chip stability. In a world thats growing increasingly reliant on technology, I believe that it is vital to invest in these such companies as their size provides stability to your portfolio while simultaneously giving you a steady profit. However, you may of noticed that I didn't include Apple as one of the companies that I chose to invest in despite it being a major technology power player. I chose to set it aside because Apple's new iPhone sales dropped at a record pace and did far worse than predicted (BBC). Although, Apple is bigger than its latest iPhone sales, with Apple T.V and other technologies, I didn't want to take a risk with the company and therefore let it be. Finally, the last company that I will briefly mention here is The Walt Disney Company. Unlike the blue chip companies I mentioned above, Disney is in the entertainment industry, not technology industry. With Disney owning Marvel, Star Wars, releasing Frozen 2 this coming November, having a large demographic of viewers and being an enduring franchise (Fool), I decided to invest in this mega company. Thus, you can see that I invested the bulk of my money into these reliant blue chip companies.  

A company that I haven't mentioned thus far though is Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock, and this is because I want to delve in deeper into this company and explain the logistics as to why I chose to invest in it. To begin with, I invested in the Class B stock simply because the Class A stock was far too expensive to invest in as one share costs around $300,000, making it the most expensive stock to buy in the market today (Finance Yahoo). However, the Class B stock is just as profitable and still a stock worth buying. The main reason for this is that Berkshire Hathaway is very similar to a mutual fund which essentially means that the company invests in a variety of small companies but also holds shares in larger ones like Coco Cola and Apple (Morning Star). This diversification provides stability to my portfolio and ensures that I am investing in a range of companies. Another reason for why I invested in Berkshire Hathaway was because it is owned by Warren Buffet, the third wealthiest person and most successful investor in the world. Therefore, instead of me trying to beat the market by investing small amounts of money into different companies, I'd rather invest into Berkshire Hathaway and leave this tough job to the experts at Berkshire Hathaway supervised by Warren Buffet. A third reason for why I invested in it was because Berkshire Hathaway has an outstanding growth rate. For instance, a stock of the company bought in 1990 is now worth 37 times what it was back then (Investopedia). Additionally, the graph below describes how the total returns of the Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock has consistently been far higher than the S&P 500 Total Return, thus constantly beating the competition of the top 500 largest companies in the U.S. 

Continuing on, Berkshire Hathaway Class B has a 52 week range of $186.10 to $224.07 which is fairly consistent and therefore a positive thing. It hasn't all been bright and optimistic though, Berkshire Hathaway has made errors along the way and the most recent one was investing into Kraft Heinz (CNBC). This bad investment resulted in Berkshire Hathaway losing almost $5 billion this year as Kraft Heinz continues to sink. However, this can be viewed optimistically because now prices of Berkshire Hathaway are cheaper than before and therefore, I invested in it at a good time when the price was relatively low.

In conclusion, I realised that in order to understand how much money you want to invest into the market, you need to take an approach on the economy and understand your view of it. Furthermore, I found that investing in companies that I use daily is a helpful tip for realising what companies to invest in and that mutual funds can be beneficial and provide stability to your portfolio as well. 

How the Market Works #2

Since the last update on my stocks, I have invested small amounts of money into various companies, remaining conservative in my view of the market. Although, I am still unsure on whether I want to take a bearish or bullish stance on the economy, as I still believe I am not educated enough to take an appropriate view point, for now I have invested approximately $10,000. The new companies that I chose to invest in were Trip Advisor, Proctor & Gamble, Ulta Beauty, and Alibaba. Rather than giving brief explanations for each company, I will instead delve further into two companies that I am excited about: Ulta Beauty and Ali Baba.

To start off, I will write a summary on my findings for Ulta Beauty and my reasoning for investing in it. Ulta Beauty is a beauty salon chain around the U.S similar to Sephora that sells a variety of beauty brands. Although, I invested in Ulta Beauty while it was at a relatively cheap price, I unfortunately didn't invest in it when it would've been most profitable, which was last class. Since our last economics class, Ulta Beauty has grown by a whopping 8%, which would've given me high returns. However, all hope wasn't lost as investing in it this class still ensured that I wasn't too late to reap its benefits, which I will explain a little later. To give some context on Ulta Beauty, in the last 5 years, it has risen by a shocking 251%, surpassing all predictions and showing an impressive growth rate. But, this optimistic growth rate hides some of the issues that Ulta Beauty has faced recently such as the huge drop in stocks that occurred in August this year. In August, Ulta Beauty's stocks fell by over 32%, according to CNBC, and there are no clear reasons why. We can only attribute this drop to slow make-up sales and the overall slowing down of the cosmetic industry in the U.S. While, right now it seems like I am leaning towards why you shouldn't invest in Ulta Beauty, this drop is actually beneficial to investors who grab this opportunity. Going back to how investing in Ulta Beauty this class still meant that I wasn't too late, Ulta Beauty's prices remained lower that usual even with the 8% growth rate. With the August drop, Ulta Beauty has hit such a low point, almost rock-bottom, that it is only predicted to have an upward trajectory (InvestorPlace). Although it doesn't appear that Ulta Beauty will reach back to its peak position anytime soon, definitely not before winter break, it is still forecasted to have a positive growth rate even if it's slower than what we are used to right now. Thus, I chose to invest in this company in the hopes to gain a promising profit as it continues to grow.

The second company that I want to write about is Alibaba. Alibaba is a giant company and is essentially China's Amazon. To give you a sense of its enormity, Alibaba is the fourth largest internet company by revenue, accounts for 60% of the packages delivered to China, and 24,000 people work for the company which is more employees that Yahoo and Facebook have combined (Business Insider). However, instead of initially investing in a blue chip company, I chose to invest in Alibaba because it's largeness provides it with stability but doesn't prohibit its growth. Because Alibaba is a company based in China, this allows it to have a huge growth rate. China's digital economy is only in its nascent stages and as e-commerce grows in China, Alibaba will coincidently increase as well since experts forecast e-commerce sales in China to increase by at least 15% annually over the coming years and currently, Alibaba controls over half of China's e-commerce market (Investor Place). However, a concern that arose was the rising tensions between China and U.S and the effect this could potentially have on Alibaba. Fortunately, it seems that Alibaba will be minimally affected by the trade war as it is a largely domestic based group as in 2018, retail and wholesale revenue from China comprised 74% of Alibaba's total revenue compared to just 8% for international retail and wholesale revenue. Furthermore, Alibaba is expanding across South East Asia rather than the U.S (Investopedia).

Therefore, in conclusion, I invested in the two companies that I described above because of their large potential for growth and hence, ability to give me a high profit. These companies are riskier because they aren't stable companies but instead vastly growing ones, however for the purpose of this simulation, I believe that because it is so short, it's good to have a balanced portfolio of riskier companies as well as stable ones. Thus, the next companies that I invest in will likely be more stable, blue chip companies.

How the Market Works #1

To begin this simulation, I wanted to be more conservative in my spendings for my first investment since I'm not very educated on the stock market since I've only done limited research thus far. Prior to this class, the thought of even investing money into the stock market was a foreign concept to me so I was unsure on how much I should be spending and on which companies I should be spending them on. Finally, after researching various companies to invest it, I settled on investing approximately $5000 in stocks on two companies. However, below I will be describing only one of them as that is the company that I am most passionate about and have researched the most on. 

One of the companies that I chose to invest in was Advanced Micro Devices Inc., also known as AMD, which is a semiconductor company. Semiconductor companies manufacture small integral pieces in electronic devices and albeit they are relatively unknown, they are vital for electronic devices to function. Furthermore, in a growingly tech-oriented world, semiconductor companies are beneficial businesses to invest in and are fundamentally the future. Additionally, AMD is the second largest supplier for x86-based microprocessors, following Intel (Investopedia). The x86 central processing units are essentially the architecture in most desktops and laptops, and currently Intel is the biggest supplier of these since the company invented them. However, AMD is Intel's only competitor and is predicted to potentially take over Intel. Admittedly, Intel still holds majority of the CPU market under its grasp, but instead of looking at the number of shares each company holds, I believe that it's more important to look at the growth rate. A year ago, AMD's share of the CPU market stood at 12.3%, but according to last quarter's results, it now holds 17.1% of the market (Fool). Now, if we compare AMD's impressive growth rate with how Intel's been fairing, we see that Intel decreased in revenue in the second quarter by -2.69% from the same quarter in 2018 ( CSI Market) From this comparison, it is clear that AMD's stunning growth rate exemplifies how it is forecasted to continue earning a large revenue and progressing into Intel's territory, especially since there's no reason for it not to do so. We can also see that AMD's progress has lead to Intel's downfall and could potentially continue to do so. Therefore, I believed that investing in AMD was a beneficial idea since it is predicted to grow big and I will continue tracking its progress as the game goes by.

Photography Final

              

Overall, going to the Botanic Gardens for my photo walk was a really memorable experience that forced me to not just see the world around me, but observe it. I also went to places in the Gardens that I'd never been to before, like the tree top viewing gallery, which lead to me to take some interesting photos that I otherwise wouldn't of captured. Another success was that I took a wide variety of photos ranging from closer-up shots of flowers, long photos of paths with deep depth of fields, and birds-eye view photos from up above. However, going to the Botanic Gardens wasn't my first photo walk. Initially, I decided to go a wet market near my house and capture a few photos of the stalls, workers, and goods being sold. But when I returned to my house to look at the photos that I had captured, I realised that I hadn't really captured a wide range of photos that were interesting to look at. In addition, because the lighting in the wet market wasn't great, my photos had a slightly yellow hue to them which I didn't like. Although, I loved going to the wet market and interacting with the workers there, I wanted to go on a second photo walk but in a different location. Therefore, this was one of the biggest challenges that I faced. A smaller challenge was that in the Botanic Gardens, at first, I found it difficult to capture photos that weren't typical as I wanted my viewer to be intrigued. Fortunately, going to places in the Gardens that I'd never been to before solved this problem for me.

I didn't use much peer feedback in this project, but when choosing my final photo, I was debating between the close-up photo of the pink flowers and the sunset photo surrounded by plants. To help me decide, I asked my friend, Camilla, which photo she thought was better. She chose the sunset photo which I realised was the better choice, so that ended up being my final photo. In terms of the post-processing techniques, I did some light editing on a few of my photos since I enjoy editing. I put most of my time into editing the final photo, though. Like I said in my presentation, I increased the exposure, darkened the shadows, increased the blacks, and slightly increased the highlights and whites. I also warmed the temperature of the photo so that it had a more orangey glow to it. To further intensify this, I saturated the photo slightly and made it a bit more vibrant. In addition, I darkened the green hues of the leaves so that it looked like shadows were cast upon them, and increased the yellow hue of the sun to make it more yellow and orange.

This photo walk personally impacted me in a great way because it forced me to go outside and capture small details that would otherwise seem insignificant. Especially since this is finals month, this photo walk provided me with a reason to step outside and enjoy nature. Throughout this semester, I have realised that my favourite photos to capture are those of nature and portraits. Within nature, I love taking photos from different angles and with different depths of field. Therefore, I want to carry this knowledge with me as I go into Advanced Photography as I will already have a sense of the photos that I enjoy taking.

Composite Images

Introduction:

For the Composite Project, we were asked to create four final photos using Photoshop editing techniques. We had the freedom to choose any photo that we wanted and could create whatever effect that we desired, however we had to ensure that we used the editing techniques of different blending modes, a filter gallery, layer masks, and transform tools somewhere among our final photos.

Digital Contact Prints: 

Above is my digital contact print containing the original four images that I edited as my final photos. This print helps show the effect of the editing techniques that I used as you can see the "before" of my edited photos. 

This digital contact print contains my four final photos. Using various Photoshop videos, I edited these photos using different editing techniques to achieve the specific look that I wanted. Below, I will go further in-depth into each photo. 

Final Photos: 

Polar Bear by apgroner, Desert by wstera2, Eagle by Andy Morffew

This was the first photo that I edited in Photoshop so I didn't do anything too dramatic. I began by putting the black desert photo as my background. While, I liked how the photo looked, I wanted to give it some motion so I searched through the filter gallery until I settled down on the filter: Angled Strokes. I chose this filter to make the sand look like it was being swept by the wind which you can see if you zoom in. Next, I inserted a polar bear photo. Using the quick selection tool, I cropped out the polar bear from it's background and placed it the way that I wanted onto the sand. Finally, I found an eagle photo and, once again, used the quick selection tool to remove it from its background. I wanted the eagle to look somewhat like a silhouette so that it wouldn't be too distracting. I did this by using the black and white tool to desaturate it and and the Angled Strokes filter to make it blend better into the background. The photo above is the final product of this. 

Along the way, I realised that the message of this photo was about global warming and its impact on life. When I learnt that I could send a powerful message through my photo, I continued to stick with plain shades of white, grey, and black to represent how in a sense, climate change is taking away the "colour" or diversity out of our world. The stance of the polar bear also gives the feeling that the bear is crying out for help and the emptiness of the desert shows how isolated it is. Therefore, the tone that I was trying to convey was a sad, lonely one that called for attention. 

Taken by MAT + KAT

To edit this photo I used a Photoshop tutorial linked by Mr. Lawrence. I began by using the quick selection tool and select and mask tool to pull Troye Sivan (the person in the photo) away from the background. Next. I created a layer below the one of Troye Sivan and filled it with black, effectively making the background black. Then, I used the levels tool to darken the photo and copied and pasted the lyrics of the song, BLUE, which is sung by him. After that, I made a copy of the layer and chose the adjustment of gradient. Lastly, I chose the blend mode of overlay which let me toggle around with this rainbow filter until I settled on this. 

This photo was more for me than to send a message, however I still purposefully made the editing choices that I did. To begin with, I chose a photo of Troye Sivan covering his heart to give a comforting tone. This fit well with the lyrics that I selected since the song is about being there for someone. In addition, the song has a lot of colour imagery so I painted Troye Sivan with a rainbow. He is also an openly gay artist so the colour choice was also to represent the LGBTQ+ community. 

Owned by WallpaperCave

To edit this photo, I followed a Photoshop tutorial that I found on YouTube. I began by desatuturing the photo of Billie Eilish, the person in the photo above, so that it was black and white. Next, I went into the blending options and unchecked the red channel. Then, using the transform tool, I shifted my photo more to the left and resized it to reveal the red-blue filter. After that, I created the lines in the background by choosing the new adjustment layer: solid colour. I filled the background with white and then chose the pattern overlay tool to create the lines. Finally, I selected the rectangle marque tool, clicked free transform, highlighted the box over an area and dragged it to the side. This created the box effects that you see in the photo above. 

The idea that I was trying to portray in this photo was that there was a glitch. I wanted to create the tone that this snapshot was happening on an old television, hence the lines in the background, and that there was a glitch in the system causing Billie Eilish to appear the way that she is. I also specifically chose a photo of Billie Eilish because her music style is more solemn and creepy which I thought fit the mood. She is also known for not smiling in her photos which is why I thought that this picture made sense for this effect. 

Credit for Troye Sivan photo goes to Press. Galaxy by Unsplash.

To edit this photo I used the editing technique called double exposure. Below, I will run through the steps that I took to edit this photo. 

Editing Process:

Above are the two original photos that I used for this technique. This gives an idea of what the images looked like when I began so that the progress is clear when you see my final photo. 

I began by dragging this picture of Troye Sivan into Photoshop and doing some minor edits on it. I used the Levels tool to increase the exposure and highlights, and used the Hue/Saturation tool to brighten the colours and add more vibrance. When I was happy with the overall picture, I moved onto the actual technique of double exposure. 

Next, I dragged the galaxy photo into Photoshop and resized it. Then, I unchecked the view button and focused on the layer with Troye Sivan on it. I used the quick selection tool to pull Troye Sivan away from the background and the select and mask tool to make a more detailed selection. Next, I clicked on the visibility of the galaxy photo and clicked the layer mask tool to reveal the galaxy in the shape of Troye Sivan. To move the galaxy photo so that the part with the most stars was shown, I removed the link between the galaxy photo and layer mask and used the move tool to move it. Then, I went into the layer option, scrolled over the layer style option, and chose blending options which opened up the window that you see above. I clicked on the slider tool on the underlaying layer and separated the Hershey's kiss bar so that the galaxy blended into Troye Sivan's face as much as I wanted it to. Finally, I merged the layers by pressing Shift, Option, Command, and E at the same time.  

Now, I was finished with the double exposure technique, however I still wanted to further improve this image. I did so by running through some basic editing techniques. I began by increasing the brightness and contrast to catch the viewer's attention. Then, I further saturated the image to bring more colour to it and used the colour balance tool to make the galaxy a darker shade of blue and more purple. Finally, I used the curves tool to further brighten the picture. 

Personal Reflection:

Almost all of the editing techniques that I used in this project were new techniques that I hadn't learnt before, ranging from the filter gallery to layer masks. However, I soon realised that when creating different effects, I still used the same standard editing techniques like the quick selection tool, select and mask tool, layer masks, and overlays. Therefore, after a while, I began to realise which technique would come next in the editing tutorial videos before it happened. I still require a lot of practice to memorize these techniques, though, as I still heavily rely on the Photoshop tutorials. Along the way, I faced a couple of obstacles that left me frustrated. For instance, when making the text poster, the tutorial said to remove the spacing between letters, but when I did this, the text that I pasted into Photoshop came out really small and cramped. It was only after several tries and failed attempts that I identified this problem. Another challenge that I faced was trying to face paint an image onto someone. I tried following the face painting tutorial several times but couldn't figure out the rectangle marque tool as when I selected the eyes with the tool, so that the face paint wouldn't cover them, the rectangle wouldn't work or disappear. Eventually, I realised that I was spending too much time trying to get this effect so I did the glitch effect instead. When creating the glitch, I faced a similar problem with the rectangular marquee tool but after experimenting, I realised that the issue was that I hadn't chosen the option "free transform" and that I could easily deselect the tool by pressing Command and D. One regret that I have is that for the picture of Troye Sivan for the double exposure technique, I didn't choose a picture of the best quality. Because the photo was big when I searched it up, I assumed that it was high quality so it was only after I completed the technique that I realised that the quality wasn't the best. Overall though, I am very happy with how these photos turned out and despite spending hours editing them, I think that the product was worth it. Therefore, over the summer, I think that I'm going to further enhance my editing techniques in Photoshop. 

Portrait

For this project, we took portraits inside the studio and in an outside environment, focusing on telling a story. In both, especially in the studio, we learnt different lighting techniques and experimented with their effect on the tone of the image.

Images of Inspiration:

Studio Portrait:

Photo taken by Joe McNally

There are various aspects that I like about this photo such as the sombre tone portrayed through the dark background and shadows. I also like how the subject is elderly as it gives the feeling that the subject is remembering his past or his youth. His wistful gaze adds to this feeling, as well. In addition, I think that the angle suits this picture because it's almost like we are witnessing a scene happening in real life. The lighting also helps guide the viewer's attention as it brings our eyes across the photo from right to left. The choice of using the compositional device fill the frame adds to the intensity of the photo. I also think that this photo may of possibly used the compositional device of rule of thirds since the lighting is in the third of the photo.

Environmental Portrait:

Photo taken by Henrik Knudsen

Once again, I like the calm, solemn tone of this picture. I feel like the monotonous colours and simple use of the compositional device of lines(in the background) represent the subject's emotion of helplessness. The simple background also emphasises the lack of life which makes the viewer think that there is a history to this picture and a story to be told. I also like the idea of the small light directly above the subject as even though the whole image is lit, most of the light is focused on the center of the picture. In addition, the angle gives the feeling that the viewer is sitting at the table across from this man and is looking at this scene in real life. Lastly, I think that taking a photo in an ordinary place, like a coffee shop, but giving meaning to it through the emotions of the subject is an interesting concept. 

Quote Portrait:

Photo from Niche

Maya Angelou // "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are."

I especially like how this photo is black and white because it gives the feeling of sadness. Mostly though, I love how the subject's hand is in front of her face because it's almost like she's unveiling herself to us. I think that it is also clever of the photographer to ensure that there was a gap between the subject's fingers so that her eyes are shown. Therefore, I may use this idea of unmasking in my project. Unlike the previous photos, in this one, the subject is looking directly at the camera which I thought made the viewer feel more exposed like they are being scrutinized. I notice that the lighting is on the right side of the photo which leads the viewer's eyes across the image. I believe that the compositional device used in this photo was fill the frame.

Detailed Plan:
Studio Portrait:
For the studio portraits I have already signed up to take photos on April 17th after school, since I want access to the studio alone so that I can use it more freely. My subject will be my friend, Sille, but I will also have two friends, Ella and Inara, to help me with the lighting. As for the style of the images, I will play around with the theme of identity as I'll take photos of Sille doing what she is passionate about as well as pictures of emotions that she expresses a lot. I want to try taking a few zoomed in portraits of her applying lipstick or mascara because make-up is a big part of her life. I will ensure that she is wearing fashionable clothes as well to portray her love for fashion. In addition, I want to play around with lighting the photo from the back to represent her love for being the center of attention. As for the software component I don't particularly have a technique that I want to use in Photoshop, but I will likely mainly edit the shadows, lighting, blacks, whites, and exposure. If I feel like it's validated, I may also try isolating certain colours.

Environmental Portrait:
For the environmental portraits, I will mostly take photos of my sister, Samara, since she has a wide range of passions that I can capture. I'll take photos in various environments like at the horse stable at the Polo club and in the study room where she paints. If I, for some reason, don't take enough photos, I'll go down to Arab Street and capture various portraits of vendors, waiters, tourists, etc. For most of these photos, I will use props that help represent Samara's passions. Some ideas that I have are taking a close up photo of her face next to her a horse's and her painting next to a window in the study room. Like for the studio portraits, I don't have any post processing techniques in mind but I will probably, again, adjust the exposure, contrast, and vibrance. I could also possibly use the isolating colour tool and gaussian blur tool.

Digital Contact Prints: 
Studio Portrait:

Above is the digital contact print for my top ten studio portraits. I chose these photos from the large array of photos that I had taken because I feel like they either showcase certain lighting techniques the best or are taken in a unique manner. In addition, I chose these because I think that they portray my model well as they display my model's personality and passions.

In my print, I have highlighted four of my favourite photos with blue boxes. From these four, my two favourite ones are the photos highlighted on the top row. I especially love these because they portray interesting lighting techniques which set a meaningful tone to the picture. Later on, I will describe these photos further in-depth. As for the other two photos, I especially like the photo in the middle on the bottom row because it freezes the motion of the scarf in the air. I believe that this makes the photo more appealing to look at. In addition, I liked how this sets a playful tone to the picture, exemplifying the model's lively personality. Lastly, I also like the photo on the bottom row on the right because it captures my model laughing. Her face is well lit, as well, as the light is pointed directly on her face but melts into a shadow towards the very edge of her face.

Environmental Portrait:

Above is my digital contact print for my ten best environmental portraits. These photos are my favourite ones from my larger body of photos because of the different angles that I shot them at. For the three distinct environments that you can see, I captured my model from various views depending on the tone that I was trying to portray. In addition, I think that these pictures best capture my model's personality.

There are four pink boxes bordering my favourite four pictures. I especially like the photos on the top row because I like how I captured the relationship between the horse and my model. I also think that these photos are interesting to look at since you don't often see portraits of horses alongside riders. Below, I will further explain one of these horse portraits. As for the second row, I really like the portrait of my model sitting on a table outside. I like this portrait because I think that the lighting is bright and helps highlight my model's face. In addition, I like how this portrait shows the front view of my model as my other portraits are mainly side views. Regarding the last highlighted photo on the bottom row, I like how the light from the window illuminates my model's face. Furthermore, I like the expression of happiness on my model's face as it reflects her joy for drawing.

Final Portraits:
Below are my best portraits both in the studio and out in an environment. For all of the portraits, the first photo is the original picture and the photo directly beneath it is the edited version.

Studio Portraits:

Divided. 30/4/2019. Nikon D3400.

I took this portrait of my friend, Camilla during class time when we were given time to use the studio. This photo show cases the lighting technique of split lighting. It is clear that this technique has been used because when you look at Camilla's face, half of her face is lit while the other half has a shadow. To take this photo, I set up a light at 90 degrees and directed it straight at the left side of Camilla's face. However, this created too much contrast so I further dimmed the light and placed a smaller light further away from Camilla but still directed at the left side of her face. After some trial and error, I finally achieved this lighting.

To edit this, I used multiple techniques, although they were all very subtle. I removed her baby hair, whitened her teeth, darkened her eyes, and removed most of her blemishes. I also used regular editing techniques like adjusting the exposure, shadows, and lighting, as these elements are very important to this specific lighting. I used these post-processing techniques to help send through the idea that Camilla was, in a sense, taking off her mask. I wanted to portray that the shadowed part of her face represented her insecurities while the lighter section represented what she showcased to the world.  Therefore, her pulling back her hair from her face helps add to the feeling that she is ready to unveil her "darkness".

Illumination. 24/4/2019. Nikon D3400.

I captured this portrait of my friend, Sille after school. I wanted to test out the lighting technique of rim lighting to exemplify Sille's love for being the center of attention. I wanted to contrast this attention-seeking persona with a serious expression to acknowledge her many layers. Furthermore, I asked her to wear fashionable clothes to display her passion for fashion and to once again, contrast her serious expression with what she shows to the world. Going back to the lighting, I achieved the rim lighting by placing a strong tunnel-like light behind Sille directed at her head. I played around with the distance of this light from Sille to see how the size of the light on Sille's hair changed. In addition, I placed a box light in front of her to light her face up. I will explain the post processing techniques below.

This picture shows the editing techniques that I used for this image. The arrows each represent an editing technique and point to where I used these techniques the most. First, I edited the blemishes on Sille's face. I did this by zooming into Sille's face and using the healing tool in Photoshop to erase all of the blemishes that I noticed. After that, I edited the the hair sticking out of place. If you scroll up to the original image, you can see that the rim lighting really emphasises Sille's baby hair and reveals that there actually is a lot of it. Therefore, this process was painstaking as I, once again, used the healing tool to select each of the strands of baby hair. Finally, I edited Sille's eyes. I did so by using the sponge tool to saturate the blueness of her eyes and the doge tool to brighten them. However, I wasn't satisfied with the colour of her eyes. So, using the select and mask tool, I selected both of her eyes and refined the edges of them. Next, I dived into the hue and saturation tool to increase the blueness of her eyes.

Environmental Portraits:

Focus. 30/4/2019. D3400

This is a portrait of my sister, Samara, and was taken at Holland Village. I decided to take this photo from the front to make it seem like the viewer was sitting opposite Samara and having a conversation with her. I wanted to give the tone that Samara was bored of being with the viewer and was thinking about other things in her mind. I wanted to do so to represent how Samara loves adventure and how she, therefore, gets bored very easily when sitting in one place with no distraction. To edit this photo, I used the isolating colour tool in Photoshop to separate Samara from the background because the background was very noisy in both shape and colour. Next, I used a red overlay to smooth out her wavy hair as the selection tool made it very bumpy. After that, I used the healing tool to clear out any blemishes, mostly in the forehead region, that I saw.

Galloping. 28/4/2019. D3400

I captured this photo at the horse stable at the Polo Club just before Samara had her riding lesson. I played around with different angles of her and the horse before settling on this photo. I especially like this photo because I think that it captures Samara's relationship with the horse well, as the expression on Samara's face is loving. In addition, I wanted to give Samara and the horse around the same amount of attention in the photo to demonstrate how Samara regards herself and the horse as equals rather than seeing herself as superior to the horse. In addition, I feel like the warm tones in the image bring out the feeling of comfort and joy. To edit this photo, I mainly used the spot healing tool to remove blemishes from both Samara and the horse, as there were some pieces of dirt on the horse. In addition, I used the sponge tool and dodge tool to adjust the saturation and brightness of Samara's and the horse's eyes.

Final Print Documents:
Below are two documents with my final portraits. These documents reveal how my photos would look if they were printed.

Studio Portrait:

Environmental Portrait:

Personal Reflection:
Overall, I really enjoyed this project and discovered that I thoroughly enjoy taking portraits. However, I did face some difficulties during this project. For instance, in the beginning, understanding how to set up the lights in the studio and connect them to the camera was quite challenging. Specifically, it was difficult to take a photo that used split lighting as there was often too much contrast or my model's face wasn't perfectly divided in half. Through trial and error though, I was able to finally achieve this lighting. As I used the lighting more often, I got more comfortable with it until it was no longer challenging for me to adjust the lighting. A second difficulty that I faced was taking unique environmental portraits as I didn't have too many ideas that I was passionate about. What I didn't capture in real life though, I made up in editing. This is especially the case with the first environmental portrait above as I tried to make the photo more interesting by adding in a black and white element to it. This brings me to my final difficulty which was isolating Samara from the background in this environmental portrait. This proved to be hard because her hair is so wavy and frizzy, but after spending some time on it, I managed to achieve the look that I wanted.

During this project, for the first time I learnt how to take studio portraits, leading me to discover how much I enjoy taking them. In addition, I learnt valuable skills on how to take portraits in the studio. I also learnt a wide array of editing techniques for portraits like whitening teeth, removing blemishes, reducing baby hair, and adjusting the eye colour, which will also be useful in the future. Regarding my action plan, I mostly followed it for my studio portraits, although my idea of taking close-up make up shots didn't work very well. As for my environmental portraits, I followed my action plan quite well but didn't end up using as many props as I wanted to nor did I take as many photos as I had thought I would.

All in all, this project helped me enhance both my photography skills and Photoshop skills, both of which will help me as I carry on taking photographs in the future. 

Macro Workshop

For this project, we experimented with using a macro lens by taking photos of small objects. An expert came into class and explained to us the best aperture for the lens, why a tripod was necessary, and showed us some examples of macro photos he had taken. To take the photos, with a partner, we found different coloured sheets of papers to use as backgrounds and chose various small trinkets that we thought would be interesting to capture. In addition,  we experimented with the height of the tripod and angle of the photo. Below are my top 6 photos. 

Final Images:
Final image #1

Final image #2

Final image #3

Final image #4

Final image #5

Final image #6

Peer Feedback:
Student Name: Camila

Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I think that image #1 is a good exemplar because you can see the macro effect on the photo and all of the details in the photo are very clear. The contrast between the colours and size of the objects also make the photo look very aesthetic.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
I think that image #3 could be improved because if it were to be a bit more cropped on the right side, the viewer's attention would be more focused on the object on that side(horse shoe), and more focus would go towards the middle of the photo. This would help the viewer better see the macro effect. 

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
I think that image # 6 misses that target as it doesn't look zoomed in and could be a lot more focused, therefore it doesn't look bigger than life. My advice would be taking a few more photos of it and do a stacking process.

Student Name: Giorgia
Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I really like the second image because I think it is set up in a really fun, creative way and I just love the way it looks and how in focus everything is in the image.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
I think the 3rd image could be improved by maybe focusing on one of the few subjects out of the few in the photo.

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
I think that none miss the target but I think that the 3rd image could be improved to hit the target a little bit more.

Student Name: Sasha
Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I like image two because it is a clear representation of macro photography and I can also see the compositional device balance portrayed in the image.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
Image three can be improved because it's a little bit cramped and fills up the entire picture frame.

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
Image six misses the target because there is no blur and I don't see the macrophotography intention in this image.

Final Reflection:
Once you have finished giving feedback to your peer group, read through the feedback you received. Reflect upon this workshop by answering the following questions:

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most challenging or difficult? Explain why.
Even though to take stacking photos all I had to do was shift the dial, I think that taking these photos  was quite challenging as I wasn't sure how far I should turn the dial and if I was capturing the images correctly. In addition, after taking a few photos, I soon discovered that it was a bit difficult to come up with unique, creative scenarios with the trinkets to capture. 

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most enjoyable or fulfilling? Explain why.
Although, it got a bit hard to think creatively, I found that arranging the small objects in designs that I liked was really fun. I loved choosing which objects to emphasise and deciding how they played a part in telling a story. It was also fun shooting from different angles and seeing the effect of using different coloured papers as backgrounds.

Of your 6 best images above, which one do you like the most? Explain what you like about this particular image. Did your group agree with your choice? And if you go back and take this image over again how would you change it or improve it?
I liked image 5 the best because I loved arranging the letters in different positions and adding the gold star fish as accents. I also like the angle that the photo was shot at and the shadows of the letter blocks. Lastly, I like the mellow, grey blue tone to it as it feels simplistic and calm. My group didn't agree with this choice but I see why they chose the photos that they did as their favourites. If I went back and took this photo again, I would shoot it at a lower angle so that the viewer looks straight at the letters. I would also focus on the front letter (L) some more as it is slightly out of focus, and would move the starfish at the very back a little in front since it's mostly hidden.