Megan Bentzin's Senior Project

Day Fourteen May 20th, 2011

I can’t believe that our senior projects are already over and that we’ll be graduating next weekend! Today I took a few photos at the lower school field day, but other than that I used my time today to edit on photoshop and start organizing my presentation. Looking back there are several things I wish I could’ve gotten to capture: more people, the Gazelles, people howling at Barton Springs, the homeless at Trinity Center, and a few others. Today I also tried to go to the studio of Faith Gay and photograph her at work creating art, but sadly this did not develop. This weekend I plan to create one more gallery on the blog of just people and then work on my presentation! Here’s an example of the contrast of before and after using photoshop:

Before:  After: 

Day Thirteen May 19th, 2011

I think of all the days of this project this was the worst by far. I literally spent from 7:30 this morning to 5:30 this evening trying to create photobooks and in time for my presentation. Unfortunately, I don’t have a mac so I couldn’t use iphoto and had to use the strenuous and gruesome Kodax photobook maker. I first began by picking out forty or so pictures that I think are the highlights of this project and then I worked on creating a template for a small softcover book after I was nearly half-way done the internet crashed and I lost all my work. I started again and after two hours created a nice layout. Next, I added captions to the images where it seemed fit and then I used photoshop on every image to adjust the brightness, contrast, and crop them. After uploading these images and replacing the original images with them I finally finished. My next mistake was deciding to make a medium hardcover photobook. Kodax does not let you buy multiples of the same books with different types of covers, so I had to create an entirely new book from scratch, so that I could order both the small and medium together. It was a truly exhausting and long day, but hopefully the order ships on time and I’ll be able to use these in my presentation!

Day Twelve May 18th, 2011

Two more days of photography, editing, photoshopping, and blogging before I have to create my final piece. Tonight I’ve been working on using photoshop and creating a new gallery strictly of Austin Art. I wish I had the chance to take some pictures of Austin artists actually doing art! Maybe I’ll email Mr. McCoy about that, since that would definitely show one side of Austin. I only went out took pictures at one location today and that was Nau’s Pharmacy off of West Lynn. I don’t know if I’ll even both putting it up, since there are no people in it. The most frustrating thing is timing things to capture people in their prime moments. I went to Nau’s at 4pm and not a soul was there. I might try again tomorrow during lunch time, but it’s just so frustrating, because it makes the whole trip feel like a waste of time. So far I’ve been picking out images to put in the photobook and deleting bad photos. I have so many different folders for these photographs, since I’m so OCD about organizing! I feel like I still have so much I want to do and not enough time to do it all in!

Day Eleven May 17th, 2011

Today I went to a number of places, but unfortunately took more pictures of things than of people. It’s hard to capture Austin people doing Austin things, since most people have to do things like work, pick up kids from school, etc. I keep checking the Austin Chronicle weekly to find events where I can take pictures of people in action. I’m really excited to go to Barton Springs at 9pm Thursday to take pictures of the monthly howling at the moon, which occurs on the full moon of every month. Hopefully I’ve learned enough about changing the lighting settings to actually be able to capture the images professionally. Today I visited Polka-dot Cupcakes on Rio Grande, Austin Art Garage, Toy Joy, Berry Austin and The Bazzar (didn’t take any pictures there). In addition in the late evening I was able to capture neat angles of downtown from the tenth floor of the Austonian. I was really happy with the way I was able to capture the colors of twilight, as well as not having the lights of the buildings all run together like the shots of Chronolung did. I fell like I’m finally getting the hang of what type of settings to use in what scenario. All the pictures will be up soon! I also have to start working on my presentation and choosing the fifteen images I’m going to have printed. 

Day Ten May 16th, 2011

Today I spent the entire morning typing up all these journal entries and putting them on the blog, since I got behind while I did not have a computer. The photos are uploading nicely, although it’s so time consuming. I’d like to be able to create different galleries to organize the photos, but I’ll have to figure out the most logical way of doing that. I also spent a chunk of this afternoon on Lake Austin on my boat taking pictures of the boating side of Austin. I included shots of people (friends) having a good time in the water and also worked on using the Tv setting to control how much light is allowed in for each shot. Here are the different types of light filtration I was comparing when taking pictures of the Hula Hut Dock.         This was especially useful when I was trying to capture people’s faces while they were turned into the sun. I also found that I could let less light in when taking pictures of light reflected on water, so that I could still capture the shapes and details of things like docks. Today was an overall productive day, although I did a lot less taking pictures of cool things than of doing work on technology and learning tips. I’m still hoping to work with a professional photographer some time this week, but don’t know if that will actually work out!

Day Nine May 13th, 2011

Oh no! It’s Friday the 13th! Luckily nothing bad happened to me. I took a side step away from my actual portfolio work today to work on some portraiture of other SAS seniors. I started this morning at SAS lower and middle school taking pictures of Scott Dollen, Hallie Davies, Sam Leonard, and Kendall Sealy all at work on their Senior Projects. Afterwards I visited Lauren Rishel at the gym she’s interning at and then went to Colin Feo’s house to see his masterpiece painting. I will probably post the pictures of Colin in the gallery with the pictures from the Jones Arthouse, since they both demonstrate the work of Austin artists and are really neat shots in general that deserve a special location. I will be sure to get the photos of both up soon!

Day Eight May 12th, 2011

No photography work yesterday, since I took two awful APs back to back. I spent the entire afternoon photographing from 5pm-11pm. First I went to Casa de Luz near Barton Springs and took pictures that show the variability of the Austin community. Casa de Luz is a very new-age, organic, vegan place and at 5 the light coming in the windows was just perfect for capturing families from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities. Food is such an integral part of American culture that I’m finding a lot of my pictures involve people buying, selling, or consuming food products. Afterwards I went to the Arthouse at the Jones Center and went to the party for the 2011 Five x Seven Gallery. This has been my favorite thing to photograph so far. It was such a dazzling contrast to have artists and art appreciators mixed together in formal ware with the exuberant art surrounding them. I think this event was one of the most Austin things I’ve been able to capture so far. I may make a separate gallery of just this event that shows ALL the many pictures I took.

Day Seven May 10th, 2011

While studying for my Stats and English Lit APs I took time to focus on some more typically Austin venues. Today I visited Waterloo Records, Amy’s Ice Cream, and Book People. I was surprised that Waterloo Records was fine with me taking pictures there. I had an interesting time at Amy’s taking over 150 pictures and trying to capture the ice cream mid-air. I also was able to interview the Amy’s guy. He and I spent about an hour eating ice cream and talking about photography. He’s an amateur photography and gave me tips on how to use my camera in manual mode and to change the amount of light exposure. I wish I’d known these tips when I was taking pictures at Chronolung! I spent a good part of this afternoon sorting pictures into folders on my computer. Not much more to say about that. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to start doing some photoshop work and putting the edited photos up in a new gallery. Personally I think my photography skills have improved since I began, as seen by the photos from the first few days to the ones I’ve taken today.

Day Six May 9th, 2011

Today I worked on fixing all the duplicate pictures that ended up in the photo gallery and re-tagging there locations. In case you didn’t notice when you click on a picture the location of the shot is in the bottom left hand corner in small print. The most time consuming part of this project, aside from getting the photos to upload, (which often takes three tries to complete and can take up to an hour) is sorting through all the pictures I’ve taken. So far to this day I’ve taken about 800 pictures, but have gone through endlessly deleting bad pictures and sorting through all the duplicates of images. It’s hard because I want to try several different angles and lighting, but that just means I have to spend that much more time later sorting through the images. At 10pm this evening I went to the Red Seven and watched the band Chronolung. I learned a lot about the difficulty of capturing a lighted stage with moving musicians, while I’m standing in the dark audience. After taking hundreds of shots I finally got a few that turned out nicely. Thanks to Roberto and Lena who accompanied me to the semi-Communist venue, where we were quite out of place. The pictures from that night should be up soon!

Day Five May 7th, 2011

I didn’t do any work yesterday, since I knew that there were so many more Austiny things going on today. I began by doing a shoot at the Chuy’s 5k early this morning and there are a few nice pictures of runners in the gallery. I really enjoy the contrasts between the runners, the Elvis man, and the Mariachi band. Especially in image number 38 with the woman dressed as a Hula dancer. Later in the afternoon I spent several hours at Pioneer Farms during there Austin Family Music Festival. I captured a lot of great shots that shows three big parts of Austin: community/family, music, and Texas pride. This is my favorite image of the day that pretty much sums it up: Visiting pioneer farms was like a trip down memory lane, since I spent the first ten summers of my life there picking cotton, milking cows, and being a pioneer. Finally, in the evening  I went to the Pecan Street Festival and took a plethora of different kinds of shots. I definitely need to work on learning about the different types of camera settings. Now that I finally am my new computer I’ll be able to upload the most recent images!

Day Four May 5th, 2011

Took the English AP today and so didn’t do any photography! One thing I did notice is that one of the pictures from the Junk Cathedral reminds me a little bit  of Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights! Check it out!

Okay, maybe not totally, but a little bit!

Day Three May 4th, 2011

Today was probably the most busy and eventful day I’ve had so far. I took over two hundred pictures alone today starting at Town Lake, going through Hyde Park, and at the Grove. I spent about two hours walking around town lake and watching people, animals, and athletes. I even got to shoot the Blue Lapis Light Performers practicing beside town lake! I also explored Antonelli’s Cheese Shop on 4220 Duval Street and met the friendly and photogenic Shawn. I asked him why he decided to work in a cheese shop and he said because he lived in France for a year and he wished he was still living there. He even let me taste some delicious cheeses! I finally uploaded a few of my first pictures (unedited) and you can check those out here.

Day Two May 3rd, 2011

Today I only got to do a little bit of actually taking pictures and was more focused on downloading Photoshop, doing research about photography, and creating a list of places I want to explore with my camera that are typically Austin. These include: Casa de Luz, Town Lake, Sweet Leaf Tea Factory, So Co, Salsa Classes at the Oasis, 6th Street at Night, Ballet Austin, Waterloo Records, Hamilton Pool, Barton Springs, Zilker Park, Cinco de Mayo festivities tomorrow, Pecan Street Festival, Laguna Gloria, Free Comic Book Day, Lake Austin, cites of other senior’s senior projects, the Drag, the Broken Spoke, the Salt Lick, Wildflower Center, Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Clarkesville, Moore/Anderson Compound, Main Tower, Harry Ransom Center, Elisebet Nay Museum, Hippie Hollow, Hyde Park, East Austin, Westcave Preserve, the Undie Run (Friday), Chuys Hot to Trot 5k (Saturday), and tons of others. The locations I did visit were the Velloway (and I brought my bike!), the 26 Doors Shopping Center, and the Food Trailers on S. 1st all of which I took photos at. I definitely realize I’m gonna need to learn some more about photography!

Day One May 2nd, 2011

Hooray for first day of senior projects! Today I started off by creating this website by taking down my old website and learning all the tricks of the trade for Word Press. It’s much more difficult and time consuming than I expected but once I spruce it up it should work lovely. I went to Walmart and got a new memory card and took inventory of my equipment: 1 Canon Rebel XI Camera, 2 Lenses (standard, and larger), 2 memory cards, 1 battery charger, and 2 batteries. I think I’ll be pretty well to document the town! Places I explored today: Rutamaya Coffee and the “Cathedral of Junk.” I didn’t get to interview the junk artist as I’d hopped, but I did get some awesome shots of sculptures in scuba masks and piles of junk that reminded my of the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. Hopefully I’ll be able to edit, photoshop and upload the pictures by tomorrow!