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Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Ursula Woody

May 092015

“Papa and Papa Veen” photo copyright Ursula Woody

“Papa and Papa Veen”
I love to create memories, passion, imaginations, horror, and fantasy in my portraits. What inspired me to create this photograph is because family means a lot to me. This photograph I took is my father and his first grandson, a couple of days after he was born. There are a lot of meaningful thoughts behind this image that I admire dearly. My family and I were in sadness last year on January 15^th. My brother and his girlfriend lost their first born that day. My parents had already planned a surprise baby shower, but never knew this would happen. I was in school when I heard my brother weeping on the phone. I felt heaviness in my heart. None of us knew weather the baby was a boy or girl. We wanted to be surprised. Now, we don’t want to ever know. This photograph gave me hope again, because a year later my brother became a father. My parents became grandparents. My little sister and I became aunties. I go home every weekend or every other weekend to visit, a six-hour drive doesn’t bother me. I am happy to see family smile and be together.

The visual message I like to share about this photograph is to ‘cherish every single moment that approaches.’

I used Photoshop mostly to create a dim saturation on the photograph because I wanted the effect of how this photograph draws you in a lot. I also lightened and darkened some areas. Cleaned up a few places on the photograph that looked distracting and added a sample of what my logo business might be.

I used my Canon Rebel XS and my lens is a 35mm. ISO is set to 400, Shutter speed is 250, aperture is at a 4.0, and my flash modifier is attached on top of my camera. I just had my camera and flash modifier to create this photograph. No poses were ideal. I took many different photo angles of poses that I visualized to be memorized. Most photographs came out the way I expected them too.

About the Photographer:
My name is Ursula Woody from Farmington, New Mexico. I am a transfer student at Northern Arizona University. Major is in Photography and my minor is in Japanese. To work with media equipment plays a high significant role for my background. I have worked with film, digital, and video cameras for years now. The subjects I find passion in is the genres of imagination, fantasy, horror, drama, suspense, artistic, and creative. Why? I love to be creative on how individuals build their own world to stay in. Techniques I use come from music, movies, stories, and history tales. Because once I visualize and create my art, I immediately write down and make a list of what I need. My work comes from my mind, which often wonders off into wonderland. My goal as an artist is to show what I do for my work and be recognized by them. Who and what inspired me is a mad man known as Tim Burton. Burton’s art is very odd and detailed. Tim Burton is my inspiration.

To read more about the Northern Arizona University “Behind the Image: Guest Blogger” project on our blog, please read the introduction at http://youcansleepwhenyouredead.com/wordpress/3rd-annual-northern-arizona-university-behind-the-image-guest-blogger-project/. Please take a minute to leave your insights and constructive comments in the Comment section below – the student would love to hear from you!

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Hannah Petersen

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May 082015

“An Unforgettable Memory” photo copyright Hannah Petersen

“An Unforgettable Memory”
Above is an image that barely showcases the expansive view from the 10,418-foot summit of Mt. Kendrick, one of the highest lookouts in Flagstaff, and an unforgettable hike. For as long as I can remember I have always had an insatiable desire to take on the most physically and mentally taxing challenges and this hike had been no exception. A 9.2-mile round trip hike had nearly ended my hiking career for quite a few months and I would do it all again because not a thing can compare to the view of the world at the top of a mountain.

As I stood at the top of Mt. Kendrick, beaten by hail, drenched by rain and sweat I couldn’t resist taking out my Olympus PEN Mini EMP-2 with a 14mm lens and capturing the view before me. At the time I honestly had no idea what my camera was set at, I just knew I had to capture what drives me to be a photographer. Nature has and always will inspire and rejuvenate me.

To capture the view I specifically knew I wanted to take a panorama, which meant setting up the three and a half pound tripod I carried 4.6 miles. On top of that, the day couldn’t be more perfect, even though it had hailed and rained, it allowed for the perfect cloud cover, I couldn’t of been more pleased. However, the single complaint I did have was that I was too short to get the camera over the tops of the trees. I had always wanted to get that perfect panorama to make up for my past mistakes such as getting to the top of Mt. Humphrey’s without the adequate equipment to take the necessary picture that would capture all that was before me.

The time than arrived to get back down the mountain and it did not bode well for me. On the way down I took a miss step and ended up falling onto my left knee tearing it apart enough to get myself put into the ER and receive three stitches. The absolute worst time of my life, because if I have not mentioned, I hate needles with an insatiable passion and am not afraid to admit that I will start crying like a baby. Worst part of it all though, I still had to hike down over four miles of a mountain with a gruesome hole in my knee and I have to admit, I was more concerned about my camera and making it back down again than the repercussions my fall would have.

Injured and bedridden for the next few days, I had ample time to edit and work on getting the panorama put together. In post processing I learned that I took the images with F/3.5, a shutter speed of 1/3200 of a second and an ISO of 200. The F/3.5 allowed me to capture the wide variation of light that I quickly amplified and boosted up the contrast. One can see that I have a love for contrast and even though this image may not be the best, it has “An Unforgettable Memory” to go with it.

About the Photographer:
My name is Hannah Petersen and I cannot nor will I ever deny that I am not an avid hiker and I utilize photography to capture the wondrous things I see. It can be anything from a plant, an enchanting view, a random building and the occasional individual, if they spark my interest. I strive to capture what my eye sees; the lens of my world and my world has vivid colors, striking contrast, and a passion for the little details.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Morgan Louvier

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May 082015

Photo copyright Morgan Louvier

This picture just showed up in front of me. The two performers were simply standing there, and I saw the image in my mind through a lens. I wanted to show behind the scenes of a real circus. Rarely are they the classic big top nowadays, with the smiles and chaos. Contemporary circuses are much more influenced by modernity, hence the background of graffiti in this photo. I told the subjects not to move, not to change anything. Their facial expressions show a different side of the circus, even with the face paint. I changed the color balance to really make the colors stand out and pop, because I wanted the contrast between the graffiti and the subjects’ mostly black clothing. While you cannot tell what the subjects are thinking, I feel like the photo conveys a neutral mood, which contrasts with the subjects. We expect circus performers to be all smiles with lots of movement, but the subjects here are leaning against an old, graffitied wall. They look tired. One is looking off into the distance, thinking, while the other one seems to look straight at the viewers, as if daring us to do whatever it is he just performed. This photo is a little confrontational, because of the subjects; it shows reality, yet challenges our perception of circus performers.

I shot this photo with a Canon Rebel T3i, with a 15-35 mm lens. The ISO was set at 100, with an aperture of f5, and a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second. The focal length was 18 mm. The only editing I did in post was a tighter crop. I am very pleased with the way this turned out without editing it. I’m not a big fan of editing, I feel like editing makes it easy for people who aren’t very good at taking pictures to create a good image, and I also feel like it distorts the truth. I still edit, but sparingly.

About the Photographer:
My name is Morgan Louvier, and I’ve been taking pictures since I was young. My dad would take pictures of everything he saw, and that inspired me to take pictures of my own. When I got my first DSLR, I wanted to improve the quality of my photos, and taught myself the basics of manual shooting. I have fallen in love with photojournalism; my favorite subjects are people doing what they love. The more action, the more fun the scene is to shoot. I also love nature, and the outdoors, and want to show others the beauty and fun of getting outside. I have recently begun shooting rock climbers, and really enjoy being suspended up in the air while taking pictures. It’s just as much of an adventure as climbing the rocks. I’d love to travel taking pictures of mountaineers and climbers; being a climber myself, I have a huge respect for them.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Nikki Harcey

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May 072015

“Fragmented” photo copyright Nikki Harcey

“Fragmented”
I took this image for a class assignment with the topic of reflection. I knew I did not want to take a simple photo of an object reflected in a mirror; I wanted something a bit more interesting with a meaning. I had a lot of fun working on this project, from selecting a mirror in the store, to bringing it home, smashing it and hoping I would like the pattern left behind by the cracks, to actually taking the photograph.

When I first started shooting for this assignment, I was not aware of the level of difficulty behind shooting through a mirror. Problems I ran into right away were getting the right angle without putting myself in frame and focusing perfectly in the right areas. After about 10 minutes of shooting, I came to the conclusion that my original vision of shooting the model in focus would not work at this moment in time. I then gathered my thoughts and tried something different, focusing on the cracks. And to my surprise, I liked the looks of those images much more than the ones before.

One of my favorite things about this photograph is that I know what it means to me but the interpretation of it can change from each individual who views it. To me this image represents the different aspects of a personality. A person may act differently when in the presence of specific company or when told to act a certain way by society. I intended the focus to be on the cracks of the mirror rather than the person to add another layer of meaning along with creating visual interest. When we first look at someone, we see them as a whole, not their various experiences and quirks that make them who they are. The mirror itself represents that first glance, and the cracks represent the fragments that make up the individual.

I used a Canon 60D with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. With my focal length at 50mm and shutter speed at 1/125, I kept the aperture fairly wide at f/4.5 to allow for the correct amount of blur I was going for behind the cracks. I set the ISO to 500 to finish setting up the proper exposure. When I was post-processing, I upped the clarity to sharpen the cracks a bit more. I also brought the image into Photoshop and used the spot healing brush to clean up any distracting cracks or pieces of dust.

About the Photographer:
My name is Nikki Harcey. I am currently a sophomore at Northern Arizona University studying visual communications and photography. Art has always been an interest of mine and after many years of drawing and painting, I was craving a new form of art to bring into my life. I took my first photography class my freshman year of high school and knew instantly that I had found what I was craving. Over the course of these past six years, I have participated in contests, photographed a wedding, special events, and senior portraits. Through these experiences, I have found that I am extremely passionate about portrait photography. I love the possibility of the stories that be told through human expressions.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Emma Benanati

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May 072015

Photo copyright Emma Benanati

Landscape and natural patterns have always been my subjects of choice and passion with photography. However, my goal this semester was to learn new photo techniques and to see the value and beauty in different subjects. The goal of this photo was to paint or show movement with light. I love cycling so I chose my bicycle as the subject and hoped I could get it to somehow show movement while also staying close to my camera and in focus. It looks like patterns (although not quite natural) have prevailed again in this photo, but I do like the repeating cycle effect… kind of like a bicycle spinning down the road. If you squint your eyes while looking at the white lights in the photo, it almost looks like a person leaning forward and riding the bicycle.

This image was taken in my garage at night in order to give a dark background against the bicycle. I wrapped colored holiday lights around my wheels and white lights around the frame and handle bars. I tried moving the bike in various directions and patterns on different shutter speeds. Mostly everything turned out to be a colorful blur and I didn’t like the result. Then I tried different types of circles and the “painting with light” looked much better. Here is the final set up for my photo: The bike was positioned upright against my car in the garage. Setting my camera timer on 10 seconds gave me enough time to press the button and run over to my bike, pick it up, and begin moving it around in smooth circles. The shutter speed was set for 5 seconds so I made sure to keep the bike moving the entire time. ISO was 100 and aperture was 14 at a focal length of 22 mm. No filters or flash were used.

Even though it was completely dark in the garage, the holiday lights were bright enough to illuminate my face and car wheels. I wanted a completely black background so I cloned those out using the lasso tool and capturing pieces of the surrounding dark background to fill in my face and wheels. These were the only adjustments needed.

About the Photographer:
My name is Emma Benenati and I’m a biologist with Northern Arizona University. My graduate degrees are in geology and biology and I love combining both in photos and film. I’ve spent most of my life in science and “snapping photos” so I really enjoy these opportunities to work with my artistic side to take the time to “create” photos and improve my photography techniques. I seem to continually gravitate toward natural patterns and details, usually on a larger scale. However, I just attended a very enlightening macro photo workshop with Arizona Highways (Colleen Miniuk-Sperry and Paul Gill), and now I’ll experiment with macro and see what subjects attract me next.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Ashlee Outsen

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May 062015

Photo copyright Ashlee Outsen

I enjoy walking around the beautiful city of Flagstaff that I live in. I love the beauty of nature and everything that it inspires. I find that I can really disconnect from the world and relax from everything that life holds. This image was a spur of the moment decision. I was actually taking a picture of my fiancée, and saw the way the sun set through the weeds. I choose to snap this photograph and capture this ethereal feel that the sunset was creating.

I have an old Nikon D3100 and the lens that I have on my camera is originally from a film Nikon. It’s so old it doesn’t even have auto focus. But, this lens allows me to appreciate the work that goes into photography and it also helps me to take the perfect image, because I will stop and think through the photograph and take the needed time in order to create an image like this one. It’s just a standard 18-55mm lens. In order to account for the large amount of sun that was coming through the lens, I had a small aperture of around F 5.6 and a fairly quick shutter speed of 1/140. My ISO was set at 100.

For post processing, I always bump up the clarity. I love crisp image where you can practically jump into the photograph! I also like black and white image more than color. It is partially because of my personality. I like things in life black and white, yes or no. But, this image was so warm that I decided that it needed to have slight color brought into it. It’s just warm enough so you can get that feel of sun after winter. It’s as if it almost rejuvenates your soul. That’s the effect that I wanted this image to have. I wanted you to be able to look at it and just image how warm the sun felt on this day. I want you to be able to get lost in this image and forget about the world for just a second. Think about all of the wonderful things that have happened in your life instead of the bad.

That’s what I like my images to do. To allow the viewer to stop and catch their breath from the mundane day to day life and drift off into a fairytale and enjoy that moment, if just for a minute.

About the Photographer:
Hi! My name is Ashlee Outsen and I am a student at Northern Arizona University. I am majoring in Graphic design and minoring in photography. I have always been interested in the aspect of telling a story without using words. It gives people the opportunity to experience the photograph on their own rather then the entire story literally being spelled out before them. Photography has been a hobby for about 7 years now. That being said, I focus on landscape because it makes my heart happy.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Taylor Tracy

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May 062015

Photo copyright Taylor Tracy

My inspiration for this photo was a two photo series that showed how men and women view themselves. The photos had a fit women looking in the mirror, seeing herself as fat, and a skinny boy seeing himself as muscular. While one was sad, the other funny, it made me think of how people see themselves can be more than just physical. Mirrors can also hold memories of the past, feelings or even what you hope the future will hold.

With that in mind I took this photo. I wanted to show the mirror showing the past or missed emotions. I wanted the person in pan or upset about something he had lost, her. I wanted to show an image of the aftermath of losing someone you love. I didn’t show how she was lost, if it was a breakup or something more dark like death. I feel it’s an emotion everyone can relate to. Everyone has loved and lost, without that love they feel ‘gray.’ This is why I put the current world of his in black and white. Usually black and white signifies the past, but in this photo I’m using color, or lack there of, as a symbol of happiness, life, and feeling. To portray that with her was when he felt alive ad happy, without her he is lifeless and sad. With this picture I want people to feel his pain and sadness and then look in the mirror to see happiness, love and joy. So maybe they will understand the phrase “it’s better to have loved and lost rather than to not have loved at all.”

For this photo I used my Canon 70D camera, set up on a tripod with a wide-angle lens. ISO 250, f14 and 1.5 sec shutter. I needed the wide angle lens because where I was shooting was in a very small apartment with only the doorway to look through onto the mirror. To take the photo I had my model stand in front of the camera in different poses till I found one that conveyed the feeling I wanted. I then set the camera to go off with a trigger. I manually focused on the mirror so that it wouldn’t change focus with the trigger. I then went into the photo to position the two in the mirror so their reflection was in the shot but they were not. In post editing I went into Photoshop for the black and white portion of the photo. I selected everything of the photo other than the reflected part of the mirror. Once selected I copied that portion and pasted it right back onto the same photo, creating a layer on top of the background. I then copied the whole photo of the ‘happy’ scene and pasted it onto the ‘sad’ photo with two layers. Making that photo have another layer I move it between the two ‘sad’ layers. Then it was simple to size the photo perfectly into the mirror to be the reflection. With the use of the tripod the mirror photo easily fits into the layers with little editing. Making the top layer black and white perfectly fit the emotion I want for this photo. With just having the top layer selected it was simple to copy and paste it onto other ‘happy’ scenes to make the editing simple and fast to choose the appropriate photo, Which is how I created this photo showing the happiness love can have as well as the pain it can, and usually does, leave behind.

About the Photographer:
I am Taylor Ann Tracy. Photography was a small hobby that came to me when I started college. I had a friend that it was his goal to become a photographer. My friend passed away from cancer and I have tried to continue his dream for him. I volunteer at an animal shelter to take photos of the animals they have up for adoption. I’m a natural photographer. I use the world around me as it is to make good photos, I don’t do a lot of setting up or trying to make things look like they’re not. I try to capture the world as it is, beautiful.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Cory Walters

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May 052015

Photo copyright Cory Walters

With this image, my attempt was to capture the love that this couple shares. It was easy to tell how in love they were just by being around them, and I wanted to capture that. They made my job very easy, they didn’t have to act as if they loved each other and wanted to be there, because they truly did. They loved getting to stand in the garden, holding one another close, and capturing their love in one moment. I really wanted some sort of sun flare to be in the photo, just not on the subject themselves distracting the viewer. It was the perfect time of the day, and with all the flowers in the foreground and the house off to the right, it made for a beautiful setting.

For this image I was using a Canon 5D Mark III at this location. It was about 6:15 in the evening, with the sun quickly going down. I put the while balance on shade to give some warmth and colors to the things surrounding the couple. For this photo, I was using a 16-35 2.8 Canon lens with a shutter speed at around 1/320^th of a second with a very big aperture around 3.5 with an ISO of 160.

My editing technique did not consist of much post processing work. Whenever shooting, I always try to capture the image I want in camera, so I don’t have to edit the photo all that much. Once thing I always do is add some clarity and sharpness to my photos, to make them as clear as possible. I always add a little saturation and vibrancy to the picture as well, trying to bring out some of the natural colors. One of the last things I do is add just a hint of a vignette to the photo, making the viewer’s eye go directly to the subject.

I wanted the subject to love the photo, and think of their special day every time they see it. Even for a minute, to take them back to their fairytale-like day and to push everything aside.

About the Photographer:
My name is Cory Walters and I attend Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. I am very involved in the university’s photography department and currently a photographer for the schools newspaper. My love for photography has grown at an incredible rate in the past two years. I have such a passion for the art and have fallen in love with capturing the special moments. My favorite genres of photography include extreme sports such as motocross, outdoor portraits, and landscapes. Even though these three genres are completely different in approach, each can still tell a story with no words.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – Parker Munsch

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May 052015

Photo copyright Parker Munsch

For this image, I wanted to get the red cliffs in Sedona, AZ. So I drove down to Sedona on a Sunday and took some pictures of them and other parts of the scenery. The photo shown is one of the other scenery photos taken. For this photo, I walked to the top of a parking garage just off of the main road in Sedona, and I just started taking pictures of all the scenery I could get. I thought this image ended up being the best picture I got because it had the best ratio of the mountains and the bottom parts of shrubs and trees. I really like nature so the great scenery of Sedona inspired me to do this photo. I do not think I was trying to say anything with this photo; I just really liked the scenery and wanted to take a picture to remember the beautiful view I had at the top of the parking garage. In terms of thought process for this image I ended up using the height of the parking garage as a good vantage point so it could almost look like it was the edge of the valley, which it sort of is there. For this image I had no filter on the end of the lens. I was using my Nikon D5200 camera, with an 18-200 millimeter 3.5-5.6, which was just zoomed in to 38 millimeters. When shooting the image my aperture was at f/14 my ISO was at 250 and the shutter went off at 1/100. It was a bright day so I wanted the ISO to be lower so I would not get any noise. I had my f-stop so high so I could get the full focal range I needed for the image. It was not until days after taking the photo that I decided to put it into black and white. At first the sky was a little bit duller than I would like it to be, however I liked the tones everywhere else. So after toying with the saturation and the vibrancy, in adobe Lightroom I ended up putting the sliders all the way down to the left so it became black and white. I cropped in the image a little bit from the right, because there was a distracting part on the end that took away from the image so I cropped it in and that is my final product.

About the Photographer:
My name is Parker Munsch. I am a photography and criminal justice major at Northern Arizona University. I have been legitimately taking pictures for a year and a half now, but before that I was interested in the backgrounds of the images, like how it was shot and what editing went into the image. I prefer landscape photography, because I love the outdoors and like taking photos when I am in a cool new place. I really do not like to do much in post usually I just play with the tones and saturation. I try to do pictures that I like and the outdoors is an area that is very inspirational to me.

Behind the Image: NAU Guest Blogger – McKenzie McLoughlin

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May 042015

Photo copyright McKenzie McLoughlin

Flagstaff is a beautiful city full of many opportunities for landscape photography, especially at night. It is a little known fact that Flagstaff, AZ is an international dark city, actually the first of its kind. This means the city is the perfect spot for stargazing and that is what I wanted to capture.

I work in the Admissions Department here at NAU and my goal is to help students decide if NAU is the right fit. I have embodied the job into my creative world by photographing the beauty of our campus. I decided I wanted a picture of the iconic Northern Arizona University sign that is on McConnell drive, right off the I-17. Students who are attending NAU often take photos in front of this sign to declare their affiliation. The photos of the majestic sign are usually from camera phones, in the middle of the day with cars driving in the back. Sure the photos are spirited by it doesn’t fully capture how beautiful our campus could be.

So, I waited for a clear night. I mustered out into the brisk night bundled up a beanie, gloves and the like at 1 in the morning on a Wednesday. I decided that time would be quiet on the streets and would help me avoid ambient light. This was important because I had decided I wanted to do a long exposure that captured the stars gleaming brightly behind the NAU sign. I brought my tripod and my camera and set up in the marshy grass in front of the sign. Of course, I had forgotten to charge my phone before I left and it had died before I arrived, but I am glad it did. Not having that distraction allowed me to see the beauty of our night sky. The trick now was exposing the sign enough but making sure the focus was on the stars. It is a composite image. I shot for the sky first at a 20 second shutter speed. Then I shot for the sign which took a bit of work I was not expecting. The light was too low to get a good exposure of the sign without it fading into the background. The shot I wanted had the sign popping out. I thought, “Oh, I can use the flash light on my phone to paint the light!” Then I remembered my phone died. My next thought was, I probably have a light in my car, so I trekked back through the marshy grass and searched my car and finally found a light. It was the perfect illumination for the sign and I was able to capture the vision I had in mind. I shot with a Nikon D3200 at ISO 400 and F/18 at a 20 second shutter speed for the stars and ISO 400 F/18 and 1 second shutter speed.

About the Photographer:
I am a sophomore at Northern Arizona University seeking a Bachelor’s Degree in strategic communications with an emphasis in public relations and minor in photography. My passion for photography started in high school where I learned to shoot film. There is something so captivating in having a hand in the entire photographic process which I learned in film but I know it is a dying form. Therefore, I switched to digital and have tried to focus on composition and creativity. I am so inspired by everyday beautiful things that get passed by and my goal is to capture those ordinary things into something extraordinary. Photography is a hobby for me, but I believe it is a useful skill for the field of communications because photography is a very important aspect of visual communications. I hope to further develop my skills so that I can continue challenging myself and going on crazy photographic adventures that land me on the sides of freeways at 1 in the morning without a cell phone.

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