Critque

White Balance is something worth learning about to help impact your shots. At its simplest the reason we adjust white balance is to get the colors as accurate as possible without editing. Without correcting the colors in your image, their would be a tint of color due to the lighting in the picture. fluorescent lighting adds a blue tint as tungsten lights adds a yellow tint.

Our eyes adjust to the temperature of light but a camera is not smart enough to do so without a little help. For cooler light you’ll need to tell the camera to capture the warmer light and the opposite for a warmer light.

Depending of the digital camera you have you would use manual, semi-automatic, or if you’re camera has a specific automatic mode for white balance.

Some of the basic preset white balance settings on cameras include, Auto, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Daylight/Sunny, Cloudy, Flash, and Shade. Don’t forget you can adjust white balance in manual.

Auto is where the camera guesses on what to do based on lighting, shadows, and the subject. Tungsten is a mode that is usually inside, It is set to make warmer colors cooler. Fluorescent compensates for the cool light and warms up your shot. Daylight/Sunny is not on every camera, but it sets the white balance as fairly normal. Cloudy generally warms the image up a little more that Daylight. Flash tends to warm up the shot. And finally, Shade warms up the picture since shadows are typically cooler.

The Manual White balance adjustments varies from camera to camera, but essentially you tell your camera what “white” is and it applies that to you camera to correct the colors. You set white with a white card or a subject that could represent white. Changing your white balance betters your shots and I recommend you learn how to use it.

This is my collage. Each of these elements reflects on a part of me and my life. I chose the baseball because its one of my favorite sports to play. When I was in middle school I played for my school and we got to championships. For the first half of the season I was first basemen then moved to catcher after an injury to my knee. I always had bad knees, but baseball was my passion. When the season ended I played roller derby with my cousin. I have always went to her matches and was waiting for me to be older to play with her so I took up basketball, playing the right side wing and in the box for defense. When I finally hit 10, I was able to play with her. That was my first season and it was a blast! But due to my height I couldn’t be a blocker, my favorite position. on the plus side, I was a good jammer because I was small enough for moves like the slingshot and was able to squeeze by the blockers. Roller derby is really fun but it is a contact sport. When you’re going around 15 miles an hour in a ring trying to score points on roller skates, there is bound to be accidents. In the Semi finals, there was an accident. In the last 10 minutes of the game I was substituted in for the jammer in hopes of gaining back 5 points, and we were doing good until the other team started to get used to my maneuvers. In an attempt to stop me from passing them, a blocker in the front of the line rammed my side and I ended up falling in the middle of the ring. One of their teammates tried to avoid me but she jumped to early and landed on my knee, shattering my knee cap. I had to have 2 surgeries to fix my knee but I was more upset about missing out in playing my favorite sports. After all of the work I had put in to be and essential part of the team, I couldn’t play at all.

After my injury, I started to read more, listened to more music, and picked up photography. I got a guitar and started to teach myself. Now I have 3 guitars and me and my brother are working on starting a small band with our friend, Neifecc. We started back in 2020 during quarantine. Most of our original songs are inspired by classic heavy rock and classic rock bands, especially Alice in Chainz, Metallica, Chevelle, and 3 Doors Down. My brother is the head singer, Neifecc the lead guitarist, and I’m the drummer/ back up guitarist. Most of the time I make the beats on an app that I have on my laptop and when we make videos ill play the chords. We don’t have any gigs but we do post on social media.

When my surgeries were done and I was off crutches, I wasn’t allowed to partake in any sports competively. So I started taking photos. They were not the best because I never learned how to use everything. I would leave the camera on fully automatic and that stopped the chance for creativity. But when my Junior year hit I chose to take photography, and in my opinion I am much better than before. I feel like I can actually be creative with my shots because I’m aware of all the different aspects that go into a single shot. And lastly, I chose the drama club logo for Melanie Martinez. She took theater in her highschool years which have had a huge impact of her videos. In my opinion, she is very unique and has cool music that is relatable to many people.

Framing Questions:

1.) What camera metering mode did I use and why?

For the first picture, I chose to use TV (shutter speed priority) because I wanted to try to use the zoom effect. The subject is a random teacher that was walking back to class and I saw the picture and shot. The other two were shot in manual so that I could have complete control over what I was shooting.

2.) Do I have a strong composition?

I do believe that my photos have good composition. They have shadows, leading lines, and diagonals that work to catch your eyes. I feel that they also spark wonder in the audience.

3.) How well did I edit my photographs?

I feel that I edited my photos well. I got the desired effect I wanted in all of my photos and they look good to me. Looking at the before and after probably makes me biased though because I can see the difference between the two.

4.) What would I do different if I shot this assignment different?

The only thing I would do different is that in the first one I had a tripod. This shot was more of on the moment shot and due to that it didn’t come out as well as I wanted.

5.) Do you think your photographs belong on the blog home page and should be considered one of the best from all the photo classes?

I hope that my work is good enough for the home page but there are some obvious flaws in each of my shots. To be the best of all the classes, there is not enough room for the mistakes I made in shooting and in editing. In other words, I would love to have my work on the home page, but there needs to be overall improvement to be one of the top in all of the classes.