Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays! It's currently past midnight on Christmas day and even though I have to be up in a few short hours I wanted to share some photos I took this year at the Trail of Lights.

Double Exposures: Silhouettes

For my darkroom project this past semester, I decided to focus on double exposure.  This is one of three posts that will feature my work for my final project. I originally started out just photographing silhouettes and textures to show how complicated the human mind is.

With the above photo I tried sandwich printing, the process of placing two negatives together to replicate a double exposure. And it was the first photo I made for this project. I ended up having to expose the paper for 3 minuets but I'm really happy with the results. 

I'll be uploading the other posts within the next couple of weeks and I'll try to catch up on sharing on my photos from this past semester on here! - Jessica

SoCal

Well it has been a while since my last post but school and work have been keeping me busy. Earlier this month I visited Los Angeles for the first time for my cousin's wedding. We tried to cram as much stuff as we could in the four days we were there, and there was still stuff that I wish we could have seen. We got to walk down Hollywood Boulevard (and I insisted that we find the Harry Potter handprints) and we visited the Santa Monica Pier. I fell in love with capturing the Getty Museum and I was a little disappointed that by the time we had gotten there the sun was starting to set, but sun sets in LA are so much more colorful than here in Texas. So here are my favorite photos from the trip...

And to wrap this post up here are a couple of pictures of the wedding venue and my cousins kick butt wedding decorations. 

Well there is my trip to LA! Since the semester is winding down, I'll hopefully be able to catch up on sharing my pictures and writing blog posts. - Jessica

Dusty Mirrors

Here are some old photos I've yet to share on the blog today. These photos were taken as the sun was setting and peeking through my curtains onto a dusty mirror. The above photo is probably my most extravagant edit (here's the original image), I'm incredibly satisfied with how it turned out. Although these photos are very different than my usual work, I love the mysterious mood they create and I would love to try more of this style in the future.

-Jessica

Lately

Here are some pictures that I've uploaded to Instagram recently.

• I've mostly been shooting a lot of film recently and I have several rolls that need to be dropped off at the lab. 
• I also nabbed two new film cameras! I'm finally going to shoot 120 film. 
• I've been trying to find an easy way to store my instax pictures and so far I like how they look in a moleskin but I haven't been able to store too many because as pictured they don't exactly lay flat. 

-Jessica

Natasha and Natalie

For my last shoot for my darkroom final I enlisted my friends, Natasha and Natalie, and we went to the Wildflower Center (which I blogged about here).  Here are my digital shots from that shoot.

Now that it's summer I can hopefully catch up on sharing all the photos I've taken over the past couple of months! - Jessica

Faceless

I officially finished my first year of college last week and I have a good week and a half break before my summer class starts. As I've previously mentioned, I took my first actual photography class this semester and as a whole I feel that I've learned so much and as a result I feel confident about perusing photography has a profession. As a bit of a refresher, for my final project I wanted to photograph portraits of people that don't show the subject's face, in order to place an emphasize on translating emotion through body language. During the last couple of weeks of class, I feel that my project evolved a little and I'm really not sure of the direction it headed. One of the things I started trying was double exposures, and I still trying to figure out the meanings behind why I captured them and how they influenced my project. Well that's enough rambling, here are the group of photos I put up last week for my final critique.

Overall I'm extremely satisfied with my work from this semester and I'm looking forward to taking this darkroom class again next semester! - Jessica

darkroom

Hello internet, here is another darkroom class update! Today we had our second critique and for this project we got to pick what we wanted to shoot. I choose to photograph faceless portraits that translate emotion through body language. Overall the critique went really well and I got to hear some comments and feedback on my project. This critique was leading up to the final project which I feel very confident about. I've only got about three more weeks to shoot and print on this project and I already have some more ideas about how I'm going to wrap this project.

Sitara

Here are a some picture of the shoot that I did with my friend Sitara a couple of weeks ago. I've been shooting more portraits lately as part of my project for my darkroom class. For my project I decided to photograph portraits where the focus isn't on the subject's face. All of the pictures in this post where shot digitally and just for fun, but I do plan on sharing some from my film project once I get to print some more. I've mostly been shooting film lately and I plan to do several posts on those pictures
whenever I find the time between work and school.

I know this is a little image heavy, but I have so many favorites from this shoot - Jessica