photography – The Oracle

Does extensive phone photography hinder appreciation for crucial moments, impede personal connections?

Michelle Koo and Gwendolyn Domine — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 06:30:58 +0000

Improve your shot with these phone photo tips

Jeffrey Kang, Forum Editor — Sun, 21 May 2023 03:23:56 +0000

Leg Zoom

Often, when taking photos, the subjects are miniscule against the vast background. Many people resort to zooming in by pinching the phone screen, but this solution is not ideal: Zooming in on the phone’s camera leads to lower-resolution photos because the phone’s “zoom” is a digital zoom, which is like cropping a picture after it has been taken. Instead, try a “leg zoom,” or walking closer to the subject of the photo.

Volume Button

Sometimes the composition of a picture feels perfect. The frame captures just enough of the background, the lighting is pristine and everyone is having the time of their lives. Then, you move your finger to press the capture button. The phone tilts slightly, causing a lens flare and leaving someone out. A solution is to press either volume button to take the photo, leaving the composition intact.

Exposure

At night, the environment will likely be too dark for an aesthetically pleasing photo. To fix this problem, tap on the screen to trigger a square with a sun icon to pop up. The slider next to the sun icon adjusts the exposure of the photo, which is the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor, making previously dark snapshots look much brighter.

Focus

Ever noticed that the subject of a photo is blurry or that the camera is not focusing on the desired subject? One solution is to hold down on the screen where the object is located, which will focus the lens at that point. This method can be used to focus on one person in shots where many people or objects are moving.

This is Palo Alto

The Oracle Staff — Tue, 12 May 2020 04:29:54 +0000

Photographers discover fresh perspectives through their craft: Junior Meredith Yee

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 16:39:04 +0000

Written by Eric Epstein

Junior Meredith Yee has been fervently snapping photos since she first had access to a camera. “I started pursuing photography probably in sixth grade when I got a phone with a camera and I just started to take pictures,” she said. “But I got my first [Digital Single-Lens Reflex] camera in eighth grade and that’s when I started to get more serious about it.”

When taking photos, Yee not only emphasizes the physical composition of the photo, but she also takes the angle of the shot into consideration. “You can take a really nice- looking thing and you can take a picture at the wrong angle and it can be really ugly,” she said. “My strategy is to find the best angle for whatever I’m trying to photograph.”

Yee appreciates the precision and flexibility that photography offers, and she feels that it also grants her the ability to capture the world accurately. “People just trust photographs a lot more than they might trust sketch artists or something,” she said. “It’s also something that I can do anywhere with just one piece of material.”

Yee particularly enjoys photographing

buildings and other structures. Her favorite picture was taken when she was on vacation in Nevada. “It’s a wide-angle shot of this landscape in the middle of nowhere in a ghost town, and there’s a few cool buildings,” she said.

In order to find direction with her photography and refine her style, Yee plans to continue to share her photos with others. “I have [photography] social media pages already, so I’m trying to grow those,” she said. “Growing a bigger audience definitely will help me figure out where I’d want to go with photography, not only because I get more input from other people but also because you put out more stuff and get more practice. For the future, practice is key. I need to figure out what my style is and how it’s changing.”

As a photographer, Yee is motivated by the effect that her art has on viewers. “Some people take photos because they think [something’s] pretty or has a nice aesthetic, some people want to do more documentation through photography, but I want to figure out what kind of impact I can make and how best to do that,” she said.

-Epstein, a senior, is a Sports Editor

Junior pursues passion for fashion through Instagram

elisacliu — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 17:24:27 +0000

Written By Elisa Moraes Liu

Gunn Style Watch (@gunnstylewatch) is an Instagram account run by junior Dajiana Huang that features a variety of outfits and fashion styles from students. Each post includes pictures of what the student being featured is wearing, along with a quote and where the student got each piece of their outfit.

Huang has always had an interest in fashion, sprouting from when she first discovered the fashion community on YouTube in middle school. This interest led her to create the account in the beginning of her junior year. “I thought this would be a good way to learn about other people’s personal styles and their perspective on fashion,” Huang said. “I don’t really want to accomplish much with the account other than just to showcase the diverse styles at Gunn.”

A lot of Huang’s inspiration for the account comes from blogs, including Tokyo Fashion (@tokyofashion) and NYC looks (nyc-looks.com). “I like to look at different street style blogs that showcase fashion from across the globe, which really inspired me to do the same for Gunn,” Huang said.

However, the journey of Gunn Style Watch didn’t begin there. A similar video version called Style Watch was piloted by Huang in her freshman year. Ever since then, Huang has created six Style Watch video segments for Titan Broadcast News (TBN) in addition to the account. Although she loves both, Huang would like to remain focused on the Instagram account. “I’m focusing on producing content for the Instagram account now because it’s less stressful and time consuming than having to interview people on camera,” Huang said.

The most recent Style Watch video, which aired on TBN on Feb. 8, focuses on teacher style instead of students. It features four different Gunn teachers, and they describe their high school styles and how it compares to their current style. “I knew I wanted to do a teacher’s style feature for a while, like since freshman year, but I never really got around to it since I didn’t know that many teachers,” Huang said. Running the Instagram account helped her achieve this goal. “I was able to get a lot of student input by making a post on Instagram asking which teachers I should feature, which helped me narrow down the teachers I wanted to interview,” she said.

Huang posts on the Instagram account three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On these days, she finds people whose outfits look interesting and stylish to interview and photograph. When posting, Huang also makes sure to alternate by gender and grade. “I think it’s important to represent grade level and gender equally,” Huang said. “I also try to feature a range of different styles to add to this diversity.”

Being the admin of Gunn Style Watch has also helped Huang personally. “I struggle a lot with having to go up to people and talk to them,” Huang said. “So I feel like giving myself a set schedule of three people per week gives me an incentive to go out and meet new people, and I feel like I’ve definitely become more outgoing and easygoing as a result.”

According to Huang, there is no secret to being featured on GunnStyleWatch. “I’d just say that people should keep wearing what they like and what makes them feel good,” Huang said. “Regardless of whether they’ll be featured on Gunn Style Watch or not, if they just wear what makes them happy I feel like that’s the most important thing.” Additionally, Huang points out that not everyone can be featured. “I’m just one person and it’s hard for me to see every single person’s outfit every single day,” she said. “It’d be awesome if I could feature every single person at school, but that’s just not possible since I have a lot of other responsibilities and commitments, and each post takes a lot of time and effort to produce.”

Huang plans to continue running the account until she graduates but has not yet planned for what will happen to the account after. “I’m not sure if I’ll pass the account on after I graduate,” Huang said. “But it’s definitely an idea that I’m considering.”

As for Huang, her future plans are much larger than Gunn Style Watch.“I definitely want to pursue both photography and fashion later in life, maybe not in conjunction with each other, but I have considered going into fashion photography,” she said. “That’s a whole different playing field than Gunn Style Watch though.”

Photo teacher blogs inspirations

amandalee828 — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 17:43:22 +0000

Photography teacher Marie Durquet’s blog, called “Think, Look, Make,” features snapshots of different moments she witnesses during her travels around the local community and the world. Durquet started the blog with the aim to explore other branches of art and important social issues, such as women’s rights, the environment and cultural identity; Durquet is Basque, an ethnic group from an area called the Basque Country, which includes parts of Spain and France. “My work is always photography-based somehow, but the blog is about how photographs allow you to think about other things too,” she said.

The blog is also a place where she can contemplate her life by reflecting on the photographs she takes. “It’s more like my thoughts,” Durquet said. “It’s almost like a journal, or my musings. A couple of the articles are more kind of serious, but mainly it’s a little like a journal, things that I’m experiencing or that have happened in my life that I make photography about.”

Durquet wants her students to practice publishing their work, so she assigns her Advanced Photo students the task of creating their own blogs. “I want them to be able to edit their work and choose their best things, which is hard to edit down,” she said. “Then [they] present [their photos] in a way that looks polished and professional, [which helps] them see their work in one place and share it with other people.”

However, due to Durquet’s teaching schedule, she does not post regularly during the school year. “I have to be inspired by something for me to want to post,” she said. “I don’t just post regularly. So often the summertime is when I get inspired because I get the chance to travel.”

All in all, blogging is Durquet’s creative outlet to share her passion for photography with the world. “I think [blogging is] like social media, but much better, because people are putting time into writing [posts] and they’re taking ownership of it,” Durquet said. “It’s really a way to get connected with other people that are interested in the same things that you are.”

Visit Durquet’s blog at http://mariedurquet.blogspot.com/ and her professional website at http://www.mariedurquet.com/.

Palo Alto students hold teen photography fundraiser event

The Oracle — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 21:21:39 +0000

Written by Evalyn Li

The “Eyes” fundraiser was held at the Mitchell Park Library on Oct. 18. It displayed and sold Paly and Gunn students’ works as well as those of a local professional photographer. The event raised around $900, which will be donated to a Tibet based non-profit school for blind children, Braille Without Borders, through local Bay Area Friends of Tibet.

Courtesy of Ilana Silverstein

Junior photographers Jady Tian, Kelly Liu, Janis Iourovitski, Julia Huang and Ilana Silverstein began planning the fundraiser last spring. Tian wanted to fundraise for a Braille Without Borders after meeting a few of the blind children on a trip to Tibet in the summers of 2013 and 2014.

Tian believes photographs express the photographer’s perspective and that an exchange of photographs is a chance to see the world in different ways. “Normally people do art just for the sake of doing it, but I wanted put [our photography] to better use,” Tian said.

Courtesy of Ilana Silverstein

With this application of photography in mind, Tian connected the fundraiser to her prefered cause, aiding the blind Tibetan children. During the fundraiser she gave a brief presentation to the attendees about Braille Without Borders and her summer experiences in Tibet. “The best part was that I actually got to tell people the stories of the blind children and my personal connection with them and after people heard about the purpose, they actually started purchasing more photos,“ Tian said.

In addition to creating an opportunity for local teenagers to sell their photography, the organizers learned many real-life skills during the process of planning. They drafted a budget plan and submitted a full proposal to the City of Palo Alto’s Garage Street Fund, which supports local teenagers’ events.

Tian expressed that the fundraiser was an unexpected learning experience and opportunity to connect her interest in photography and experience in Tibet. “I think it just gave [the participating photographers] a feeling of accomplishment; they don’t just take photos, people actually use their photos to help others,” Tian said.

Senior Jacob Bers’s astrophotography featured at “Point of View” exhibit

The Oracle — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 02:33:28 +0000

Written by Kristy Garcia Blackburn

Senior Jacob Bers’s astronomy photographs are being featured at the district office’s “Point of View” exhibit from Sept. 21 through Oct. 23. Yesterday, Bers and Palo Alto High School senior William Dougall were honored at a reception to kick off the artwork display. Curated by District Art Coordinator Sharon Ferguson, the display was created to honor the diversity of success found across the district and to showcase advanced art students who go beyond classroom assignments. According to Ferguson’s description of the exhibit, “these students take pictures that make us feel, think, and want to know more about how they do their art and why it is so important to them. They have tapped into the power of art to communicate ideas, feelings and connectedness.”

Ferguson called Bers an astronomer and an astrophotographer who uses photographic gear, connected to a telescope, to capture the night sky. Recently, one of Bers’s photos was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as “Astronomy Picture of the Day.” The Royal Photographic Society also showcased two of his photos in a science exhibition that traveled the United Kingdom.

Bers’s photos can be viewed at 25 Churchill St. The exhibit is open from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

To see more of Bers’s photography, visit his Flickr or Astrobin.