KABA Modern at UC Irvine
Tin, a colleague of mine in my AAS345 Contemporary Issues in Asian American Studies class, asked me and a couple of others if they were interested of going to the KABA Modern break dancing event that was at UC Irvine, and I figured it would be fun to check out, so the both of us went all the way there last night. I thought Tin was crazy because Northridge to Irvine isn’t a near drive. In fact, it’s at least 85 miles one way, so it was very nice of him to drive all the way there and then back. He had to do his project, too, so it was fair game.
Whee, zoom~ I brought my Nikon COOLPIX P80 because it was a lot lighter to carry (compared to Nikon D60), and the optical zoom is a lot farther. The biggest downfall about it is you definitely need steady hands to get a clear photo with the long range zoom.
Here’s Tin break dancing! He was asking me if I saw him do such thing before, and I didn’t. It was pretty cool. He also thought this photo looks pretty nice, so I guess I can print him a copy and give it to him in class someday.
Winter Session at CSUN
In order to graduate during the spring, I am currently taking a winter course called Chicano/a Studies Regional Music of Mexico (CH S 310) with Professor Fermin Herrera. I am glad that I am taking this course not only because I like music, but it’s also because the professor seems very passionate about music, and it definitely shows when he teaches. Today he brought his two sons to demonstrate us son jarocho music, and his sister also came along to show us zapatedo, which is an acoustic percussive type of dance. Haha, I hope I got those information right because I’m not looking at my notes right now. The performance was definitely enjoyable to watch.
After class, I met up with Jennifer because we had planned to go eat lunch together. We decided to go eat at Emle’s Restaurant that was down the corner near our school. It was our first time eating there. We ordered a house salad, a chicken kabob sandwich, and a tiramisu. The chicken kabob sandwich had a much creamier hummus that I did not expected, but I think it is also because they added potato strips (almost like French fries) in them, and it added an interesting texture. The flavors were delicious, though. The tiramisu was to die for. It was so delicious, and the flavors weren’t too sweet that it was difficult to bear. In fact, they were just right, and ahh, it was just so yummy. Haha.
ART455A Outside Model
All of my previous assignments for ART455A have been indoors, so for this assignment, I am allowed to shoot outdoors. The point of this assignment is to see how we are able to control the light outdoors, and it is much harder because of the bright sun (or lack of sun), so there are two photos we must have. One is more of a portrait, and the other is an advertisement. We have to be able to advertise our cell phone by also using the photo that I have taken earlier this semester, which I hate, but oh well. It might be cool. *shrug* Once again, thanks to Tricia for being my model. I lucked out that she wore yellow and green since the background was about the same colors, so it basically complemented each other. I definitely learned that I really should look at magazine cut outs more because I really have a hard time directing what people should pose. *sigh*
And here’s the camera technical talk. I went onto the internet to search how to take better portrait photos because I have always loved the whole blurry background, focused subject portraits. I think it really brings the person out in a photo, and I just like how it looks altogether. I learned that it was the Aperture, so I shot these in Aperture priority. I used the smallest aperture because it makes the background blurry whereas the largest aperture makes the background less blurry. I also used the Exposure Compensation setting on my camera because without it, it would’ve been too dark. At first I shot her when the sun was on her, and it really made everything “glow” too much. So I used the EC -0.7. I feel like I should’ve used -0.3 since the lighting does seem a little cold, but I still like how they looked. Constructive criticisms, please.