Jessie Short Photography

This week was basically my last opportunity to be able to photograph this beauty for an assignment. I used her as my model for Open-ish back in September and after receiving my comments and grade, I definitely knew I could do better, and I wanted to do better. I wanted to able to use this photo and maybe some others from the shoot for my portfolio at some point. However, I had very little time to snag her as a model due to the fact that after Monday, she’ll be gone on internship and will be traveling quite a bit.

The assignments definitely got piled up this week. I had a final due Sunday that ended up getting deleted from my computer because it shut down and I had to completely start my project over. Along with wanting to do well on that final, I had several other assignments to complete. Altogether, I definitely have been overwhelmed and stressed with what feels like an overload of assignments to do. What’s funny is, I told Erin last week that I finally felt caught up and her response was “and how will you feel by Wednesday?” and I responded with “not caught up and stressed.” That has been the epitome of this week. Just when I thought I was getting caught up, I feel like I’m no longer ahead of the game. But, I’m looking forward to editing images and getting things done before-hand and constantly being caught up!

This week we finish up our digital imaging class. Our final project was to create a composite that had a theme to it. My theme was “A Walk in My Shoes.” I based it off the idea of how people who aren’t RCC photo students as well as those who don’t know what it’s like to be on school campus full time during a pandemic. Most of them aren’t aware of what we do or go through everyday. As students, I feel like everyone around me can agree that we all have a pretty rough road when we come to RCC. Just when we think it’s going to slow down and get easier, it just gets worse (i.e. the image of me in the background stressed out). We all obviously have to wear masks all the time. We also spend literally our entire day in the same building. While this photo doesn’t really describe half of what goes on sometimes, I feel like a lot of my classmates could probably relate to it some way.

I know…the title of this doesn’t really scream the photo I chose but at the same time, it does. At this point in the semester, I kind of feel like I’m doing the same things everyday. Also known as, repetition (in some form or another). While this repetition and seemingly going through the same motions everyday is very tiring and can get boring, I can see that doing the same things over and over again can help me improve my work.

I say that this photo has repetition and goes along with this topic because of the repetition in the windows of the building. They’re all the same, exactly spaced out, etc. It goes to show that someone repetitively did the same frame so many times in order to complete the building. So I guess I could look at my exhausting, repetitive days as me trying to “complete the building.” In which case, my degree is the building and I’m building it up to finish it by doing the same things almost everyday.

After doing our in-studio bridal portraits, we got our on-location bridal portrait assignment. I photographed this assignment on Sunday and boy was it interesting. I brought a wedding dress home from school praying it would fit my “bride.” After quite the scare of it potentially not fitting, we got it zipped up and went on our way to the location to do the assignment. Right as I started the assignment, my boyfriend, who doubled as my assistant that day, showed me the radar and we were about 20 minutes away from having some rough rain. After about 10 minutes of not feeling any drops or hearing any thunder, I decided to continue. I shot a couple photos at the front of the building and then moved to the other corner of the back of the building. About 5 minutes after that, my “brides” friend said she was feeling drops. I immediately internally panicked and was so determined to get through the photoshoot without getting my camera or flash drenched, but also not getting the school’s dress drenched. Luckily we got out of there just in time before it started raining really hard. I had quite a few options to choose from for this assignment but this photo that I chose really seems to be one of my favorites. I love how detailed the brick is and I love how the light looks on her face. I’m very pleased with the outcome of my photoshoot for this assignment given the circumstances.

While I know we’re technically supposed to shoot new images for our blog posts, I truthfully have not had the time to pick up a camera and shoot just for myself, just for fun. I used to do photos of my dog quite often, and I haven’t had the chance to in awhile. I was looking through folders on my hard drive and found this sweet image in one of my folders. We were on our first real vacation in the mountains with a puppy, and she absolutely loved it! She really enjoyed all the people she got to see and meet that would walk up and down the street in downtown and was just as happy as she could be. Even now going on vacation or even just nightly walks she’s just as excited.

I miss being able to go on vacations every now and then. Having to plan around school is pretty difficult, especially in the summer. I can’t wait until we have the ability to vacation safely (thanks corona), and I can’t wait until we can just go on a vacation without having to worry about school or work or anything. All in all, I’m just ready for a nice long break.

This week in our professional portraiture class, we got our on-location high school senior assignment. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to photograph this Pinecrest High School student. She was very easy to work with, was willing to do whatever it took to get THAT shot, and was super sweet. She made my job pretty easy because she’s clearly someone who’s easy to photograph. I ended up liking this assignment and session a little more than I have liked other assignments, however, I still don’t think I only want to photograph seniors or only photograph weddings, etc. I still think I want to do a variety of different sessions, but I definitely had fun doing this. I can’t wait to photograph many more seniors in my future!

Just recently, a high school friend got in touch with me about doing her and her boyfriends three year anniversary photos. Hesitantly, I agreed to doing them, making sure she understood that I wouldn’t have them back to her very fast due to school assignments being my first priority. School is stressful enough as is, and this past week was a pretty stressful one. Add on a full session to edit and send out on top of assignments and I felt like I had a stress overload!

She knew that there was the potential for her to not get their photos back before their three year anniversary, but I was determined to get it done, all while getting school done first. After writing several to-do lists, making sure I had everything in order, and reserving times for school assignments and helping classmates out with their assignments, I finally got these photos for her done.

Not only did I have just a normal session with a couple, but I decided kind of last minute that I wanted to attempt to get better at using flash outdoors for this session. I’ve never been the greatest at it so it was kind of a risk doing this when I had a client, but I think the photos turned out good. It was a learning experience for sure but I’m happy and the client is happy with the photos!

Last week, we got our first bridal portrait assignment. For this assignment we had to shoot in studio, along with some other requirements. I shot this assignment twice because I just wasn’t pleased with what I got the first time. While I’m sure there’s more thing I could perfect from the second time around, I’m way more pleased with what I got.

The first time I shot these, I had the wrong color bouquet, I made my subject change dresses, and to top it all off, after fluffing out the train, I tripped over the backdrop and could’ve sworn I broke my toe. But thankfully, I still had enough time to reshoot the assignment. I shot it again on Monday, knowing what I really wanted out of it this time around. I got in the studio, got everything set up, and started shooting. Pretty much immediately I liked my images better the second time around. Personally, for the first time photographing a bride in studio, I think what I ended up capturing was pretty good!

I always love when our instructors allow us to get a little creative with an assignment. We obviously still have requirements to meet but we’re given a little bit of freedom in those requirements. I also like to have fun with the my subjects whether it be in studio or on location. I love when my subjects randomly let their personalities shine through just like Jaylan did for this photo. She was just walking around and spinning and laughing some while I took photos and I was able to snag this one that I thought represented her personality well. She’s such a fun person with a great personality! It kind of ties into how I love more lifestyle portrait photography. The kind of photography where it doesn’t look too posed and looks free flowing and sometimes candid. I love getting little glimpses into people’s personalities because it shows in photos and can enhance a photo greatly.