Graduating Seniors

Less than 2 weeks ago, the seniors I worked with for a school year graduated from Bright Star Secondary Charter Academy. Congrats kids!

The Principal asked me to take their senior portraits, true to it being the last week of school, it was crazy! I was told a day before that I would be taking their photographs and on the day of, the school held a dodgeball tournament so the seniors looked anything but ready to have their photo taken. Much less their SENIOR PORTRAITS!

Nonetheless, we made it happen. I set up one softbox strobe in the school auditorium and used the already provided curtains as a backdrop. I asked the students to look toward the softbox to get a pensive photo. I took two frames per student; one looking away, and a front facing portrait. It took me one and a half hours to photograph all the seniors and was tired at the end. It was also my last day of work and I'm glad I went out the way I came in, with a photoshoot!

Good luck and best wishes on your future endeavors graduates.

Mr. Coronel

Colorado School of Mines @ Tiger

A few weeks ago, I was hired to photograph The Colorado School of Mines at Tiger Energy Services. The undergraduate students made a visit to the Tiger workplace to get a feel for what an engineering plants looks and functions like. I'm sure it wasn't their first trip to one, but probably a first that they had a photographer follow them around like paparazzi.

This took place very early in the morning and I had to be in Signal Hill before I started my other full-time job. I took over 200 photos and relied on my 50mm f/1.4 lens since I was indoors under low light. I also used my wide angle lens to capture how vast the plant really is. I shot in color and changed a few photos to black and white in post-production. Black and white gives the photos a "rough" feel and since I wasn't in a mall, I didn't feel as if color was necessary since there's not much color to steel bars anyway.

The students were jotting down notes as they went from station to station and honestly, I had no idea what any of their instructors were telling them. I guess I'd understand if they were talking about f/stops and depth of field. Anyway, overall, this was a 'walk in the park' job. I was looking for facial expressions since the main focus was people. You also have to remember to use the correct lens and exposures. Low light obviously means open aperture and an average shutter speed of 1/80. Don't forget about your ISO either!

That's all for this shoot. Here are the students being interested in...who knows what.

See ya!

Jake