ReedPhotos

I believe self expression is a characteristic that everybody has, and differs from person to person. It’s extremely important that we self-express because if we didn’t, the world would be boring; emotionless and lifeless. There would be no fun, no personality to anybody. The value of expression lies in the compositions of my original work and everything I do to get the shot that I want.

My Renaissance painting showed a young man in a brown shirt and a red covering on his head. He had long ginger hair, similar to mine. He had a blank expression on his face. My inspiration for recreating a photo like this was a photographer by the name of Hendrik Kerstens. He used his daughter as the person in the photos, and used household items such as towels or bubble wrap as different articles of clothing to recapture the Renaissance essence. Her facial expression was similar to the ones in the original Renaissance paintings. Our project was inspired by his work, especially the use of household items in the portrait.

My portrait was pretty easy to make. I used a brown shirt, combined with a red hand towel for the head covering, all in front of a black trench coat for the black background.

This is one of my more artistic selfies. It might not look like much, which is how I like to express myself. I like to keep to myself and that’s what my selfies portray. It’s one of my favorite pictures from the selfie project as it captures me; laid back and pretty chill.

2024 was, to say the least, not my best year. So many different things happened, both good and bad, that I couldn’t even begin to talk about them here because I’d be rambling all day. It’s safe to say 2024 did not treat me very well; however, I look into 2025 with hope and some motivation to improve myself. As a student, I plan to study more and strive for all A’s at the end of the year because I do not want to be stuck having to take finals. As a photographer, I plan to continue my journey into college and maybe minor in something to do with photography along with a possible music major. For a short-term goal, I want to go out and just take more pictures in my free time. I haven’t really been doing much photography outside of school, and I want to start doing more outside of my seventh-hour class. For a long-term goal that I can accomplish by May of 2025, I want to be able to be better at using my DSLR. I still have a lot to learn about it that I can definitely accomplish in this class. After this semester, I am going to continue being a nerd and doing vehicle photography, as it’s the most fun for me to go out and do. We’ll see what 2025 has to offer; I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty good.

2024 was an interesting year to say the least. My photography journey has taken an interesting turn as well since I began to take Photography I. These are some of my favorite photos that I’ve taken during the first semester of Photo I.

These 3 photos were part of the Elements of Photography and Rules of Composition project. Starting on the left, I took a photo at the Baton Rouge airport of the LSU football team returning from Las Vegas. It was fun to track the plane coming into Baton Rouge and watch it pull up close to the general aviation area. The photo in the middle is a photo of the engraving on my saxophone. I love how it looks across the bell area, and putting it in the natural light enhances its look. The photo on the right is a picture of my truck after I hand washed it. I take lots of pride in the cleanliness of my truck, and I love taking pictures of it. The photo of the planes was my experimentation, the saxophone picture was contrast in lighting, and the photo of my truck was space.

 This photo was a part of my midterm selfie project. We were required to take selfies of ourselves in different areas or doing different things. I wasn’t expecting for this photo to be a part of the project, but I loved it so much that it ended up in my finals folder. I took this photo in the dressing room of the Manship Theatre just minutes before I went on stage and performed one of my largest concerts with jazz trumpet player George Bell. I love the way I set this photo up with me looking at my reflection along with the atmosphere around me.

These next 4 photos came from our very first trial run in August. I love these photos as I took them to capture the beauty of our school’s campus. I took a photo of the empty hallway from a low profile to make it look a little larger so I could add some emphasis. I also took two photos outside to capture some of the natural scenery of the school. The last photo includes the many awards that Zachary has received for being the number one school district.

 These last two photos were done in Adobe Photoshop as part of the Change My Mood project. The first photo shows the side profile of a man. It originally had many neon colors across the photo, which I changed all to a flat blue to change the mood to a more sentimental feel. For the second photo I wanted a more aggressive feel to the photo, so I changed the background color to a deep red and greyed out the man. I feel the edits I made were successful in getting their respective messages across. 

There are many different file types used in photography. Here are some of the more common ones used in photography and their functions. 

First is the JPEG file, or “Joint Photographic Experts Group.” Many people know of this filetype, which is one of the most common files on this list. JPEG images don’t have the highest quality, as the image is compressed right at the capture. However, the upside to this is that they don’t take up a lot of storage at all, so many JPEGs can be stored in one place or on one memory card. Another upside is that JPEGs have almost no compatibility issues. You can view them on almost everything, and they are compatible with almost every editing software. These kinds of files are best used for personal use.

Next up is the HEIF, “High Efficiency Image Format” filetype. It’s also the newest filetype on the list, as it was designed in 2015 and is used by Apple for iPhone photos. These files take up even less storage than JPEGs; however, they have some compatibility issues. Many editing programs cannot handle HEIF files, and they are hard to display on internet browsers, which is a huge downside. These files are best used for rapid transfer and personal use.

The third filetype is TIFF, or “Tagged Image File Format,” which is one of the most common filetypes sued by photographers. These photos are extremely high quality as they are not compressed, which also allows for a lot of editing. A small downside is that these files take up a lot more storage than JPEGs or HEIFs. TIFFs can only be displayed on some browsers. These files are best used for high-quality photos and editing.

Next is the RAW file. These files are of the highest quality for images and are used by many professional photographers. These files store all of the original information captured by the camera, which allows for extensive editing. However, these files cannot be displayed in a browser and require editing software such as Lightroom to view them. They will have to be edited and converted to a different filetype. These files are best used for high-quality images and a lot of post processing. 

Next up is the DNG, or digital negative file. This filetype was created by Adobe to attempt to create an alternative to RAW files that can be used by all cameras and manufacturers. DNG files will be guarded against future incompatibilities for RAW files, which is a major benefit. These filetypes are used for long-term edited files that can be converted from RAW files to guard against incompatibility.

Now another commonly known file, the PNG. This filetype was designed in the 1990’s. They don’t require much storage, can be relatively high quality, and can be displayed on internet browsers. These filetypes are best used for the storage of many high-quality images and on internet browsers.

GIF files are next, and they are perfect for internet use. GIF files allow animation and are small file sizes, which makes them great on browsers. It supports transparency, but not partial transparency. GIFs are not best used for photos but rather images with a limited color palette, as GIFs only contain a maximum of 256 colors.

BMP files were developed by Microsoft for use on the Windows platform. Now it’s supported by Macs too. They have a large file size as color data is saved for each pixel, which makes images very high quality. These files are best used for high-quality images that are not shared on the internet, as many browsers don’t support them.

Lastly is the PSD, which is used by Adobe Photoshop to save data. One of the biggest benefits of a PSD is that it saves multiple layers of data and is great to be used for editing in Photoshop. Layers can be added, removed, or edited without affecting the original photo. Once it is saved, it can be converted to any filetype. PSDs are best used for photo editing, specifically in Photoshop.

It’s been a little over 23 years since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. On that day, two hijacked airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, struck the World Trade Center, more commonly known as the Twin Towers. This attack destroyed the lives of countless innocent citizens and ended the lives of almost 3,000. Two more airliners were hijacked that day, American Airlines Flight 77 striking the Pentagon building and United Airlines Flight 93 (supposedly aiming for the White House) crash landing before it arrived. This attack changed the entire nation and how we lived. My parents remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they found out about the attacks. For me, being born in 2008, I didn’t experience 9/11 firsthand. However, me being an aviation geek has led me to look into this event more, especially the photography of the events that day. For example, this photo of United Airlines Flight 175 just seconds before impacting the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

When I look at this image, I imagine the utter shock and terror of everybody watching from the ground in New York City. I also imagine the people in the Twin Towers watching Flight 175 rapidly approaching. I can easily visualize the sight and almost hear the screams of people in the South Tower as Flight 175 hit. Even though I didn’t live through this event, the photographs from that day help depict how terrifying 9/11 truly was. The photo below of Flight 175’s impact is one example.

Seeing that massive explosion next to the North Tower, already smoldering from American Airlines Flight 11, puts many different emotions in me. I have heard recordings of the phone calls of people in the towers calling for help. You could hear the towers when they collapsed on the people, making these photos a lot more chilling to me. These photographs are tragic but important for documenting this moment in American history. Documentary photography is used to capture moments that have a major impact, such as a major moment in history like 9/11. Documentary photography plays an important role in 9/11 as closer pictures were captured, showing the decisions some people in the towers were making, such as jumping nearly 100 stories to their deaths. 

Seeing pictures like this strongly emphasizes how important documentary photography is. The cameras broadcasting videos of this event across the world weren’t able to get shots like this. Seeing those people hanging 100 stories high from windows, literally helpless, shows how truly tragic 9/11 was and how documentary photography gives an insight into that. The imagery impacts the experience for me because it brings a complete understanding as to how immense and tragic of an event this was. 

Hey guys! My name is Reed, and I started this page to follow my journey in Photography I. My favorite color is purple. I honestly have no idea why; I just love the way purple looks on just about anything. I have a lot of meals that I could choose from to be my favorites, but steak is definitely one of the best. Medium-rare is the best way to prepare a steak; if you think otherwise, you are wrong. When I grow up, I would like to be a jazz saxophonist, going around playing gigs. I’ve gotten a head start on this; I started my gigging career my sophomore year. I am NOT a singer in any way, shape, or form, but I will play saxophone for you on karaoke night. If I were a superhero, I would like to have the power to fly. This explains itself, as I am an aviation nerd. A perfect Saturday night for me would look like me sitting on my back porch alone, listening to music, and watching the sunset. If I could have a wild animal as a pet, I would have a tiger. I love cats, so why not have a bigger cat? If I could transport myself anywhere in the world, I would transport myself to the Anchorage International Airport in Alaska. Like I said earlier, I am an aviation nerd, and since Anchorage is the third busiest freight airport in the world, I would love to spend some time there and take pictures. If I could go back in time, I would go to the 1980’s. Everything was just better: music, vehicles, the people, you name it. Living in the 1980’s seems amazing. So that’s pretty much a rundown on me.