Final Project Theme!

For my final project and Portfolio, I am concentrating on close ups and details of nature. People interoperate nature an many different ways. I personally enjoy getting a few of close ups of nature, seeing how it works and functions according to the details, rather than observing nature from far away. With this idea in mind, I have noticed that nature has a strong mystery to it and how it works. Some images are obvious on how it works, others are must harder to read and figure out. The images below are the ones I selected to support this idea of nature and how it works. Enjoy!

Trough Creek: Leaves frozen over time.

Presque Isle: how did the stones get there? What are their purpose?

McConnell's Mill: Erosion 

Mineral Springs: dead trees and composition

McConnell's Mill: large amounts of water can do serious damage

McConnell's Mill: How did this get here?

Mineral Springs: what is the purpose of the lines in the rock?

McConnell's Mill

This was by far, my favorite trip of the semester. Minus getting up at 5 am again. The weather was nice, with just a little bit of snow. It was great break from the cold weather that we had in Trough Creek. As our class and I walked down a trail to reach a waterfall, all I kept thinking was “this better be worth it.” I say this because, I feel like the past few trips, I have been taking the same photos over again and again. Once we reached the end of the trail i see this huge, gorgeous waterfall that I literally fell in love with. The only problem was that I had to work through the water to get the photos. Luckily for me, I had water proof boots that allowed me to walk in front of the waterfall. When I reached the center, I was literally starring at this huge, beautiful waterfall in the face. I was there for most of the time of our trip.After having this beautiful high of waterfall photos, I took pictures of every little thing I could think of on the way back to the shuttle. I couldn’t wait to go back and look at the photos later.

Before we went back to Point Park, our teacher took us to another part of McConnell’s Mill where there were more streams and other parts of nature. With this I was determined to get a few long exposure photos. That was my biggest concentration on the second part of the trip. I came to an area where there were little streams that had great potential to become bigger and stronger over time. Luckily for me, I got what I wanted. I have attempted long exposures multiple times on the trips, but was never really happy with my results until today.

I have definitely grown so much as a photographer on this trip and I really pushed myself to try new things. I think that I found a better understanding of what I would like to use as my final portfolio and I am very excited for the future trips!

This tree was right above where I was standing for the waterfall photos. This is going to sound very weird, but since there were no other trees close to where it was located, it looked like it was starring down at me, asking for me to take its photo.

For my portfolio, I am going to try and concentrate on closeups of nature. I think this is a good photo to use for it.

 The famous waterfall!

The closeup of the water shows a sense of danger and how harsh water can be when there is so much at one time.

Here is another possible portfolio photo.

There is one of my favorite long exposure photos. I haven't taken very many long exposures that I feel need to be shown to the world, but I am very happy with this one.

Trough Creek

I was very excited to hear that we are going to Trough Creek because i have never been there before and I heard that there was so much to see there. After our three hour long ride, we arrived at the park and saw that there was so much snow on the ground. I didn’t know how it would effect my photos, but I went with it. I started going down one trail, not knowing a plan on how I wanted to take my photos. After crossing a bridge, I came to the conclusion that I was not wearing the proper shoes and my feet were absolutely freezing and honestly didn’t know if I was going to make it through the day with the shoes that I was wearing. 

After complaining to myself for a while I sucked it up and did what I came here to do. I fell in love with the waterfalls when I was on the bridge. There is something about snow and water that I really enjoy. It’s probably because I associate water and streams with spring, or summer days and don’t normally see these natural beauties with such cold conditions. 

As I travelled farther up the path, I spotted hanging icicles that for some reason, I fell in love with. I got a close up of them and saw that there were leaves frozen with in them, and droplets of water that didn’t fall because they were frozen to the icicle it’s self. I eventually reached the top of the mountain. and saw many rhododendrons with snow piled on top of them. I always thought that rhododendrons died in the winter, but come to realize that they stay alive year round. Apparently it just depends on the type of the flower. 

All in all, it was a successful trip. My feet eventually warmed up and I took a lot of great shots. When going on this trip, i am narrowing down ideas to work with for my portfolio. Further classes will make this idea well known. I guess we will see what happens!

The small waterfalls when exiting off the bridge

Icicles with small droplets that never fell

Rhododendrons that apparently live year round

Associating snow with creeks and rivers is something i have never really considered before

Frankfort Mineral Springs

I really enjoyed our trip to Frankfort Mineral Springs. It wasn’t that far away and it was very relaxing and had a good time. The time of day was really good. It gave off great light and i think it made my pictures come out more. When we first got there, I wasn’t sure what type of angle i was going to take with these photos so I just started taking some random photos to figure out what I wanted to do. I then realized it would be a good idea to concentrate on the water and get cool and creative shots of water flowing. I started out with that, then took many closeups of the fallen down trees and moss that was growing on the trees. I then realized that those trees have probably been there for a while due to all of the moss growing on them. As I continued on down one of the paths, I ran into the waterfall that was one of the main attractions for everyone. I didn’t even know where to begin with it, but I was so excited about it. I started off with getting behind the waterfall and getting close ups of  the drops of water hitting the puddles from the top of the cave. I continued with getting every angel humanly possible with the waterfall, trying to be as creative as possible. After the day was ending, I realized that i had a good collection of close ups and water flowing in the creeks. I was very happy with my results on this trip.

with both the dead and alive trees, they had different funguses growing on them. With this picture, the mushrooms look like they were placed on the tree for photo purposes.

I tried to concentrate on the lines on the rocks, but realized the green moss really adds to the photo.

This was a very small stream in the creek, but with the water flowing in the middle, it makes the stream look much wider.

I had many photos of the creek from the front of the streams, but with this one the concentration is in the back to see what the creek looks like from the other side.