Cypress College Student Show Entries

This year I entered ten pieces in to the Cypress College Photography Department Student Show. With the judging done I only had one that did not get into the show. Here are the shots that got in.

Leaving San Diego

While waiting for my train I when out side of the station and took a couple of shots of some of the skyscrapers around Downtown San Diego.

Easter Weekend

I went down to San Diego to visit my friend Shawna for Easter. While I was down there I took a couple of shots of the family and the Easter egg hunts that Josephine went on both Saturday and Sunday.

Learning to Fly

Grace wanted to learn how to fly for her birthday and decided to use this as an opportunity to give me a late but great gift too. When we got there Grace flipped a coin and I won so I was going to be the first to fly. After a looking over the aircraft and learning about some of the controls, I was taxiing down the runway to get ready for takeoff. Our instructor, Daniel Wotring, was the one that did all the take offs and landings, but we were allowed to have our hands on the controls to feel what it was like. After we got to a high enough altitude I was able to take over the controls. Flying was no where near as scary for me as just being a passage in a car. It was really fun to be up there with the great view. While I was flying I was able to experience some good updrafts where the aircraft was pushed up by the warm air. After a while of flying we landed at Brackett Field in La Verne to switch out who was flying.

Now Grace was in the pilot seat and I was in the back with my camera ready to shoot.
She loved to turn the plane at steep angles usually more then 45 degrees. It made for some great shots and a fun ride. We then decided to fly over Cypress College for fun. While doing a couple of circles around the college I got a couple of shots that I like from over head. This was the first I had done any kind of aero-photography and it was great. Grace then decided that see wanted to go out to the coast and fly over the beach for a while. We went out over Seal Beach and then headed down the coastline to the Huntington Beach Pier. During the turn back to Fullerton Municipal Airport, Grace and Daniel were watching a sporting event and missed seeing a pod of dolphins swimming by the pier. The rest of the flight back we took Beach Blvd and it was nice not having to stop at red lights and having other traffic around. After the landing we both were very happy and loved the experience.

I just started to play around creating some HDR images this week. Grace showed me Photomatix a while back, but I never really got around to playing with it. With the photography department’s annual juried contest coming up I decided to work with some of my old photos. I picked a couple of my El Toro shots were the sky was overcast and there was almost no detail. When I corrected then in photomatix it was able to bring the cloud detail back. I probably over did the affect but I still like the graphical illustration of the images.

Photo Fun Continued

It sometimes seems like the quality of students changes from semester to semester. Sometimes for the good, but lately it has been for the bad. This Saturday when I went in to the college to help out with a photo shoot, I found some stuff out of place. In Studio 2 there was a ladder hanging on the door. This was really out of place and a safety hazard. I have a feeling that I know the student that did this and I am going to have someone talk to him this upcoming week. Also there where only two students were working in Studio 1 this weekend and there was some black seamless taped to the wall with masking tape. The first student might have done it because they were arguing with Krista about it being ok to tape stuff to the wall. The second student in the studio my have just as easily done it also. When I went in there to help him with a problem with the power pack that they where using I didn’t notice it up at the time, but I really wasn’t looking for something like that though. Hopefully we will start correcting some of these issues with students misusing the equipment in out labs and studios.

A Latin Evening Five

Friday was the fifth Latin Evening event at Cypress College. It was put on by the Patrons of the Arts and the ticket sales are going towards scholarships for the students within the Fine Arts Department. The evening started a little early when the house went off queue and opened the theater early to the audience. This gave people a little something extra though; they where able have a seat and see some of the sound checks and what goes into the setup the show.

The music was the main focus of the evening with everything from folk to jazz. They even had an entire choir for several of the songs. The end of the first half of the night the choir ended with an audience participation of La Bamba from Ritchie Valens. During the second half of the show I noticed some of the students that are in my Jazz History class performing. I remember hearing our instructor singing the song that they sung during some of our classes for example of jazz styles, but I can not remember the name of it right now. Throughout the night there were several dances. There were two dancers that really stuck out. They had donated there time and skills as professional dancers from Disneyland to help put on the two tangos for the night. All the dances and dancers that night did a great job and put on an excellent show.

The lighting designer did a great job for the show. The lights really helped with the mood and added great accents to the show. I also liked the gobo affects that were used on some of the moving lights to give scattered light patterns to break up the flood lights. The use of the harmonious colors also played well with the stage setup. The choice of lighting looked great throughout the entire evening.

During the entire evening the Patrons of the Arts sold tickets for a 50/50 drawing. At the end of the night the winning ticket holder decided to donate the $110 winnings back to the Patrons of the Arts scholarship fund on behave of his two children. That was a very generous gesture that some student will be very thankful for. I never got his name but I did manage to get a picture of him and his two kids to archive with the Patrons of the Arts.