Final astronomy photo: Button below has the link to the document with my proposal written out. Meeting Reflection
Going into the meeting, my proposal was a completely different photo concept from how my photo looked when I walked out of the meeting. The whole point of having the meeting with the teachers and peers were so you could give feedback on your photo proposal. Going into the meeting the concept of my photo was going to downtown and getting pictures of the buildings. I was planning on going to the top of a parking structure and get pictures from that angle. I liked the idea of playing around with different sizes and colors of the buildings. In my proposal my area of growth was focusing on detail, I thought that mixing the buildings would help me with detailing. In the meeting my peers and teachers thought that it would be a better idea if I plan for a photo that represents me or a hobby I do outside of school. My peers suggested that I do a photo of me dancing. My teachers and I both thought it was a good idea, so my photo concept changed. The idea that we ended up coming up with still took place in downtown at Petco Park bridge. I would be wearing my dance clothes with my pointe shoes and take a photo of me dancing.
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Camp Reflection
We went camping this week! My group and I ended up getting our photo of the Milky Way as we had planned to get. When getting our photo we used three different spots, one was at the end of a pathway separating two lakes, another was in the middle of the pathway, and on a nearby hill next to our campsite. The equipment we used for taking our photos was a T2i camera and a tripod. Around 10:45 we started to set up the camera for the Milky Way that would soon be rising at 11. Throughout the whole night my group was joined by other students that we got some pointers from. Our friend Lourdes was good with working with the type of camera we had so she was able to help us out with setting up. A memory I have from the camping trip comes from the first night we arrived at the campsite. The first night was the same night we took our pictures. Taking pictures doesn't take a lot of time so during the night we had a lot of time to kill. We had to be up for 4 hours capturing the Milky Way, but we didn't spend all that time taking pictures. At around 2 in the morning we took a break from taking pictures and walked back to our campsite. We all sat down at a table and were joined by other people on our team that happened to still be awake. As a group we all decided to play uno and cards against humanity. After playing a few rounds people headed to bed, but my friends and I walked to a nearby dock and stayed up until sunrise. A few people ended up falling asleep on the dock before sunrise, but were awake to watch the sunrise. The night was filled with lots of laughter and lots of new memories. This week we planned our camping trip to Cuyamaca Lake, epoxied photos, and had lots of open work time. When planning for our camping trip we had to make list of items to bring, tent groups, and supplies. Throughout the whole week my friends and I had assigned certain items to certain people to bring so we could make sure we had everything. As a whole team we will be traveling to Cuyamaca Lake. The reasoning for this trip is to get astrophotography pictures. My group and I want to capture the Milky Way. In order to find out how to take pictures of the Milky Way, we had to do some research. The researched went into our open work time. Also this week we epoxied more photos. All of the photos ended up turning out very well.
Humanities & Chemistry This week for both chemistry and humanities we focused on our photography hitlist for our trip to Cuyamaca Lake. My group and I are planning on getting pictures of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way starts to rise at 11:00pm and will be right above our heads at 3:00am, meaning those times are the best to capture our photos. We have to be facing between East and North East and we'll locate the galaxy by finding the constellation Cygnus. This week I printed out my final landscape photo, wrote an essay about how artists, scientists, and philosophers work leads to curiosity, and made slime in chemistry. At the beginning of this week I got to print my final draft of my landscape photo onto metallic photo paper. In this next up coming week, I should hopefully be applying the epoxy top coat to my photo. My landscape photo will be listed under this paragraph. In humanities we wrote an essay about how scientists, artists, and philosophers work can lead to wonder and curiosity. We read the first chapter from the book Light by Bruce Watson to get inspiration for our writing. My essay will be listed under the humanities section. IN chemistry this week we made slime out of glue, borax, food coloring, and water. From doing this experiment we got to learn how control different ingredients when doing experiments. Final draft landscape photo: Humanities How does the work of scientists, artists, and philosophers lead to wonder and curiosity? Below is the button that has my essay linked, if you are interested in reading my answer to this question, please click the button. Chemistry
This week we started to make our final landscape prints. Five other students and I took initiative into learning how to epoxy photos. During open work time, we would go into our chemistry classroom and start preparing photos. We got a total of 6 photos done. Towards the end of the week we were working on the 7th and 8th photos and ended up making a mistake. We had mixed the epoxy with the hardener too early which gave us less time to work with it once we poured it on the picture. After making that mistake we can now learn from it and not do it again in the future.
Humanities
1. THE PHOTO Having your photo being high quality plays a big role while processing. Depending on what camera you took it one whether it was an actual camera or your phone affects how high quality your photo will turn out to be. When putting your photo onto a 13 x 19 piece of wood, you don't want your photo to be pixelated. 2. PROCESSING THE PHOTO Putting your photo into Photoshop can help you get your photo just the way you want it. You can adjust the contrast, brightness, and saturation/colors. Also putting your photo into Lightroom to De-noise your photo, which mean making it less pixelated. 3. METALLIC PHOTO PAPER Printing your photo onto metallic paper gives your photo more vibrancy. It brings out more of the highlights from your photo. It gives your photo a more glistening effect and make it a more 3D look. 4. EPOXY TOP COAT Applying the epoxy top coat to your photo will add a glass light feel. It makes it look more put together, clean, and adds more depth to your photo. It helps reduce a glare effect from the sun and from getting sun damage. It helps the photo stay in it's true colors and form for a long time. Chemistry
This week we finished developing our photos, did our project jobs, and experimented with dry ice. For a few weeks now a group of students and I have been spending our extra time finishing up developing photos for our project. At the beginning of this week we finished all 52 photos for our team. All of our time and hard work paid off because all the photos turned out well. Also this week, as part of our classroom job we clean the classrooms to make them more organized. My group and I organized Andrew's classroom this week. As a group we worked together to make sure every item in his classroom had a place. The last thing we did this week was experiment with dry ice. On our own we got to experiment using different techniques with the dry ice. Zoe and I connected a coin to the dry ice and watched the frost form around the coin. Humanities This week in humanities we revised our John Steinbeck writing piece that we had done in the previous week. I had gotten another student in my class to critique my writing. I had gotten lots of feedback and revised my work. Below is the link to my revised writing piece. Chemistry
As I had said earlier we got to experiment with dry ice. As a class we learned about phases of matter and watched how to make the solid dry ice turn into a liquid. When experimenting with the dry ice, we had decided to make a coin come in contact with the dry ice. As soon as the metal had touched the dry ice, a screeching sound was made. We asked Andrew our chemistry teacher why that was happening and he told us that it was because the heat from the coin was causing the ice to turn to gas more rapidly, therefore creating vibrations between the coin and ice that cause the noise. Once the coin got cold enough, the noise stopped and the ice began to get cold and get some frost on it. Below is a photo of the coin getting frosted over. This week we did a light experiment in chemistry, got our project specialties, and practiced taking landscape photos. In chemistry we took different elements from the periodic table and burned them. When burning the different materials, it would have different effects when touching the fire. It would turn different colors. We spent the rest of the period that day learning about the reaction. This week when we met as a team and picked out our project roles. Some example of the project roles that were offered were travel agents, space cadets, and social media daily. The project role that I chose was the wolf group. The wolf group takes on finishing up previous parts of the project, organizes the classroom, and is in charge of most parts of the project. The last thing we did this week was practice taking landscape photos. We got to walk around our school and take landscape photos of the nearby areas. After taking our photos we then came back to process our photos on photoshop. When editing my photo, I brought out the colors more. It is a very slight change, but you can still tell. Below has the side by side pictures of the photo before and after processing. On the left is the before and on the right is the after. Humanities
In humanities this week we were told to write about an area that brings us happiness. Earlier in the semester we read the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck as a class. We had to write about the place we picked like the beginning of the book. John Steinbeck describes the setting very vividly. The place i chose to write about was the beach. I have a lot of happy memories there with my family. Below has the writing I wrote about the beach in the John Steinbeck style. Alongside the coast lies the ocean so blue and deep with the sea. The sea brushes along the hot sand with a reflection of the blazing heated sun. Above sits the light blue sky that holds a countless amount of white clouds that are thin enough to let the light shine through them. The sea leads out to the horizon above. The journey to find the end gets longer the harder you look and the closer you see. The sea draws you in as you search for what may be out there. On one side of the sea lies the public filled with amusement and satisfaction and the other side leads out to the unknown. Animals lurk beneath the waters, but yet some go unseen. The sides of the water stretch out beyond eyesight. Also this week when we met as a team and picked out our project roles. Some example of the project roles that were offered as I said before were travel agents, space cadets, and social media daily. Travel agents manage field trips that student are interested on going on to take some photos. Space cadets helps figure out the next part of our project which is astrophotography, we will be using special cameras to take those pictures and they will learn how to use them. Social media daily manages our instagram account where we post student photography each week. If you have any interest in following our instagram account, our username is @hthlitproject. The project role that I chose was the wolf group. The wolf group take over the previous phase of the project to finish it. For example, in some of my previous posts I talk about developing photos in our project. The developing photos part of our project was supposed to be done a couple of weeks ago, but ended up taking longer than we thought it would. As part of the wolf group it's our job to take over that and finish the project for the rest of our team. Also apart of the wolf group is organizing the classroom. We know where everything is in both classrooms. We are the teachers go to people. Chemistry In chemistry this week we got to burn different elements from the periodic table to see different colors of the flame. The elements we used were Sodium, Boron, Potassium, Copper, Strontium, Lithium, Magnesium, and Iron. Our teacher had told us that, if you don't know what the element is, you can mix it with fire and by the color the fire turns is how you relate it to the element. After doing the experiment we were asked a question, what is light. After watching a video, this quote came up, "Different atoms emit different colors of light, if we can measure that light, in principle we can determine what an object is made of, even if we can't touch it." This week we planned our field trips to go to a place where we wanted to take landscape photos, developed more photos, and planned our independent experiments. A few of my friends and I plan on going to hike Cowles mountain this upcoming weekend. The purpose of hiking was for we could get landscape photos we need for the next phase of our project. I had previously hiked Cowles mountain before so I know the mountain contains beautiful landscape shots. In the first phase of the project we had to develop photos. Developing photos took a little longer than we had thought it would. A group of students and I spend our free time working on finishing developing everyone's photos. This week we had run out of developer so we needed to buy some more. The developer was a different kind of developer so we had to adjust the way we exposed each photo. Finally this week we planned out our independent group experiments. The independent experiment I will be working on is bath bombs. To find out more information about the bath bombs, go to the chemistry section of this post. Humanities This week in Humanities we picked a panorama photo and had to write a 250 word essay about it. We picked a panorama photo of our choice and mine is of the John Muir Horse Head Lake. Below has the photo and the essay I wrote about it. In the image is the John Muir Horse Head Lake. The photo contains many different aspects that help make the picture very contrasted. The image has lots of brighter tones towards the top portion of the picture, but has more darker tones in the lower half of the picture. In the bottom half the the picture the rocks create a big contrast between the green grass and the light grey rock. Another contrast that is shown in the picture is the contrast between the white colored clouds and the dark blue sky. The photo also has lots of detail and texture. The grass has areas where the grass differs in the light and dark range of green. There are also some areas where there are parts of the land that have a patch where no grass is, but draws attention because it is surrounded by grass. The water in the center of the picture also has lot of texture. The light carries lots of texture because the water has light reflecting off of it in different ways. In some areas the water may appear darker in color than other parts of the water. The depth of field in the photo is very wide.
Chemistry In Andrew's we're developing independent projects. A group of my friends and I decided that we wanted to make bath bombs. Bath bombs are very interesting to me because I'm not really sure about what makes them fizz or what makes them hold their shape. I'd like to learn what causes the bath bomb's reaction to water, and learn how to form them correctly because from what I understand that's very important to the functionality of the bath bomb. If you click on the button below, it will take you to our bath bomb proposal. This week we continued to develop photos, made H2 balloons, and learned about the Flint Michigan water crisis. In chemistry this week we continued to develop our photos for the project. A few other students and I spent our time this week trying to figure out the developing aspect of the project. We spent some of our extra time developing photos and testing out to make sure everyone's photos would turn out perfect. Also In chemistry we made H2 balloons. As a group we mixed materials together in a volumetric flask with a balloon tied to the top of it. The materials in the flask made the balloon inflate. After watching the experiment we had to write down questions we had about the experiment. In humanities this week we learned about the Flint Michigan water crisis. Our job was to research about our topic and answer a few questions about the area we picked.
Humanities This week we got into partnerships and researched certain areas around a few questions. All areas people researched were based on an area that had to make a certain water decision whether it was good or bad. Some cities that have made decisions on where their water comes from sometimes ends up hurting their community or hurting the area where the water is coming from. Below has my partners and I responses to the questions surrounding Flint Michigan. 1. What Happened? The water in Flint, Michigan was poisoned by lead from corroded pipes. The pipes were corroded because in an effort to save money, Flint's water source was switched to water from the Flint river. The river water is what corroded the pipes, and the corrosion is what deposited lead into the water supply. 2. Was it necessary? No, it wasn't necessary. The city officials were more focused on saving money than on public health and safety. It was more expensive to use their other source, and the river was cheaper, but they should have known that the river water wasn't safe. 3. What are the Water Right's impact? The water was in violation of the Safe Water Act. This means it was not safe to consume or use for everyday/household things such as bathing and washing your hands 4. How did this affect the environment? It's Affecting the people of Flint. Lead poisoning is a lifelong illness, which can lead to lots of other medical conditions and problems. People are being permanently poisoned. Children are being burdened with medical issues before they even really have a chance to live their lives. Is money really worth that? Chemistry In chemistry we made H2 balloons. We put powdered citric acid and magnesium in a volumetric flask, then added a little bit of water. Doing those steps, it caused the balloon to fill with H2, which then caused the balloon to float. Some observations I had made during the experiment were that as the materials mixed the flask became warm and showed steam towards the top of the flask. The magnesium slowly dissolved into the mixture and the mixture gradually started to bubble and become more clear. The longer we let the mixture settle, the balloon expanded more and more. Questions I have about the experiment: 1. Does the mixing of the materials make the flask hot? 2. What makes the magnesium dissolve? 3. What causes the bubbling? This week we finished the first draft of our second 1000 word writing pieces, finished reading the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and learned the process of how to develop our photos. In our project we had to take our own picture that we think represents humanity. After we took that picture we turned it black and white and wrote five different writing pieces surrounding our photo. The five different writing perspectives I chose were emotional, composition, personal, subject POV, and photographer POV. Throughout the second semester so far we have been reading the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. This past week we finished the book and will have a socratic seminar about the book in the next upcoming week. Another thing we did this past week in chemistry was learned the process of how we will be developing our photos. This took lots of trial and error when experimenting. Humanities This week we finished up our first draft of our 1000 word piece. In my photo shows and man and a young boy playing with bubbles. The writing pieces I wrote were all based around the concept of the photo. The writing portion were separated into five perspectives. The writing perspectives I chose were emotional, composition, personal, subject POV, and photographer POV. Below shows the photo and the five writing pieces I wrote. Subject POV
I see a smile appear upon his face and instantly I feel warmth in my heart. To others what I do may not be all that special and may seem to be worth it, but when an outcome of joy to anyone’s age makes my heart skip a beat. To me, that’s what makes this job all worth it. Everyday I come here and set up my stand and watch people walk by. Every once in awhile someone will stop to watch me, but that’s not very often. Moments like the one i’m in now put a smile on my face. Even though I do have another job, I prefer to do this job that makes people happy. Seeing this young boy makes me think about what my future might look like. I could have a wife, a son or daughter, a family I could call my own. I could take my son or daughter out and make memories like I am making memories with the boy standing next to me. All that I do now leads up to my future, but like I said that’s the future. I don’t know what exactly will happen. All I can do now is wait. Composition In the photo the subject is the man holding the rope to make the bubbles. The photo has lots of contrast on both side of the image. The man has a dark shirt, but is surrounded by light colored flowers to bring out the darkness of his shirt. The boy on the left is surrounded by dark colored leaves on the tree, but he is wearing a light colored shirt, so it makes him stand out more. The light comes from the right side of the picture giving the appearance of the bubble more texture and detail. The sign in the bottom left hand corner also draws the eye. Having the sign so close to the camera and having it the text be bold draws attention to it. Using the golden ratio technique the sign draws your eyes leading you up to the man and then the bubble. In the image, the trees are the background, the man and boy are midground, and the sign is the foreground. Emotional I think that this photo conveys happiness even though it does not appear on their faces. The young boy expressed happiness when he was playing with the bubbles. The young boy expresses happiness through the activity he is doing. The older man expresses happiness also in the activity he is doing. The man was trying to impress mostly the kids, but also the audience, so they could give him donations for what he was doing. I think that a lot of people could relate to the lifestyle of the man. He needs a little extra money whether it was for children of his own or bills he needs to pay. They could also relate to what the man is doing for the children. He stands outside all day long doing entertainment for children. He wants to make the kids happy and put them first, but also he has fun doing it too. Personal I feel that I could relate to this photo very well. When I look at this photo it reminds me of when I was a little kid growing up and how my dad and I would always blow bubbles at the park. When I was around five years old, I was very fascinated by bubbles, and now looking back I’m not really sure why. My dad when I was growing up always wanted what was best for me and always let me learn about and do whatever I wanted, and what I wanted was bubbles. Everytime my family went to the store, I insisted them on buying more bubbles for me. Everyday after school my dad would take me and my sister to the park and we would blow as many bubbles we could get out of the bottle we had. A couple years later, I was still very interested in bubbles. I had gotten sick and tired of using just the small stick that came with the bubbles so my dad put together a similar rope in the photo that the man is using to blow his bubbles. After he had showed me the rope, I was hooked. After that day for another year or so, blowing bubbles in the park was the best after school activity ever. Photographer POV I look over to my right and see a man standing underneath the trees. My friend and I walk closer to see another young boy standing next to him. They appear to be happy. They both blow bubbles using a rope tied to two handles. This instantly brings back memories of my father and I when I was in elementary school. A smile lightens up my face as I watched them and thought back on my memory. The young boy runs around me in a circle blowing bubbles around me. After all the bubbles are done, he runs back over to the bucket with the soap and dips his rope back into it. I look up to my left and see the boy’s mom and dad taking pictures of the boy. I kneel down and pull out the camera of my own and snap a quick picture of my own. I tell the man thank you for letting us watch. I walk away with a feeling in my heart knowing that this photo means something to me and to another family. The last thing we did in humanities this week was come up with some ideas for photos for the next phase of the project. The next thing we will be focusing on is landscape photography. We had to come up with some places, any place you want, where you would want to take pictures at. Once we have picked the place we want to take pictures at, a group and I will go out to the place we want to shoot at with a teacher and spend a few hours taking photos. Below are the places a group and I came up with to go shoot. 1. Cowles Mountain 2. The Grand Canyon 3. Yosemite Chemistry In chemistry this week, we learned the process of how the photos develop. In the developing process, there are four parts to it. The four parts are, the developer, the stop bath, the fixer, and the wash. Below lists what each part of the process does. Developer - Adds an electron back to feed silver ions, making it turn black Stop Bath - Stops the developer by taking away any leftover electrons Fixer - Dissolves remaining Silver Chloride salts Wash - Washes away residual chemicals Some questions I have about the process is how does the fixer stop the color development of the photo after going through the stop bath? |
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