Rainn Wilson, February 28th 2011
Rainn Wilson, the actior who plays Dwight on “The Office” came and spoke at Chapman about his bahai faith. Mr. Wilson, although not there to put on a comedy performance, was quite funny and frequently had the audience laughing in-between more serious topics. He was also sudo-promoting his site “Soul-Pancake” which is a place on the web to contemplate spiritual topics and ask the big questions of life.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/7/11
My First Car, February 27th 2011
This. Is. My. First. Car.
Goal #28 for 2011 (Get a Car): ACHIEVED
His name is Trooper. He is a 92′ BMW 3-Series. I bought him from my boss’s wife at my internship. They have two kids and a two-door was getting to be too small.
The funny thing about Trooper is that he is stick-shift.
I don’t know how to drive stick.
So why did I even consider buying a car I wouldn’t know how to drive?
I dono. I guess it was just one of those things where I thought I’d pick it up quick if I had to. And I had to.
Drivng Margie Do (my boss’s wife) back from Triple-A was probably one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. She immediately picked up on the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and had no confidence whatsoever in getting us home. But instead of taking over, we had a quick crash course (literally) in driving stick, and I got my first taste of driving stick out on a busy road.
From that time I’ve had a couple lessons from friends and can saftley say I am comfortable driving stick. There was a really scary week at the beginning but now that its over, life is good.
Some other bonding experiences I’ve had with Trooper:
– Something was wrong with his anti-theft alarm, and so it would constantly go off as I was driving down the street. Got a lot of really weird looks on that one.
– Drove to Beverly Hills belting Lady Gaga in thick traffic on my way to a modeling audition.
– Stalling in the middle of I-5 when traffic got really slow, and then taking about two minutes before there was a chance to get started up again.
– Having the battery die on the second day I had Trooper andnot being able to find his battery in order to jump him. (Its in the back as opposed to under the hood)
Actual Date of Photos: 2/7/11
Laguna with Zach and Taylor, February 26th 2011
Soooo I don’t know why we did this… but Zach, Taylor and I got up at like 5:30 am one morning to go check out Laguna. I think the original idea was to do a photo-shoot in the water, but it was kinda too cold and we were all way to tired to do anything. So we ended up just exploring a little and went home.
Moral of the story: College students shouldn’t do anything before 8:00am, and if they think they’re going to function before that, they are just lying to themselves.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/6/11
Adam Vincent Headshots, February 25th 2011
Adam, who is my resident, heard from Salina that I did head shots. So he asked me to do his.
Actual date of Photos: 2/6/11
Sunset HDR of the Chapman Dorms, February 24rd 2011
We’ve been having some absolutely beautiful sunsets in Orange lately. Practically every evening I’ll get a text from Josh Sorosky saying I should go take photos of the sunset with him.
This evening I decided to get a couple HDR shots. They are of the walkway between Henley and Sandhu and then one of Sandhu.
Actual date of photos: 2/5/11
Let Me See You PhiBear, February 23rd 2011
Chapman’s chapter of Alpha Phi had a Phi-Bear photo-competition. Needless to say, the Delts had some shots to submit.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/4/11
Cinematography II Class, February 22nd 2011
I think Cinmeatograpy II is my favorite class right now. We show up, talk for twenty minutes, then spend the rest of the three hour class on the sound stages playing with film cameras. We set up shots, light them, practice dolly moves, load the film into cameras, mess around with light meters, and more. Its all hands on stuff, which I love. Jurg Walther is the professor, and he knows his stuff.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/4/11 and 2/10/11
Tony Goldwyn at Dodge, February 21st 2011
Tony Goldwyn is an actor and dirctor in LA. He was the voice of Tarzan, has acted in TV shows such as Dexter and Fraiser, been in movies like “The Last Samuri” (with Tom Cruise), and “The Mechanic,” and has directed episodes of “Law and Order,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Kidnapped.”
He was at Dodge the other night to talk with filmstudents and to show his new movie “Conviction.”
Actual Date of Photos: 2/3/11
Scott Silver at Dodge, February 20th 2011
Scott Silver is an Oscar nominated screenwriter who wrote “8-Mile,” “The Mod Squad,” and most recently “The Fighter.” (With Christian Bale and Mark Walberg.)
He was at Dodge having dinner with film students and I was there taking pictures.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/2/11
Climbing Buildings and HDR, February 18th 2011
Last summer a bunch of friends from back home and I would go climb buildings for fun. We called ourselves the Corvallis Climbers. We would climb elementary schools, high schools, whatever we could get on top of. It may have been slightly illegal, but we were safe and respectful to the buildings so I think we handled it pretty well.
Lately I’ve had a resurgence of the urge to climb. Mostly fueled by the goal of taking HDR photos, I’ve been climbing buildings in the Orange circle with Scott Stedman and company. Its a good stress reliever actually. The tops of buildings are pretty peaceful and the view is always nice.
Here’s some experimental shots I took last expedition. I didn’t nail the concept on the first one, but the better I get at photo-shop the better I’ll be able to do stuff like this.
Actual Date of Photos 2/2/11
‘Vagina Monologues’ Headshots, February 17th 2011
The Vagina Monologues are monologues read by a varying number of women. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality.
Chapman’s production of “The Vagina Monologues” asked me to do headshots for everyone in the cast.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/1/11
Margie Do, February 16th 2011
Margie is the wife of Xuong Do, my internship boss.
…Or more accurately, my photography sensei.
This picture was taken moments after she handed over the keys of her (now my), 92′ 3-series BMW.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/1/11
Jonathan Sanger, Simon Brand, February 15th 2011
Recently I was hired as the Event Photographer at Dodge Collge (the Film School at Chapman University).
Most of the events I do are Filmmaker-in-Residence Dinners. Dodge brings in filmmakers from the industry, shows one of their movies at the film school theater, and invites film students have dinner with them and talk about film. There’s usually a question and answer session afterwards.
For my first job, Jonathan Sanger and Simon Brand were the featured filmmakers. Joathan Sanger produced “Vanilla Sky” (with Tom Cruise), “The Producers” (with Matthew Broderick and Uma Thurman), and “the Elephant Man.” He won an Oscar in 1987 for Best Short Film with “Ray’s Male Heterosexual Dance Hall.”
Simon Brand is the director of “Paraiso Travel.” (I’ve never heard of that movie either, don’t feel bad.)
So basically I just was in the über nice dinning room on the top of Dodge College taking pictures of semi-famous people. Right? Sweet deal.
Actual Date of Photos: 2/1/11
Tattoos, February 14th 2011
Two of my residents have gotten tattoos since coming to college.
There’s something about the permanency of tattoos that’s really intriguing.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/31/11
Orange Circle HDR, February 13th 2011
Goal #5 for 2011 (Learn how to do HDR Photography) EVEN MORE ACHIEVED
So, technically this goal was already achieved, but the quality of my first HDR photos weren’t up to par with my expectations. These ones are.
The difference? I spent more time making sure they were focused, put more effort into keeping the camera still during the 30-some exposures, and then after I created the HDR image, I brought it into lightroom and did more enhancing. The result: An awesome, epic shot of the Orange Circle, and the Alley we climbed up to get to our vantage spot for the shot.
This was a lot of fun, not only because of the HDR but because it reminded me of being back home and climbing buildings. Scott Stedman and I shimmied up a pipe at Starbucks in order to get on the roof of the building so we could take the shots. Something about climbing in urban areas is very exhilerating.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/31/11
Playing With the Speedlight, February 12th 2011
Natural light is great, don’t get me wrong.
But artificial light is fun too.
I recentley got a Canon 580EX II Speedlight. With it you can take pretty cool portraits in low light.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/30/11
HDR with Scott Stedman, February 11th 2011
Goal #5 for 2011 (Learn how to do HDR Photography) ACHIEVED.
Scott Stedman lives in Henley Hall at Chapman and is a music composition major. But he is also majorly good at photography and cinematography. When he saw I wanted to learn how to do HDR, he hit me up and offered to show me how.
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. I’s a phogtographic effect achieved by taking a ton of different photos of the same thing all with different exposures, from really light to really dark. Then when you combine all the photos on top of one another you can see the highlights from the over-exposed shots and the shadows from the under-exposed shots. The effect looks cool because it’s something the naked eye can’t do; seeing both highlights and shadows in detail at the same time.
So the day before the semester started we climbed to the top of Jim Miller Parking Structure and shot down on Henley. I didn’t do a very good job with my first HDR experience, but I can tell you that we have tried it since and pretty soon you’re going to be seeing some AWESOME HDR on the blog.
If you are the impatient type and want to see some AWESOME HDR now, go check out Scott’s blog, cuz he posts faster than me:
http://www.scottstedman.com/?p=280
http://www.scottstedman.com/?p=292
http://www.scottstedman.com/?p=313
I took two HDR shots, one of Henley, and one inside the parking structure, the rest are just of that night.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/30/11
Alex Chan’s Birthday, February 10th 2011
Alex Chan is 21!
Here’s some shots from her 21st birthday party.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/29/11
Gabbie and Juliet, February 9th 2011
A long time ago I told Gabbie and Juliet we’d do a photo-shoot. Then we didn’t.
All of a sudden on a lazy Saturday during Interterm, we did.
Gabbie and Juliet are both theater majors at Chapman. They are loud, cute, and fun. Pictures don’t get much easier than that.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/29/11
Friends Chillin’, February 8th 2011
I have cool friends. They Chill’ and stuff.
Daniel Howard, Mandy Sheehan, Taylor Peck, Adam Monson, Kellie Stump, yay!
Nuff said’
Actual Date of Photos: 1/29/11
New Door Decorations, February 7th 2011
Spring Semester is a busy time for RAs. One of the first things I have to do is make new Door Decorations for all 50 residents in my hall. This spring I toned down my decorations a little. (if you recall my bottle-cap solar system you know what I mean). But I still tried to make it fun. This semester I put all my residents faces on Lions.
Theme: Lion King.
Actual Date of Photos: 1/28/11
Canon 580 Speedlight, February 6th 2011
Guess who just got a brand new Canon 580EX II Speedlight?
This guy.
I’m super excited to get a speedlight (a mounted flash) because I got a job at Dodge College as the event photographer for their Filmmaker-in-Residence Program. (A dinner for film majors where they bring actual people from the industry and watch their films and talk about them.) Its an awesome opportunity to take pictures, network, hang out with film people, and get paid. I wanna make sure I get good stuff, so the flash was necessary.
Oh and also you need a flash for good wedding reception photos. You can’t get awesome dance-floor shots without a mounted flash, duh. haha
Actual Date of Photos: 1/27/11
Professor Michael Kowalski, Febuary 5th 2011
Michael Kowalski was the professor of my interterm “Transcultural Documentary” class. He was a great professor, knew a lot about documentary filmmaking, and gave a lot of good feedback and instruction on our projects.
Fun class.
Actual date of photo: 1/26/11
