As a student and photographer, how did 2024 treat you, and what did you learn about yourself? What aspirations do you have in 2025?

As a student, I think 2024 was one of the most eventful years I’ve ever had. I’ve met so many new people, tried new things, and traveled to exciting places. For 2025, I want to start working on myself and focus more on my studies and sport.

As a photographer, in 2024 I’ve learned a lot about photography skills, from the different angles that make a major difference to the elements I should put into my photos. The class has helped me really understand that just snapping a picture once isn’t enough. It has taught me that to take a good picture, it’s going to take multiple snaps of a camera and several different trials.

Specific personal goals!

A short-term goal for me would be to really work on deep cleaning my room honestly. It would look really nice if it wasn’t so cluttered up.

A long-term goal of mine would be to become more focused on my studies and hopefully break my 200 free scy personal best time.

What photography style would you like to seek after in this semester?

There are a ton of amazing styles of photography to choose from. Personally, I think I would like to start focusing on abstract photography. It’s really simple, but when I look at the abstract photos, it sort of feels calming in a way. There aren’t many distractions, just playing with lighting, color, shapes, and texture.

Hey! Here are my top 10 photos from last year, hope you like them!

The images above were from our Elements of Photography and Rules of Composition project on 10/7/24!

The overall process was learning each of the elements and rules and incorporating them inside of a photograph. It teaches us to work and analyze the photo and things around the photo instead of just straight up snapping it.

The image above is from our mobile scavenger hunt project on 9/26/2024!

The process was choosing 3 types of photos/portraits and incorporating each of them into their own photo. The topic I chose for this one was “pet”, so I captured a photo of my dog in the pool.

The images above are from our ABC project on 12/6/24!

The process was training and teaching our eyes how to view items around us differently and creatively and form them or view them as letters of the alphabet.

The images above are from our selfies project on 12/17/24!

The process was choosing 3 things about us and capturing us in it while showing something about us. This taught me how to be more creative with the items around my house and having an open eye for ideas. The first picture just shows items that describe me. For example, the Christmas tree shows my love for Christmas, swim equipment shows my passion for my sport, and the perfumes show that I like to smell good. All of those photos don’t have me in it but still describe stuff about me, so it went under the conceptual photos category. The second photo shows that I am a nail tech, and I incorporated the “text” in it because that’s one of the topics. Lastly, my favorite color is pink, so I dressed in all pink and posed for the camera. This went under the regular selfie category.

My top project was the selfies one because I had so much fun finding props and combining them to express the kind person I am!

JPEG – Stands for “Joint Photographic Experts Group”, this is what many cameras set as their default output, they are compressed at the moment of capture; therefore, when you take a KPEG, you instantly lose some image detail. Generally used for images on social media. It’s used for personal photos or sharing images via email or messaging apps.

HEIF – Stands for “High Efficiency Image Format, these are smaller than JPEGS yet offer similar or even increased quality. Generally used for storing individual digital images and image sequences. Use it for efficient image sharing since it has a faster upload without sacrificing image quality.

TIFF – Stands for “Tagged Image File Format”, these can smoothly convert to JPEGs, so even if the end file format will be a JPEG, many photographers prefer to edit a TIFF. Generally used for raster graphics and image information, easier editing, and storing coordinates as meta data with the file. Use it for storing high-quality photographs.

RAW – These files store all of the information originally captured by the camera – which means that adjustments to while balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and sharpness can all be easily applied in image-editing software after the photo has been taken. Generally used for the “original” image without an editing. Use it to create the highest-quality files.

DNG – Stands for “Digital Negative”, this file type was created by Adobe in an attempt to provide a standard RAW file that can be used by all manufacturers and cameras. Generally used as a main RAW file format or as an alternative to the manufacturer’s native RAW format. Use it to access image-processing software such as Lightroom and Photoshop.

PNG – Stands for “Portable Network Graphic”, in the ’90s as an improvement on the GIF file format, PNG files are reasonably small, relatively high quality, and displayable on browsers – so they’re ideal for internet use. It is used mostly for web designers. Use them when you have a high-quality transparent graphic or working with images that will be edited many times.

GIF – This is an image file that can be animated or still. These are generally used for internet use. You can use these in text messages, posts, or even comments to make what you are saying funny.

BMP – This is a file invented by Microsoft and are on the larger side in terms of color data and better quality. Generally, these are used for saving raster images. You can use it for printing.

PSD – This is used by Adobe Photoshop when saving data. This is used for manipulating images on separate layers and resaving edited photos as any other file format. This file type is typically used for designers and artists when working with higher quality artworks.

what it is

what its for

when do i use it

9/11 was a very tragic event in US history. During this, two planes flew into the twin towers, causing them to collapse. The whole country was in panic because they believed that they were being terrorized and at war. This is because the towers have been hit, and the Pentagon was hit by a hijacked plane as well. Two hijacked planes flew into the twin towers, which made the people above trapped. During this, people who were stuck above the crash area of the building jumped off the side of the buildings for instant death. It’s a very sad time because so many innocent people died, and many lost their loved ones and got hurt. When the first plane hit, George W. Bush was reading to a young group of students. When his secretary informed him on the matter, you could see the life drained out of his eyes. As if he went into instant seriousness and a little panic. In the end, 2977 people died, and the twin towers’ old occupation land is now a memorial for the lives lost but also to symbolize America’s bonding after the event.

I wasn’t alive during this time, but from the stories, videos, and images I’ve seen, I feel bad for people who lost their loved ones and for those who were there to experience it. My dad was in college during this time, and he said he remembered seeing it on the TV during his class. He said it was really scary because it was so unexpected and intense. 

Documentary photography helps us visually understand what people went through at this time. Many of the photographs and videos taken during this event really help document exactly what happened while expressing emotions and feelings through them. Pictures of people jumping off of the towers and dropping in the air really show how mentally stressed and hopeless they must have felt at that time. You can see people frantically on phone calls, running places, scared faces, lost children, and people hiding. The pictures really pull us into wondering how they must have been feeling. 

Imagery impacts the event by helping us see the details, emotions, events, situations, and tragedies that occurred without any words having to explain them. With the pictures taken, you can already tell from the corrupted towers, people jumping, screaming, and frantically running anywhere. You can tell how they were feeling and what was going on without even needing any words to describe. Sometimes things are described and felt through pictures and imagery rather than just verbally addressing them. 

Pictures from September 11: In pictures | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

My favorite color is black. Favorite meal would be Italian sandwiches with fair-styled lemonade and the Zuppa Toscana soup from olive garden. When I grow up, I want to be an anesthesiologist nurse because they make a lot of money and what they do is very interesting. At karaoke night, I would sing any song by Bruno Mars! If I were a superhero with powers, I would have super speed, so I could go places really quick. The perfect Saturday night for me is going out to BR, eating out, and late-night drives with my friends. If I had a wild animal as a pet, I would want a leopard because they are pretty and strong. If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to Portugal or anywhere tropical because I love the beach and tanning. If I had the choice to go back in time, I would go back to the summer before freshman year because my family and I went to Cabo, and it was very fun.