So, I'm beginning to edit and upload all my photos I've taken over the past three months that I did not have time to go through during school. Here is the first completed collection, which has come ahead of the Cars and Coffee photos because I need to complete it first for my friends.

If you do not know, Barrett is the honors college at Arizona State University, and every year Barrett hosts a formal dance. I had no intention of going, but several of my friends who were wished to have some photos taken. So, I obliged.

We decided to take photos in the square of Old Main, which have the oldest buildings in the campus, with some nice brickwork and flora. Unfortunately, everyone else wished to take photos in the same location. So, after having to abandon Old Main and the fountain, we settled on another building that looked just as nice.

There were four people I needed to photograph, but only two of my friends were present. So, I took some photos of them together.

After these snapshots, we decided to take some individual photos, utilizing the beautiful flower bushes and railing nearby. Of course, there was also the traffic on the road behind us that we had to worry about, but at least traffic wasn't too bad, and there were enough opportunities to take photos without cars in the background. Here's the gallery of my first friend.

And after her, my other friend:

And another group photo:

After all this, the others arrived. I guess there was a miscommunication because they said they were also there, but I was confused and time was running short, so I snapped a few group photos before my friends departed for the dance.

We all went to dinner afterwards, and I returned to ASU to freak out about my physics grade.

Thanks to school, I have been extremely busy, and while I have time to take photos, sorting and editing them remains a different story. Hence, this blog, about a shoot that happened on the 26th of March.

A good high school friend of mine was in town that week for her spring break. She wants to enter photography and was hoping to learn a little from me, as well as take photos/get photos taken. It was around 4:30pm, and she suggested going to the (kind of) near South Mountain.

South Mountain, relative to Arizona State University and Sky Harbor in Phoenix.Image from Google Maps. — South Mountain, relative to Arizona State University and Sky Harbor in Phoenix.
Image from Google Maps.

Thanks to rush hour traffic, it took around 35 minutes to get to the base of the mountain. But the road that lay ahead was amazing. A little too amazing, to control myself.

As a person who loves driving, this road was heaven. Hence, I drove a little too fast uphill, getting me and my friend kicked off the mountain for the day. So, we headed back down to the base. With the golden hour quickly passing, we decided to hike to a smaller hill, and I taught my friend some basics about DSLRs and photo techniques. After this, with the sun already almost below the horizon, we decided to take some photos.

There was still some light left, and I managed to take some solid photos, which ended up being the "fierce" photos. Although she did not like them as much as the other photos, I really liked these pictures because of the attitude I saw in them. Also, thanks to the sun, the lighting was very nice, creating a sun-glow/shine effect that I like.

Because there were windows, we also took some photos of her looking out of them. First, from behind. Personally, I like these photos because I feel that it conveys a large amount of emotion, as if the photo is about reminiscence of the past, or uncertainty towards the future. I think these will make great monochrome conversions; I'll have to try it some time.

The first photo is soft, partly out of creativity, partly because the camera did not focus on her hair like I intended, making it rather fuzzy. Instead of trying to sharpen and blend the hair in, I softened the rest of the image to match it, creating a neat effect my friend pointed out to me; her hair looks like flames. While we were at the window, she and I decided to take some photos of her from the other side of the building.

My friend also wanted some photos of her taking pictures, so of course I obliged. I brought my Nikon D3100 with me so that she could use it. It functioned as both a camera and a prop here.

At this point, daylight was running out quickly, since it was already around 7pm and the sun had dipped below the horizon already. But, there were still photos to take, as the building we were in served as a perfect backdrop. Thanks to my tripod and my friend's ability to stand still, I was able use longer exposures to take some low-light portraits without flash or noisy ISO settings.

Although some of the shots came out softer than I would have liked, they were still good, in my opinion. With sunlight practically gone (it was 7:30pm, after all), we decided to head back to Tempe. However, I saw the perfect photo opportunity. I asked my friend to sit on a wooden fence so that she would be facing the remaining light in the sky from the sunset.

I originally wanted to HDR the images together, but because of the movement between each image, I couldn't do it. So, instead, I decided to create the "sun-glow/shine" effect, as mentioned previously. Because I couldn't decide how soft and bright I wanted the image, I made multiple versions.

With daylight now completely gone, my friend and I headed back to Tempe. While I may have screwed up getting us to the summit of South Mountain, we did come back with some nice shots and increased knowledge of photography.