Latin School of Chicago

This year has been another great one for Latin's exuberant photo club. We started off in the fall with a core group of excited freshmen and sophomores, all of whom have been a lot of fun to be around during our club meetings. In our first activity of the year, we messed around with human-sized bubbles to try our hand at high-speed photography. This activity resulted in some enormous soapy creations that ended up looking stellar on camera. Next, we enlisted the help of a photo rendering program to create interactive 360-degree images that capture an environment. Using this program was a new one for the club but everyone one quickly became engrossed in the seamless worlds the program allowed us to create. Before the winter months set in, we did one more shoot outside. This shoot, utilizing our very own North Avenue Beach, was prop driven as we brought a number of small mirrors and a variety of pails to play with angles and see if we could capture the short-lived sand monsters created by hoisting buckets of sand into the air. During the winter months, the goal was to put more focus on skill development, which is how the lines, patterns and colors scavenger hunt and the miniature people shoot came into play. Both photo shoots are detailed-oriented and require the photographer to be dutifully focused on the task at hand. With this in mind, all of the members rose to the occasion and came out with some great work. Our springtime activities consisted of multiple light writing shoots, a personal favorite, and some work with the pixelstick to create a number of great silhouettes. Light writing is a technique where the shutter speed is manually slowed down to allow a subject to create paintbrush like qualities in an image with a small light source (like a flashlight or keychain light). The challenge with light writing is that you are given a completely blank canvas and have to offer an idea of what to draw to fuel it. Even with the added challenge of having to come up with their own inspiration, light writing was never an issue for any of the club members as everyone quickly jumped on board with drawing whatever came to them. In the same vein as light writing, using the pixelstick requires the shutter speed to be manually controlled and light to be used as a medium for drawing, however when using the pixelstick the quality of light resembles more of a canvas background than a paintbrush. After already having worked with flashlights in a similar fashion, everyone was comfortable with this imagination driven style allowing us to maximize the pixelstick's unique properties, namely its ability to create complex silhouettes. With each member using their iPhone cameras, enhanced with a long exposure app, a number of students acted as models posing for the silhouettes while the rest directed the models how they wanted them to pose in order to bring their (artistic) vision to life. Looking back at all the fun we've had this year, I am proud of the members for their dedication and hard work, and look forward to all the amazing images they will have the chance to create during their time at Latin. Best, Uriah Mckinney Photo Club Head Photo club members pose for a group picture. Picture Frame Portal Kelsey Watkins '19 Hunter Morgan, Layla Passman VIDI co-editors 68213_VIDI_2016_r2.indd 3 5/20/16 9:16 AM

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