Week 3: Trying

Photography, in the professional sense, intimidates me. I've taken pictures in my everyday life and on vacation and while traveling abroad, but never through as critical a lens as this class is teaching me to look through. I don't quite know yet if I can be both artistic and successful in the realm of photography. I'm learning. And more importantly, I'm trying. This past weekend I traveled to Bismarck, North Dakota with my mom and dad to move my younger sister into college for her second year at the University of Mary. I wanted to at least try and take some pictures because I was in a different part of the world. It was a quick and busy trip; I didn't get much, but I tried to think artistically about what I had in that time and place. I tried. Here is what I got:

There was a cement stairwell on the outside of my sister's residence hall facing the south end of the university's campus. She lives on the third floor, and walking down the stairwell around noon on Monday, I stopped to take both of these pictures from the second floor level. The top image is facing south. The image on the right is facing east. The University of Mary sits atop a hill overlooking Bismarck, and I think the view is beautiful. The expanse was what caught my attention here, and the clouds only helped.







On the six hour drive back home Monday night, we were witness to a very red sunset due to all of the smoke in the air. With about two hours to go, I took out my phone and started taking pictures. These images don't do it nearly enough justice, but I think they still look pretty cool. I was so intrigued by not only the color of the sun and what it did to the color of the sky, but also the cloud formations.


All of these pictures were taken on an iPhone 7. I didn't change any of the settings on the camera, just opened the app and started clicking. I also didn't edit any of them. I don't know how to do that either.