#thomas steele

Week 3: "Passion"

Shutter Speed: 13 Seconds — With the light on, the practice room was far too bright, so I had to take this shot with the lights off with the only light source coming from the small window in the door. The long exposure also allowed for the blurring of my hands. Aperture: f5 — There wasn't too much depth in the photo so I felt that an f-stop of 5 would be fitting, as well as allow more light into the dark photo. ISO: 3200 — I tried to find a balance between the vibrancy of the colors as well as the lightness of the image. When I put the ISO any higher, the photo began to have too much noise White Balance: Tungsten

Music, as well as any medium for expression, is my passion. For the self portrait I decided to take a long exposure of myself playing piano in one of Orange Hall's practice rooms. I've been playing for about 7 years and whenever I have free time before and after classes I'll go to the practice room for a while. It helps clear my mind and allows me to just focus on something I enjoy. 

Week 2: Texture

Shutter Speed: 1/100 — A 1/100 shutter speed worked well to take into account both the dim lighting and the movement of the water.

ISO: 800 — This allowed for the colors to still be prominent so as not to lose the texture of my skin and the bubbles. Unfortunately I couldn’t go much lower without the photo becoming too dark.

Aperture: F3.5 — Because of how far away the camera was and that my hands were very close to the water, the depth of focus was not a major priority. An f-stop of 3.5 worked well in this this shot due to it allowing more light into the photo.

— White Balance: Custom

My idea for this shot came when I was staying late after work for the third night in a row. I work the closing shift in a deli and on the nights where we’re understaffed, I’ll sometimes end up doing dishes for hours straight just to play catch-up. I felt like this sort of shot would be great to use to represent a “self-portrait” with this weeks theme.

Photo I'm Most Proud of:

This is my close friend, Evan. The photo was taken just after him and I were talking about a pretty personal matter of his. He was composed for the most part, but I could see that he was upset. I took the photo because I wanted to remember that moment. Him and i are close enough to where me being behind the camera doesn't tend to alienate me from interactions. 

I feel like my best photos are those that express true emotion as it happens, as it's really an impossible thing to truly recreate artificially. There's something about capturing that unreplicable and temporary moment that drives me to continue photographing.

Week 1: My Favorite Place

Shutter Speed: 1/50 — Slow enough to compensate for the small aperture but still fast enough that the photo isn’t blurred by wind on the tripod.

ISO: 800 — Any lower and the photo would have been too dark. Any higher and I feel like the colors in the environment would’ve been diminished.

Aperture: F11 — Because of the steadily dimming light and dark colors of the landscape, i was limited to how high I could go, but I chose a higher F-stop to try and get more of the landscape and myself in focus.

— White Balance: Custom Since I didn’t have a white paper with me, I decided to use the conveniently placed snow that was all along the mountaintop.

About a quater-mile off exit 2 on the Interstate is a trail that leads up to a mountaintop from which you can see nearly 30 miles around. On one side of the mountaintop is the amazing views of a good chunk of the entire County, and on the other is a steep downhill leading to Lake Hawthorne.

//Access Private Log: 778-992-TS//Authorization: ********//Access Granted - Codename: SterlingPrivate Log: 778-992-TSSubject: Steel, ThomasFirst encounter with Subject, heretoafter referred to as Thomas Steele or Agent Steele, was a data transmission intercepted during an unexpected Slipspace jump while aboard the Prowler UNSC Walk Softly. Via an apparent Slipspace anomaly, my TacPad seems to have attuned itself to some sort of transmission frequency that I myself don’t particularly understand, establishing contact between myself and Agent Steele, whom remains a rather fascinating mystery to me as we continue our occasional correspondences. Agent Steele is part of an organization I’ve not heard of, but that seems strangely similar to government or military intelligence agencies as I know them. His feats, on the other hand, are simply astounding and I would say that I disbelieved them if Steele weren’t so bloody convincing. I have not disclosed this to R&D, Xenostudies, or my own superiors as of yet, as I admit I’ve no desire to lose contact with Steele just yet. He brings out a refreshingly vicious streak in me that my current position stuck behind a desk would have otherwise crushed entirely… As it stands, I’m pursuing a theory with certain pieces of technology whose existence has been… conveniently redacted, shall we say, to attempt sorting out a means to actually meet Agent Steele face to face. Besides, consuming gratuitous amounts of alcohol while firing high caliber firearms at criminals sounds like just the sort of vacation I’ve been needing.

((I lost it at the picture of Samuel L. Jackson.))

OOC; I KNEW YOU WOULD, MOTHERFUCKER.

"Ahahahahaha, well there my good chap thank you just so much for pointing this incredibly, monumentally, important fact out to me. I just feel so relieved that you're here, to be the safety net for all my travails!"