Skills USA Competition

Last Thursday, my school announced that SLCC would be participating in the Skills USA competition. They give you a packet with a theme and you have 36 exposures, including brackets, to show your interpretation of the theme. Then they wanted 5 portfolio pictures along with an artist statement explaining why these five pictures are representative of your best work. They pick three winners from my school to send onto the state competition. If you win in the top three at state, not only do they pay for you to go compete at the nationals in Kansas City, but they also pay for your tuition for the following semester.

The theme was color, so I decided that I wanted to take pictures of each individual color and then a mixer of all the colors for the rest of my pictures. Here is my original interpretation:

The Originals:

Then two things happened. First, one of the rules of the competition is that you aren't allowed to delete any of your pictures. I bought a separate memory card so that I could switch between working on this project, and the ones that I needed to do for school, along with also giving me a chance to set up my shots before I had to take the final pictures. However, I learned that isn't how it works. Your camera records the number, not the memory card, so even though I wasn't deleting any pictures, I wasn't really following the instructions either. Next, I was showing these pictures to my lab aid that competed in this same competition before, and he said they were just okay. He said that they didn't really go together. After being really down about the whole thing because of how much time I spent on these "okay" pictures, I decided to do it again.

I stayed late after work one night and decided to take pictures of the ice cream cakes we do at work. I took the needed pictures and then realized that my ISO was set higher than was allowed for the competition. So I started again for the third time and my camera battery died. I gave up, went home and got some sleep and charged my camera overnight. The morning that the pictures were due, I shot these:

The Redo:

Then I hurried to school to get them all printed out how I needed, fill out all of my exposure information, print out my portfolio and write out the artist statement. This was due by noon, but I got it all done and turned in. I almost didn't do it since I was so frustrated with it, but I decided to try even if what I turned in wasn't my favorite. It wasn't bad and it was more tied together than the first group of pictures. It was just less thought out.

Here are the 5 pictures I chose to represent my work:

My Portfolio:

I picked these fruit tarts because to most of my classmates, this is the most memorable picture that I have taken. I am still trying to beat this picture because everyone loves it so much. I talked about how I saw them in the store and didn't buy them, but then I couldn't stop thinking about them, so I went back and got them so I could take pictures of them and how this was my first stab at food photography and that it has shaped the direction that my photography has taken.

Next were these wine goblets. I said that I chose them because of the colors and because it was something else that I have never done before that I loved.

One of my goals for this year is to take pictures of food to see if that is something I could do for a living. Even though I have always wanted to take pictures of people, everyone at school thinks that my food photography is my strongest suit. So I added in this chocolate picture since this is my most recent attempt at food photography. And I think it looks good enough to eat.

I added this picture because I love it and think it is so beautiful, but I also talked about how I came up with picture. Basically, everything I said about it in my earlier blog.

Last I added in this picture of Carly, because I love it. It was something else that I have never done before and was a great learning experience. Plus, I wanted to include pictures of people and food because right now I love to do both and want to continue getting better at both.

So....

I found out today...

I WON THIRD PLACE AND WILL BE GOING ON TO COMPETE IN THE STATE COMPETITION!!