Why I'm Glad That I Made a Terrible Mistake

This past Wednesday, my friends Angela and Melissa modeled for me at Long Beach in Nissequogue just as the sun was setting, and it was quite a valuable learning experience for me.
I had just gotten a new 50mm lens (f/1.8!) and was feeling especially good about myself. However, I let my new-found confidence get a bit ahead of me as I forgot to adjust one of the most important photographic factors: ISO. I shot the entire time on ISO 400. At night. I know; absolutely pitiful. I feel so embarrassed just writing this because it was such an amateur thing to do, especially when I've been shooting fully manual for three years now.

As you can expect, my photos came out way underexposed. I was able to salvage a few by making adjustments to my exposure and shadows in Lightroom, but it was still extremely disappointing to come home and discover just how poor my shots turned out because I was being neglectful.
Despite how few shots I was able to recover, I am slightly happy this happened at the time that it did. Both Angela and Melissa stayed home for college as I did, so it's not as if I'm not going to see them again soon. I'd rather do a stupid thing at an easily re-creatable shoot and learn from it, than do a stupid thing at a once-in-a-lifetime event and only have three photos to show from it.

So, in conclusion, sometimes it's good to make mistakes -- even if you're an overzealous perfectionist that will be haunted by those very mistakes for the next few months, much like myself.

Reaction Paper #2: PhotoPlus Expo

I had the exceeding pleasure of attending the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City on October 21. The expo was held in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and was absolutely incredible. I had the time of my life.
Walking in, I was immediately overwhelmed. The venue was huge! I couldn't fathom just how big the expo was. I signed in, got my badge, and was already feeling quite professional. The PhotoPlus Expo was the photographic nerd's dream.
There were so many booths from big companies like Canon, Nikon, and Sony, and also booths for brands I wasn't previously familiar with like Tocad and Yuneec. Just about every booth I went to had freebies, so I ended up coming home with a bunch of cool gizmos.
My favorite booth was the Fujifilm Instax one. I have always been a lover of instant film whether it be Polaroid, Fujifilm, or otherwise, so this was a very exciting moment for me. In their area, Fujifilm created a whole set exhibiting hundreds of Fujiroids, all decorated in fun frames with creative boarders. There were also Instax cameras that attendees could use for demo. I took a photo of my friends with one and it printed with a NYC boarder, which, for some reason, I thought was the most amazing thing in the world at the time. My friends and I also got our Fujiroid taken in front of a "selfie" backdrop they had set up. I, then, proceeded to get way too excited when it developed in my hands in the next 90 seconds.
Also at the Fujifilm booth, I saw the work of John Messinger, who creates beautiful compositions using Instax Mini film. Professor Cyr had mentioned Messinger in Digital Photo I and showed us a video of him making one of his pieces. At the PhotoPlus Expo, I got the chance to see that same piece in person, which made the composition even more spectacular in my eyes.
Collectively, going to the PhotoPlus Expo was a tremendously valuable experience, and I can't wait to go again next year!