2024_02_09_11_22_31

Nakia Ross discusses her smartphone photography project for a course at the University of West Georgia. She praises the camera capabilities of her Samsung S21, including its 64 megapixel photos, triple rear camera setup, telephoto lens, and various camera modes. She shares her experience using these features in 10 images, including close-ups of a toad and a small door, city skyline shots, and photos with unique angles and contrasting light and shadows. She concludes that she learned a lot about her camera phone's features and enjoyed the project. Hello, my name is Nakia Ross and this is a podcast for my smartphone photography project for the course Storytelling with Visual Media with a Focus on Still Images at the University of West Georgia. I have a Samsung S21 camera phone and the capacity to take photos is excellent. According to the Samsung website, quote, capture every detail both seen and unseen with incredibly sharp 64 megapixel photos on the Galaxy S21 series, end quote. My device has a triple rear camera setup that I feel is better than any iPhone. Some notable features include a telephoto lens that enables optical zoom capabilities for capturing distant subjects with clarity. Single take captures multiple photos and videos simultaneously using various camera modes providing users with a variety of options to choose from. Night mode enhances low light photography by capturing brighter, clearer images in dimly lit environments. Pro mode gives users manual control over camera settings such as ISO, shutter speed, and white balance enabling more advanced photography techniques. I was able to use some of these modes in the 10 images in this presentation. Let's start with image one. This is a toad taken at my friend's house on her patio in her backyard. This was a close-up photo that I feel really captures the textures. You can really imagine how this toad's skin feels compared to the smooth wood patio and dry leaves and pine straw on the ground. It is amazing that an image can make you know exactly how something feels just by looking at it. Image two is of the Atlanta City skyline taken from the roof at Pond City Market. This image was taken without any zoom, but I did use night mode since a flash will not work on distant images. The only issue I had was while uploading this image into the presentation, I wanted to not distort it since I had to resize it to fit the slide properly. Image three is of my sister standing on a wooden boardwalk during one of our many walks. I love to walk outside for exercise, and this is where a majority of my images come from. This image of her alone in a space really feels as if she's the only person for miles around and gives a sort of peaceful feel. I used portrait mode even though she was at a distance just to see how the photo would come out, and I really liked it. Image four is one of my least favorite images, and this is not necessarily because it's an image of me, but because of the angle. I feel most women hate this angle from any type of selfie. This close-up selfie mode image allowed me to see myself before I took the picture using the front camera, so I could really see how much I didn't like it, even before I snapped it. Since this was a required image, I had to use it. Image five is another example of my least favorite image, and it isn't only because of the angle. I was always teased for having a big forehead growing up, so this is why it's my least favorite. You will never see a picture of me from this angle on any of my social media platforms. Image six was the last picture I would not consider a favorite, and this image is at school on my desk, but there was a flash on. After I took the picture, I realized that the flash was reflected from the laptop screen, and that really annoyed me. Using a flash, I have to be mindful of the things I'm taking pictures of to make sure it's not creating any reflections off that shininess of the metal or glass. Image seven was a photo I took that was inspired by the assigned video, 13 Smart Photo Tips and Tricks. In the video, there were images taken by Kathy Ryan titled Office Romance, where she used natural light inside of an office to contrast with the shadows it created on the objects. I thought that was really cool, so I tried that as well in my school building. I love how you can see the small dots of sunlight coming through the window sill with the contrasting shadows created by the blinds. Image eight is a photo that I love, but it's a contradiction to what I said earlier about the angle of taking selfies from below my chin. Here, the shadows worked at an advantage because you can't see our faces, but you know we are people, and seeing the sky and the trees in the background from this angle is really cool. Again, the dark contrasting with the light sky gives a neat effect. Image nine is a simple image of a small door I found painted on a bench on the Beltline in Atlanta. This close-up image with my hand lets you know exactly how small the door is, and it allows you to see the colors and features clearly. My last image, image 10, is my most favorite photo of all. This was taken off another roof downtown Atlanta as well, but I used the square one-to-one ratio feature to take this. I love how I can see the up-closeness of the building that I was standing in while also getting that distant feel of the buildings in the background. Overall, I enjoyed this project because I love to take photos, and I felt I learned a lot about the features of my camera phone and all the shots I could take. Thank you.