Stephen's Blog Blog

What a Day!

swilliams21 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:13:36 +0000

Today has been an absolute nightmare! Aside from my favorite form of weather returning to southern California (the rain,) my day today has been filled with nothing but problems, hangups, hitches, and all sorts of other things that can deflect an indevidual from what he should be doing.

The day started out good, a decent lecture in my Comm. Law class, a B on a previous test in Comm 101 Media writing. And I got to go home early since my evening class was cancelled, I was bummed, but at the same time I was happy that i didn’t have to sit around for 4 1/2 hours.

On my venture home, I thought about the weekend, having just turning 23 yesterday (the 6th) and having all sorts of new goodies… I was looking forward to going home, relaxing, and trying out my first Guitar, and the virtual lessons that I got a long with it. However, my dreams of grandure were crushed when I got home just to find out that my parents had some how, once again, managed to KILL their computer.

Not only would the sucker not even boot into the OS, but the system’s built in system restore technology could not even save it. I ended up spending the whole day working on this thing, dismanteling it, cleaning it out etc. Turns out, They had gotten a nasty virus that wreaked havoc on the OS’ Registry system, effectively disabling the computer.

Luckily however, i was able to retrieve all the data that was in danger of being lost. moved it to a separate drive. Formatted the original drive, re-installed the OS, and put everything back to normal. Thank all that is good! Too bad it took my entire day away from me and killed any chance of me getting in any practice on my new guitar.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Internet in my home went down! I’m assuming because of the storm, but I was unable to access it for essential information and tasks that I needed to get done.

FINALLY the internet is back up (obviously) it’s 1 am, i’m tired, cranky, and out. Goodnight.

-Steve. (the computer on the left is the one i spent all day fixing.)

Second Life Assignment.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:58:49 +0000

This time the search for Thai culture sent me onto Second life.

Multimedia Presentation.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:50:33 +0000

This Project was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be, especially since events in relation to Thailand were hard to come by. I ended up using various shots from throughout the semester.

(make sure to turn up the sound a notch or two, the music is a bit on the soft side.)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v144/HunterXero/?action=view¤t=MultimediaPresentation.flv

General News

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:11:26 +0000

This time, my General News assignment lead me to a town meeting, where Henry Sharoen, a local council member for the city of La Palma. This time the challenge layed with patience, I can’t even express how boaring town meetings are. On the bright side… the lighting was ideal.

Human Interest.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:33:12 +0000

On the same day that I was in Los Angeles for the Spot News feature, I was also on the hunt for my human interest shots. The difficulty here was location, timming, and time itself. I think the chosen shots will speak for themselves.

Monk taking photographs at the temple in north hollywood.Monk reviewing the shots he just took.

Monk reviewing the shots he just took.

Environmental Portrait

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:07:31 +0000

My assignment this time around required me to get shots in an environmental portrait type setting.

JD Mixes a drink for a customer.

: JD pours a drink for a customer.

This time round my biggest difficulty was the lighting. In this place the lighting sets the mood, relaxed, quiet, and professional… however it was HORRIBLE for photographic ventures. I did do my best however, and I think the effort shows in these top two picks.

Spot News.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:49:05 +0000

On my way home from another one of my weekly excursions into Los Angeles, I heard of a motorcycle accident on the 60 to 710 transitional ramp. I myself was heading home on the 5 freeway.

However, I decided to take a detour and go check out the scene, Unfortunately the closest I could get was a side street that was 10ft below the ramp that the accident occurred on. I even attempted to take the same off ramp and pull to the side, of course, the police didn’t like that very much, so I got the best shots I could.

These first two were the ones I turned for my class, and the shots after that were other ones that I enjoyed.

Police arrange their cruisers to effectively block traffic.Officers evaluating the scene of the accident.

Officers evaluate the scene of the accident.

These next couple shots are a couple others that I liked.

Stress is the word of the day

Sports feature.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:15:43 +0000

My experience at the Thai festival lead me to look even further into the Muay Thai competitions that make up Thailand’s national sport. I went and got my first press pass at a local combat arena that was hosting a Muay Thai combat event, Not only was it a blast, but I got some excellent shots. My goal this time round was to focus less on the action and focus more on the subtleties of the sport, the shots that you might not see just by sitting in the crowed.

Two coaches encouraging their fighter.Paramedics sitting patiently incase anything goes wrong.

Paramedics sitting ready just incase anything goes wrong.

Gap.

swilliams21 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:50:58 +0000

Finally I’m getting myself back on track. I inadvertently took an extended absence from my blog here at WordPress.com, but not by choice. My semester has been a huge nightmare and i’ve been overloaded beyond anything that my initial expectations resembled. But now I’m back and I will have several new projects to post for viewing.

Sports Action Shots.

swilliams21 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:36:07 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, i was only able to use a small amount of my shots for my visual reporting class. I ended up with several good shots required for my “Sports Action” assignment.

Regarding the assignment; In this class we were all assigned a country based on a set of numbers we chose at the beginning of the course. I chose 66, which, as you could see from the last post, landed me with Thailand. So, my sporting event had to have something to do with Thailand, Which would be their National sport, a Mix of Boxing and Kick Boxing known as Muay Thai.

Muay Thai is a full contact sport, and when in a True Muay Thai Tournament, there are no gaurds or pads of any kind, Obviously, a real match can get really bloody and really intense. Today, my Muay Thai subjects were practicing for a demonstration inside the theater. Even still, they were moving so fast I could barely keep up.

Of this sport alone (A small footnote in the full Thai culture festival I had Visited) I took well over 150 shots. Then i had to narrow them down to two major shots. Here were the choices I ended up with. I think they speak for themselves.