Distinguished Young Woman of South Carolina

This weekend, I photographed Michelle Troup who is the Distinguished Young Woman of South Carolina for 2014. (No, the launch of my photography blog and the date of this shoot is not a coincidence!)  I must recognize that the success of this shoot was largely due to my sister, Rachel, who I have learned is great to have along when shooting people because not only is she awesome at positioning the reflector, but she’s also really great at posing people. We make a good team!

My gear for this consisted of my Nikon D7100 camera body, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens, Nikon SB-700 external flash, and a collapsible 4-in-1 reflector. I decided to use the gold reflector to add some warmth.

Now, enough about the technical things – let’s get to Michelle!

I am so lucky that I got to know Michelle through Distinguished Young Women. Before winning the state program, Michelle was the first winner of the local program that my family launched, the Distinguished Young Women of Anderson County. Michelle is the type of person who you realize soon after getting to know that your meeting was no accident. I have never before met a young lady with the ability to touch so many people.

What makes Michelle so extraordinary is that she understands how to communicate with people. Whether she’s speaking with someone one on one or addressing an audience, Michelle has the power to leave an impression. When giving on-stage question suggestions to the participants of our Distinguished Young Women of Anderson County Class of 2015, she shared some great advice that she had been given – don’t think about what you’re going to say to your audience, but the feeling that you want your audience to walk away with. What makes Michelle such a powerful speaker is that instead of simply speaking about herself, she empowers her audience by envisioning what they can accomplish together.

I’m still waiting for Michelle’s most updated list of accomplishments, but there are a few that I can share off the top of my head. In addition to being the Distinguished Young Woman of South Carolina, she won the Spirit of Junior Miss award which is chosen by the participants in the program. Michelle is the student body president of Powdersville High School, and she recently won her high school pageant, becoming the first Miss Powdersville. Oh, and she won over a crowd of over 500 girls and was elected Governor of the 67th Palmetto Girls State. However, Michelle is most proud of her tennis and FCA positions.

Michelle is a beautiful person on the inside and out. She knows who she is and is proud to be herself. When Michelle speaks to you with kindness, there is no doubt of the authenticity of her interaction – Michelle cares.

That being said, this photoshoot couldn’t have been more fun. The three of us kept each other laughing the entire time.

We spent about an hour and a half shooting around Downtown Anderson, but all of my favorite shots came from the last thirty minutes.

We were about to head back to the Anderson Library for practice with the DYW Class of 2014, but I wanted to stop by the Anderson County Arts Center first. I had photographed another Distinguished Young Woman there last summer and remembered that there was excellent lighting.

Well, we hit the location jackpot, and the creativity just kept flowing!

I must to extend a thank-you to Michelle for not only bearing the cold wind, but agreeing to climb on things and balance in window frames.

Michelle, I know that no matter where you go to college or what career you choose to pursue, you will continue to make a positive influence in others’ lives. I wish you the most success as you finish your last semester of high school and then travel to Mobile, Alabama to meet 49 other Distinguished Young Women!

If you’d like to learn more about the Distinguished Young Women program and how you can get involved, visit www.distinguishedyw.org!

If you enjoy my photography and want to learn more about my creative work, please check out my website, www.victoriashingleton.com, as well as my travel blog, Victoria on Vacation.

The Benefits of Rising at 5AM on Vacation

My goal on my last cruise was to take long exposures of the ship at night.  I knew that I wanted as few people as possible in the frame, and the best time to make sure that happened was either very late at night or very early in the morning.  So I woke up at a painfully early hour of 5AM.

My gear for this included my Nikon D7100,  Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens, travel tripod, and wireless remote control.

You need  a tripod, but besides that, taking long exposures is rather simple.  I set my ISO to be as low as possible – I used ISO 100.  I adjusted my aperture to be small – f/22 to f/32, the reason being is that I wanted my exposures to render sharp and focused throughout.  Now because the aperture is so small and the ISO is so low, that means that the shutter speed is going to be really long which is why use of a tripod is necessary.  It’s handy to have a remote to release the shutter so that there isn’t any camera vibration.  If you do not have a remote, you can use the two-second timer to avoid camera shake.

5AM is an interesting time to be awake because you run into two types very distinct types of people – those who are early risers, and those who have yet to go to sleep.

I’m glad that I forced myself out of bed to take photos. I think the results were well worth it.

Welcome!

I’m Victoria, a fourth-year architecture student at Clemson University (graduating May 2014!) and a travel and tourism minor.  I keep a travel blog, Victoria on Vacation, and I also have a website which links together all of my other creative entities, VictoriaShingleton.com.

I’ve decided to start another blog just to share photography because my photography posts can become a little off-topic on my travel blog, and my Flickr has become overwhelmed with photos that I’ve posted on my travel blog and my vacation reviews.

My interest in photography has really evolved over the past four years.  I started in post-production as a photo retoucher.  After staring at the never-ending roll of photos on the computer screen, I became interested in how they were made.  While I was studying abroad in Genoa, Italy, I read Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure, and for the first time, I had a grasp of what it takes to create an exposure.  I quickly moved on to Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Composition Field Guide and Beyond Portraiture.  Recently, I’ve read Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Eye Field Guide and Joey L.’s Photographing Shadow and Light (now that’s an inspiring book!).  What I’ve learned, I have gotten through reading books, photography forums, online articles, and trial and error!

I would like to keep moving forward.  Through this blog, I’ll share my progress and discoveries.  I welcome feedback from others!