Update: Week 1

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't get to update you after my first day like I promised. This first week has been rough with the three hour time change, so I have been completely exhausted after work and I've been going to bed pretty early. I'd also like to apologize in advance for my photos for today's blog post; they are pictures of computer monitors (which are hard to photograph anyways) taken on an iPhone, so they're not the best quality but oh well.

You can't really see the path very
well, but it's there!

I had a really awesome first week working at Splash! Most of the first two days were spent learning how to make perfect paths with the pen tool. This is definitely a lot harder than it sounds. You have to first do a silhouette of the person or object you are working on, and the path has to be exactly on the edge of the object -- it can't allow any part of the background bleed through onto any part of the object, and vice versa. Then after you've made this first path, you go back and trace every piece of that object or person. I worked on a lot of football players, so after I made the first silhouette, I had to go back and trace the socks, jersey, pants, skin, helmet, undershirt, etc. Needless to say, the first part of starting an image is a lot of grunt work, but after doing this, you're able to work a lot faster and more efficient as you edit the picture. I am so slow at making paths right now, it's almost embarrassing. Darren keeps assuring me that I will get faster the more I do it, so I'm hoping that's true!

I spent the second half of the week learning how to make masks for anything in an image. This, too, probably doesn't sound like much, but there is a lot more that goes into making masks than I thought. First, Darren taught me how to make a really strong hair mask -- one that includes all of the little stray hairs that stick out into the background. He taught me several ways to mask off these hairs so that most of the detail was still there. By Thursday, he was showing me how to do masks that have blur on it -- this one is a little tricky because there can be so many different types/amounts of blur throughout an image that you have to go around the entire edge and match it all perfectly. I'm still trying to get this one down, but hopefully I'll pick it up pretty fast.

So it doesn't sound like I did very much this last week, but you have to get the basics down with anything before you can learn more advanced techniques. I'm in no hurry, I'd rather get things right and go a little slower than to do them badly at a fast pace. 

Anyways, this has been my update today! I hope you guys have a great week! More updates to come soon.

Welcome to Portland!!!

View of Portland from the plane

Hey guys! I'm very excited to get this blog up and running. I'm going to try my best to keep this blog updated with all of my Portland experiences while I am here working at Splash Worldwide this summer, so I hope you enjoy my blog! To get back to my main blog, just click the link in the side bar under "pages" or click here!
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For those of you who don't know, I am working at Splash Worldwide this summer as a photo editing intern. Splash is a global brand activation company whose clients include Nike, Toyota, Levi's, Adidas, FedEx, Honda, and many more. If you want to see a little more about the company, check out www.splashworldwide.com.

Where I'll be working this summer!

I arrived on Friday, May 17th and was picked up from the airport by my mom's friend, Kris. She showed me around the city a little bit, and we actually stopped in to meet everyone at Splash. I got to see the photography studio. It was smaller than I thought it would be, but it was still really neat! I am definitely hoping that I'll get to spend some time in the photo studio this summer. Darren, the Exec VP Creative Director, told me that the studio had to be moved to the opposite side of the building a little while ago because when the train would go by, it would shake the building/camera so badly that when they were doing multiple exposures, the images wouldn't line up. I also saw the area where I will be probably be working most of the time. In this part of the building, they had to put up two layers of blinds in order to block out all of the sunlight in the room (it was creating glare on the screens), so it's pretty dark in the main work area. It's such a shame they have to do that because they have an incredible view of the city. Luckily though, they built a deck on the roof, so I will definitely be going out there to eat lunch a few days a week. It was really great meeting everyone and I can't wait to start working there tomorrow!

House from "Twilight"

Later on Friday, Kris took me on a few errands and on our way home, we stopped to see the house they used for the Cullen's house in the "Twilight" movies, which was kind of cool (even though Twilight is pretty terrible). It was actually an incredible house -- I definitely wouldn't mind living there -- and I also found out that it's not in the middle of the woods at all, it's just part of a regular neighborhood. It's kind of interesting to see it in real life and compare it to how Hollywood made it look in the movies. After that, I came home and unpacked all of my stuff (it's amazing how little it looks like I brought once it's all unpacked). Then I basically passed out for the night at 8:30 (11:30 NC time).
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Peonies from the farmers market

Yesterday, I woke up at 4 a.m. and forced myself to go back to sleep until 6 -- this jet lag is terrible, but at least I will be able to wake up pretty early for work. At noon, I went to the farmer's market on Portland University's campus. It was such a neat experience -- definitely different from any North Carolina farmer's market I've ever been to. There were hundreds of people there walking around, sitting around listening to live music, selling their produce, etc. There were so many interesting people there, I wish I had brought my camera. It was supposed to rain, so I didn't want to risk it, but there will be plenty of Saturdays for me to take pictures. There were so many herbs, vegetables, and meats that the market smelled absolutely amazing! And I have never seen so many beautiful flowers in my life, I just had to buy some peonies!

There were also a few food trucks there, one of which is apparently owned by a guy from NC who makes biscuits. I am hoping to try it sometime, but I heard that the biscuits aren't like actual southern biscuits, so I'm not sure if I'll like it. Food trucks are really big in this city. They actually have an app to locate the food trucks called "Cart Compass". When I looked up all of the food trucks in Portland, this is what came up:

This made me laugh...I wasn't expecting so many food trucks to pop up on the screen, but I'm excited to try some of these. John (chairman of the photography major at ASU) and David (one of my teachers) told me that I have to try the food trucks here because they are just THAT good. I'll let you know how my first experience is with one of these.

Between today and yesterday, I got to explore the waterfront, the downtown area, and the Pearl District. It's definitely a little bit overwhelming, but I think I'll be able to get this down in just a few weeks. More to come in the next few days! I'll update tomorrow after my first day!