College photography

I took photo classes at Cosumnes River College in south Sacramento in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was during the transition from film to digital, so many things I learned soon became obsolete, but I learned basic photography skills that are still relevant today. Here are some of my best shots.

Beginning black & white photography, fall '98. My cat Lulu.

The Ebner Hotel in Old Sacramento. The hotel has since been replaced.

Depth of field assignment. My bass guitar.

Blurred motion assignment. Me spinning around while holding my bicycle helmet.

Lulu wants in!

Writing with light assignment. I was trying to spell "Tomato" using the mirror, but I ended up with "Tomamot".

Intermediate black & white photography, spring '99. The winter moon rising through our tree.

A train going by at sunrise near the Cosumnes River.

Double exposure assignment.

Beginning color photography, fall '99. My guitar on our lawn.

Lulu.

Light refracting through glass.

Slide film assignment.

Advanced color photography, spring '00. Flamingos at the Sacramento Zoo.

Franklin Blvd. south of Sacramento. The land on the left has since been developed.

The library at Cosumnes River College.

The Visual & Performing Arts Center, where I took music classes in the spring and summer of '98 before switching to photography.

Pyrocantha berries.

Blooming tree.

Commercial photography, spring '01. Frame within a frame assignment.

4x5 camera assignment, using the camera's "tilt and swing" focus adjustments to keep the entire guitar in focus as it recedes from the camera. An ability lost in the digital age.

Layout assignment, duplicating a drawing of an ad for coffee beans. Again, the 4x5 camera rotating the plane of focus so it goes diagonally from the cup to the bag to the beans. The smoke is my dad blowing out a candle behind the cup.

4x5 photography, fall '01, where it's all about the tilts and swings. A bowl of jellybeans close up. A 35mm or digital camera would have a hard time keeping all this in focus, but with the 4x5 I can lay the focal plane down onto the beans.

My synthesizer keyboard.

A bowl of fruit. In this case, the plane of focus is rotated for artistic reasons, to put the fruit in the center in focus and blur the sides.

Careers in photography, spring '02. Every assignment was student choice, so I decided to learn Photoshop compositing.

My guitar distortion pedal in a hellish landscape I made in a 3D graphics program.

My Lego train, on ground from my trip to Horsetail Falls, in front of Yosemite.

Studio lighting, spring '02. A visit to the instructor's studio. The state of the art in digital photography at the time.

A new era in photography begins! Using the instructor's studio and camera to take my first digital shot.

Adobe Illustrator, fall '02. Not an assignment, just playing around.

This was an assignment.

Beginning digital photography, fall '04. This was a repeat of the first class back in '98, but with a digital camera. Lulu again. She was a great cat and I remember her well. She passed away in 2008 at the age of 18.

Frozen motion assignment.

Blurred motion, just like the picture of me spinning around.

Back to Old Sacramento.

A boat passing under Sacramento's iconic Tower Bridge. The boat, the Spirit of Sacramento, later sank and was broken up.

Sunset over the river across from Old Sac.

Lunar eclipse.