In my time after leaving school, I knew I would be staying with my family for the month of May before departing to my job at camp for the summer. My brother, Nash, just graduated high school and so the majority of my time in Minnesota felt like a never-ending celebration of dinner and awards ceremony after celebration for the graduates. We had family coming in and out constantly to visit and share in on the celebration, but finally he graduated about halfway through May and all our family left. It was peaceful and quiet again.
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We live around 45 minutes south of the Twin Cities, and though we've only lived there for a couple years now, we still find ourselves exploring new places every time we go up. Our usual stops are local ice cream shops we've fallen in love with and the Mall of America, of course, and whenever my mom is with us it's a must to stop at IKEA (much to my brother and my dismay). But with a full day of no plans, Nash and I went up to explore along the river near the University of Minnesota campus.
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It's a cute area with some amazing restaurants and a cute bridal boutique that I instantly fell in love with and followed on Instagram, but there were also some nice walking paths and a small park that we were able to walk along once we made our way over the bridge. The day was colder than most - around 50 degrees - and neither of us were much dressed for the weather considering we'd figured summer would be warmer. But regardless, we spent a good hour or so walking and exploring in the lush area of the city.
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I am a huge fan of black and white photography, and I have studied many photographers that I look up to over the years who produce their work in black and white as well. I find it cleaner and classier, and after spending a semester producing work in color for jobs here and there, I decided after looking at what we'd shot that I would be editing my photos in black and white. Nash shoots with Canon, and so his shots came out a bit more overexposed than mine even though we were both in portrait mode, but I brought the brightness down on mine again once they were in Lightroom because I find the murky black and white vibe to stand out more regardless.
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The shoot was full of many fun colors - the bright green leaves, the soft lilac colored flowers, and both of our outfits in multiple shades of reds and darker tones as well as my red lipstick. But I found that once I transferred the pictures into the black and white format, it wasn't so much about the color and the weather and the nature around us, but about the facial expressions and characteristic and personalities of the subjects. This is one of my biggest points when defending black and white photography, because I feel it brings out more of the character and uniqueness of the subject instead of their surroundings. I also appreciate blurring the subject's face from time to time and putting that in black and white because I feel it shows a more raw and individual focus on the movement of the subject, when in color I sometimes mistake that for something just being blurry. Of course, these thoughts are all personal to my own perception.
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I will be spending the summer working as a camp photographer and videographer for Crystal Lake Camps up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and while the work I'll be doing for them will be produced in color, I do believe that all the shots I keep for my portfolio will be edited in black and white. My favorite part of being a camp photographer is having so many different personalities to photograph, especially kids with great expressions, and after shooting at camp for two years now I'll be intrigued to see how the photos come out and differ from the previous summer when in black and white.
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Regardless, Nash and I had a great time exploring and shooting what I considered to be laid-back and casual pictures of one another on our journey. The up close portraits with the flowers are my absolute favorite we took that day, as well as the one I shot of Nash right at the beginning which is the first picture in the selection I've posted on here. He's pretty photogenic, the dork.