Surya Pugazhenthi

Mr. Wood

English IV Pd. 3

Senior Project Work Log Entries

1/12/2022 - I first brought up the idea of photography to Mr. Wood since I enjoy taking

photos of things I find personally interesting. I thought of connecting my project to my

general subjects of interest within photography which is nature, automotive, and candid

style photography.

1/15/2022 - I thought of the idea to create a collage book to store all of the photos I take

in my time doing the project. I am not sure if I will separate the collage book into the

three subject interests (nature, automotive, and cars), but they will very likely be in the

collage book in some organized manner.

1/17/2022 - I start the draft for the letter of intent to give to the committee for approval

of my project. In my letter, I specify the topic of my project, what I am particularly

interested to do with the project, and my mentor. At this point, I don’t really know what I

will do for my community service/volunteering just yet, but I will ask Mr. Wood later on if

he has any suggestions. He suggested that I could ask his photographer friend to be my

mentor. I don’t know exactly who this is quite yet, but I will contact them eventually.

1/25/2022 - I finish the revised edition of the letter of intent, adding more specific

information about the project as the original draft was not approved by a teacher I had
requested to read and provide suggestions. From this point, I am mostly committed to

my topic and project idea, so I do not anticipate having to change it if the committee

rejects it.

1/29/2022 - The letter of intent is returned to me in which I find out the committee

person who reviewed had rejected the project idea. However, Mr. Wood vetoed the

rejection and believed that the project could be meaningful. I talk to Mr. Wood for more

information on his mentor in which I am told to contact Mrs. Kassidy, the photography

teacher at College Park High School, a friend of his.

2/2/2022 - I begin to brainstorm/research various cameras I could use for my project. At

home, I have a digital Sony HX400V that will most likely be my camera of choice as it is

my family’s camera and I have easy access to it. However, I realized acquiring other

cameras meant that I would have to ask my friends, classmates, or anyone I knew who

happened to have a distinctive camera that I could shoot with.

2/5/2022 - I find my first article to research and take notes upon for my senior project

paper. The article is about contemporary photography and the history of the digital

camera transformed the way memories are saved and shared among people. I think this

is a great first article that gives importance to how photography can be a way for people

to capture their experiences and day-to-day life activities which I will likely focus on in

the candid photography aspect of my project.

2/7/2022 - I contact my mentor for the project, Mrs. Kassidy in which she is on board to

help me throughout my experience and journey with the senior project. I am excited to

work with her, learning how to use photography to my advantage to master shooting

photos with various techniques that professional photographers use in their respective

interests and fields.

2/8/2022 - I start working on my commitment board after purchasing the necessary

materials to decorate my board. Originally, my plan was to use photographs from

various sources online that I have found to be inspired from to use similar photography

styles in my own photos when I go to shoot photos for the project. I switched from using

photos I found online from the three photography fields to using my own photos that I

have shot with my iPhone in 2021, and sharing the best photos in each field. I think my

nature and automotive photos were my favorite to add onto the poster because I am

very interested in shooting these subjects with higher-capability digital cameras and

using newer photography techniques to do so.

2/9/2022 - I finished working on my commitment board and changed my research

question to something that I believe could be written about in a lengthy paper. My

question deals with how digital technology has improved to make photography more

accessible for people to share their memories and experiences. As of now, I am not

sure how to go about approaching my project-related work to be in direct correlation to

my research question, but I will ask my mentor or Mr. Wood for any doubts I have when
I am either researching information for the paper, or when I am working on the project

itself.

2/20/2022 - I bought a FujiFilm disposable camera to “try out” film photography before

using a more expensive SLR which would require more involvement to learn. I brought

the FujiFilm to Ocean Beach in San Francisco where I took most of my photos, while a

few of them were in downtown Walnut Creek and at school. This would be the first time I

went through the “waiting process” to get my film developed in which I dropped it off at a

CVS that offered film developing services for FujiFilm cameras. I would return a week

later to find my photos turned out very interesting but not what I was expecting. Many of

the photos are very grainy and low quality, but have the “old-timey” feel to them as there

are light leaks in almost every photo. Although the photos may not have turned out how

I expected them to be, I thought they were really cool nonetheless considering it’s my

first time shooting film.

2/21/2022 - I drafted a set of interview questions for my first interviewee, Mrs. Kennedy

(my mentor). I think she will be able to provide great insight about photography while

talking about her life experiences with the field. These questions may change and the

order is not exact to how I would ask them during the interview, but I think this is a solid

foundation for my first set of interview questions.

3/3/2022 - I interviewed Mrs. Kennedy and it went great! She knows so much about

photography and I was able to acquire quite a bit of insight from her. She had very
thorough responses to each of my questions and shared her personal background and

experiences in relation to some of the questions. I learned that she also went to

Northgate High School and later met Mr. Wood while photographing for The Sentinel

which I found interesting. I look forward to working with her throughout my time working

on the project.

3/12/2022 - I acquired the Canon EOS Rebel G from a fellow classmate, Andrew

Galbraith who wanted me to use it for my project. The camera is an excellent SLR film

camera that is capable of shooting photos with lots of precision. He also provided me

with a 75-300mm Canon lens that’s very powerful in its zooming and focusing abilities.

The camera did not come with any batteries inside of it, but I bought some at Safeway.

Once the batteries were in the battery compartment, the camera successfully turned on

without any issues. Next, I had to get 35mm film which is the type of film format the

camera shoots in. I went to my local pharmaceutical drug store and bought a pack of 3

rolls of Kodak 400 Ultramax (24 exposures). This film stock is very popular among the

film community for its availability and high color accuracy when the photos are

developed. I think 3 rolls of film will be enough for my project and hope to use each roll

sparingly.

3/19/2022 - I brought the Canon today to shoot film photos on a trail near Castle Rock in

the rain. At first, I thought the rain would be detrimental to my photos as a wet lens

would impact the quality of my images but I was careful to avoid that. I used up all 24

exposures (1 roll) and was surprised to do so. I dropped the film roll at a local
Walgreens that offers film developing services and would come back a week later to find

out the photos turned out amazing. I am excited to continue shooting with the Canon.

4/1/2022 - Before heading to the Exploratorium in San Francisco for my Senior Ball, my

friends and I had a preorganized party at one of their houses in which I brought my

Canon to shoot some photos of the short event on film. I left the camera with one of my

friend’s parents to take care of for the night. I would come back to pick it up after Ball

and dropped the film roll at CVS the next day. I came back a week later to check out the

photos and they were just as amazing as my first roll of film photos. A few of the photos

did have some natural light leaks which I thought gave the photos a really cool “effect”

to them even though they weren’t intentional. I had 1 roll left, so I had to use it sparingly.

4/7/2022 - Today I went to Monterey with my family and stopped by around Pebble

Beach and 17 Mile Drive to take photos. I brought both my SLR Canon and digital point

& shoot Sony as I needed to take more digital photos. I only took 6-7 photos with the

Canon as I needed to conserve the exposures since I used up both of my previous rolls

sooner than I expected.

4/23/2022 - I had two separate photo shoots today. After school, I met up with a friend

of mine, Tim Lumibao who agreed to be the subject of my portrait photos. I brought my

digital point & shoot Sony as well as my iPhone 8 to take these photos. We shot the

photos at a local park and went to a nearby scenic lookout that had a great view of the

area (could almost see the Bay Bridge!) I think I had 40ish photos in total from the
photoshoot, but narrowed it down for the project. In the evening, I brought my Canon to

shoot film photos in the same area I was earlier with Tim to do some night-time

photography. Unfortunately, the Canon had some issues throughout the night with the

lens being unable to focus at times. Some exposures were wasted in trying to test if the

lens was working properly as it should have. However, I had 8 or so exposures left

when we stopped by a gas station to fill up which I had the idea to take night time gas

station photos. The roll was entirely used up after the short photoshoot, so I dropped it

off at CVS and came back a week later to a bit of expected disappointment. The

Monterey photos and some of the gas station photoshoot photos came out really well,

but the evening photos at the lookout did not turn out well as the film did not wind

properly. Some of my exposures came out distorted and had two exposures framed in

the same photo. I recognize that film photography isn’t always 100 percent smooth, as

there are so many natural factors that could easily mess up the composition of the

photos and this was a unique learning experience for me.

4/26-29/2022 - I brought my point & shoot Sony and my iPhone 8 to shoot photos at the

Ruth Bancroft Garden as part of my volunteering. The photos came out instantaneously

in great quality, but some touch ups in Adobe Lightroom made them spectacular. I

would use some of these photos later to post on to an Instagram account used as

promotional material for the Ruth Bancroft Garden that includes my photos. Overall, the

two days spent photographing at the garden were great and really made me appreciate

plant photography which I did not think much of in the past.

5/8/2022 - I finished organizing all my photos and would put them together into a photo

book which I developed using Costco’s photobook developing services. I was a little bit

worried about when the photo book would come in the mail in time for my presentation,

so I paid for the express shipping. The photo book came a bit later in the same week,

but it came out exactly the way I wanted to when I was creating it on the Costco

photobook website. This wraps the end of my project as the photo collage book is the

last piece of work that captures all of the experiences and moments in my time as a

photographer for the project.