Excuse me... Could you repeat that?

    For our final project we had to make a photo story. My initial thought was, how the heck am i going to be able to pull this off? I decided to do my photo story on the Dearborn Animal Shelter, to show the adoption rates verse the amount of animals that are in the city, and to make the viewers think about what they can do to raise awareness. I think that overall, i did a pretty good job. Especially for it being my first experience using everything that is needed to do a photo story., like Adobe Premiere pro and Audacity.

   Adobe Premiere Pro and Audacity are very tricky to use. I have to learn how to use them and be able to edit my pictures, sound and  make a photo story for the final. The class kind of helped each other to better understand it. By this happening, it made it just a little bit easier to perform.

Check it out!

Portraits of children at an Easter Egg Hunt

After the hunt is over, the kids are playing football.

For my portrait assignment, I was thinking to myself about what I was going to do. I had a great idea! An Easter Egg Hunt, since it's almost Easter! I am very proud of my self, for these photos.

They were very hard to capture, but that just gave  me a better feeling after I was completely finished. For the headshot of Wyatt Keith, I got lucky. I was looking around and saw him standing there with this look on his face. Then I saw that another child took one of his Easter eggs.

These photos were particularly hard to shoot, because I had to bump up my ISO. It was a very cloudy, windy and rainy day. Catching these photos were particularly hard, especially since I am still a new photographer. I am very happy with what I captured, and I am actually very proud of myself.

I could definitely see myself shooting more portraits again in the future, even though they are not my strong suit.

Wyatt Keith, mad when another child took his egg.

Ashton and Ella Keith, upset when the hunt is over.

Sports are fun...right?

  Last Friday Wayne State took on Grand Valley with a double header. This was the first of the two games, taking place at 1pm. As I step up to the baseball field, I look at the players, the coaches, the crowd, and think to myself, how am I supposed to capture awesome photos when no ones standing still?! Honestly, this was my first experience with shooting action photos, and it was very tricky.
  Shooting the fans was another story. It was cold, rainy and windy for the game, so there were limited fans. The fans that were there, they were quiet and not very energetic because of the weather. I  also noticed that it's rare for the coaches to leave the dugout, making i tricky to shoot photos of them.
  In my opinion I got very lucky with the shots I got, some I was prepared for, and some I was not prepared for. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job considering this was my first encounter with shooting sports. With every move the players made, i had to be ready just in case it was a worthy shot. I had to be careful though, i didn't want the pictures to turn out blurry, or off focus.  I would say that compared to the rest of the assignments this semester, this is by far my favorite one!


Alex Kinch (18) and Kyle Zimmerman(32) talk before another pitch is thrown.

Kyle Zimmerman(32) catches the ball on first plate.



Head Coach, Ryan Kelley, (third from the left) prepping the team before the game.

Wayne State fans await the game.

Fans get distracted by the playful puppies.

Nathan Manis(24) and Griffin Harms(34) wait for the National Anthem.

The perfect picture is not easy to find

It had been a long day of roaming around campus just hoping to stumble upon an event. I finally found my way into an art exhibit, took some decent pictures, but still was not completely satisfied. I was on a mission, I needed to find the picture. I went onto the music floor of Old Main, and found Kyle Johnson. Johnson is a Wayne State student studying music performance. When I stumbled on Johnson, he was cleaning and preparing his clarinet before his rehearsal. Personally, I found this assignment very challenging. I found it challenging because I had never done anything like this before, I was and still am an amateur. But with this experience, I feel just a little bit better about shooting photography on my own.

I feel very accomplished and proud of the pictures I took for this assignment, mostly because they took me such a long time to get. That is also another lesson I learned with this assignment, the 'perfect picture' does not just happen. You have to be patient and wait for it. You have to make the moment, and make the picture.


Kyle Johnson, 21, Wayne State student cleans his clarinet in preparation for rehearsal, in Old Main.

Ahmed Taqi, 30, Wayne State fine art major enjoys the art exhibit in old Main.

Why the First Amendment is important

The First Amendment states " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I think that the First Amendment is important for everyone, don't get me wrong, but I think that it is especially important for Journalists. I believe this because Journalists are people who are constantly putting their work out there for everyone to see, and they need to make sure that they abide by this law. Journalists have to always remain aware of all legal limitations, even with freedom of speech. Picture that you're out on a shoot, and you have been patiently waiting for a perfect picture, you finally capture it! But something is in the way, right in the middle of the photo that you waited so long for. The temptation is real to edit it right out of the picture, but what about ethics? It is not right to make a picture perfect, if it was not perfect when you captured it. That's the beauty of photography, it is about capturing real life moments.

I learned the importance of captions on a photo

I thought that captions on a photo were something that would not usually take a lot of time to do. I thought the photographer would just write what the picture is. But, in this assignment for my photojournalism class, I learned that captions are so much more than that. I learned that a caption to a photo is what draws the reader in, it is what gets them interested in the article. And in my opinion, photographs are supposed to make people want to read the article below!

For every caption, the writer must put the 5 W's and one H, which are, who, when, why, what, where and how. These '6 questions' are important because they let the reader know exactly what the article is going to be about before they read it, hence making them more interested to red the entire article. They are constituting a formula for getting the complete story on a subject.

Camera Operations

An American Flag waves in the wind on the Detroit River.

Ducks take a swim at dusk on the Detroit River.

 Festive Downtown Wyandotte in front of Sanders.

For our most recent assignment we had to go on NewsU and learn about camera controls and all of the different types of compositional elements there are. I learned the different possibilities you have when taking pictures. There is always something new for you to shoot. I learned how to find a good opportunity to shoot a photo, and I learned what angles work best and when. For all of these pictures, I was just talking a casual walk in one of the downtowns by where I live, it just happened that I stumbled on these opportunities.

I learned how to have fun with shooting photography, and I also learned how to shoot photography correctly. I went on my own little photo shoot and I am very proud with what I have learned from NewsU! The pictures I posted are examples of layering (the first picture), guidedline (the second picture) and wide depth of field (the last picture).

The new Student Center at +Wayne State University is looking very nice! Much more room for students to utilize! So far this semester we have seen many groups on campus hold events here, such as the Greek System here at Wayne State holding Gift of Life Tables.

On a daily basis, we can plan on seeing many students doing their homework, studying, chatting with friends or simply sitting down with a cup of coffee that can be purchased at the brand new Starbucks! In the basement of the new Student Center, there are many stations, which are pictured, that have flat screen televisions, charging stations, and plenty of comfortable seating! Keep it up Wayne State, the renovations have been student approved!!

About me!

Hello, my name is Halie Keith and I am currently a Journalism major at Wayne State with a minor in New Media. I actually started college pursuing a nursing degree, then soon realized that it just was not for me. Then I came to the conclusion that I really enjoy writing and am very passionate about it. So that's when I decided I wanted to become a Journalist! I am also in a sorority, Kappa Delta! After I graduate I plan to move to New York City and see what life brings me while I'm there. I eventually want to write for a newspaper, and I travel around the world.