Video by Audrey Piehl and Alima Cannon
Audrey Piehl & Alima Cannon
Opinions Editor & Reporter
Senior Cameron Lancaster, a budding photographer, uses his camera to capture reality as he views it. He looks beyond the reality seen and captures the expression of emotion and the purpose of the moment with his camera lens.
“I took a Photoshop class my freshman year, and I bought a camera the summer after freshman year,” Cameron said. “I mean with cameras nowadays it’s so easy to take good photos, just to take nothing special but just a good looking photo. I think I just started doing that, and then I just started taking different photos. Everyone after awhile will be kind of successful. It does take something, it does take a lot of time.”
“I mean I think it’s a lot easier to make an interesting photo out of a portrait just because it’s like, uh, yeah you can get expressional a lot easier like you don’t exactly need to be somewhere very interesting, because every person has something kind of interesting,” he continued.
“Um, I’ve seen Cameron try lots of different things, but he has tremendous patience,” AP Photo teacher Jeanne McDonagh said. He’s exploring abstractions and manipulating images within his own photography. I’ve seen him work for endless hours, so he really has focus and it’s interesting to see what he comes up with.”
Part of Cameron’s success stems from his ability to use all the features of the camera. He doesn’t just point and shoot; he specifically adjusts the camera to take full advantage of the moment or object he is trying to capture.
“Um, well I’m trying to control, there’s three things I need to control which is aperture, shutter speed and ISO which are three levels that kind of control the lighting,” Cameron said. “I think just learning about things like aperture, shutter speed and ISO, uh, things that are, that were used a lot back when you took photos on film because there weren’t any automatic settings. It kind of puts the art back into it.”
Once he’s got the shot, Cameron is still not done. He then goes to his computer and begins the editing process.
“Well the first thing I do is white balance so I get the white balance right, so a picture’s not to like dull or blue or too like saturated like yellow, golden. I’ll kind of do a clarity thing. I’ll kind of just make it more intense and fix the lighting so it’s like a bit brighter, like more contrast so it’s a bit more vivid,” Cameron continued.
Cameron’s passion for photography is not just a high school thing: he plans to take it with him to college and make it the focus of his major, and later, his career.
“Right now the plan is to change to journalism mass communications, and I’ll concentrate in photo journalism,” he said. “I want to be out doing stuff. I’d rather be working for a magazine, going out places, being on, like, the front lines or something.”
