Tag Archives: Student Village

365 Day Photo Project: Day 84

Well, it’s Spring Break and StuVi is currently a ghost town.  I never thought it would socially acceptable to walk around taking pictures in the middle of the night in my pajamas… so I just decided I’d wait for this opportunity where there was no one around to catch me.

Out of 100-some night photos at StuVi, I narrowed it down to these 13 favorites.  Everything was on a tripod and all the photos were looooooooooooooong exposures (even though I underexposed everything by 2 stops, on average).  That’s what happens when you’re shooting at night in a dim college dorm.

The elevators outside of my door:

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/10, 800 ISO, 0.3 seconds, 20mm

My long, creepy hallway.  They’ve turned off a lot of the hallway lights over Spring Break.  To save energy, I assume.  Now it looks and sounds like I’m in The Shining or Barton Fink.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 800 ISO, 4 seconds, 20mm

The Student Atrium on the top floor of StuVi.  I loved the way the lights looked, but it was Lens Flare City no matter what I did.  But if you can’t fight it, work with it.  This left me with two good options: 1) Make it B&W and the lens flares will look less obnoxious.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 800 ISO, 0.6 seconds, 20mm

or 2) open up and put it completely out of focus for a fun, pointlessly artistic shot.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/2.8, 800 ISO, 1/85th sec, 20mm

I was going to take a picture of Boston at night but I didn’t see the student atrium light switches anywhere obvious, so instead I had to make it work with all of the room light reflections upon the city of Boston.  Thus, we have a crazy reflective skyline self-portrait.  The dark blob in the middle is me behind the camera.  Kind of cool, I think.  But it was late at night and I was sleepy, so that probably explains it.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 800 ISO, 6.2 seconds, 20mm

The student atrium has a piano, but I’ve never actually seen anyone play it…  probably because people are usually up there to study and a pianist would get yelled at for bothering them.  So I went to take some piano photos.  Believe it or not, this is FOUR STOPS UNDEREXPOSED.  Crazy.  What my camera thought was proper exposure looked like the keys were covered in white fog.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/2.8, 800 ISO, 1/6th sec, 20mm

Which lead me to my next discovery– blurry piano hands (since I had such ridiculously slow shutter speeds).  I played like four chords very slowly and this is what I got:

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 800 ISO, 10 seconds, 20mm

I opened up the piano (something else I probably wouldn’t do with other people around) so I could take some pics of the inside:

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/14, 800 ISO, 2.6 seconds, 20mm

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/14, 800 ISO, 6.2 seconds, 20mm

The girl’s bathroom on the top floor.  Don’t know why I like this picture.  Probably because the downward angle of the stalls  (upper left) merges into a shadow (middle) that merges into the downward angle of the windows (lower right).  It’s almost a perfect diagonal created by three different things.  Cool.  Nerdy cool.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 800 ISO, 2.6 seconds, 20mm

The elevator.  Luckily no one was using it because I was lying on my back on the floor taking pictures for a good ten minutes.  I imagine if the doors opened and someone came in they would’ve been very, very suspicious of me.  Especially in my scarlet plaid PJ’s and my gray sweatshirt.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/5.6, 800 ISO, 1/100th sec, 20mm

The ground level lobby.  I would’ve taken pictures of the main lobby, but I think the security guard would’ve thought I was nuts.  Especially since it was 2 AM.  Still, very pretty.  We get what we pay for, at least.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 640 ISO, 0.6 seconds, 20mm

The stairs going from the ground level lobby to the main lobby, with study areas in the background.  Study areas that look like a rich person’s family dining room.  Let’s just say StuVi is a very odd mix of styles and concepts.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/22, 640 ISO, 0.3 seconds, 20mm

Well, that’s all for now.  Time for me to get to work.  More photos tomorrow.

365 Day Photo Project: Day 81

It was rainy all day today, but when it finally cleared, it was so beautiful outside!  I walked around my “neighborhood” (aka Student Village 1 & 2, Fitrec, and Comm Ave.) to take some pictures:

This is Student Village 1, my very over-priced home:

(Composite photo): Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/7.1, 400 ISO, 1/60th sec, 20mm

The opposite view: The back of Fitrec (BU’s GIANT gym)

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/7.1, 400 ISO, 1/30th sec, 20mm

The side of Fitrec (left) and Agganis Arena (right):

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/7.1, 400 ISO, 1/40th sec, 20mm

Commonwealth Ave @ Buick St., facing West

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/8, 100 ISO, 1/25th sec, 20mm

Same spot, 15 minutes later.  Notice the light change:

Canon EOS 7D w/ 20mm lens, f/7.1, 100 ISO, 1/50th sec, 20mm

More photos tomorrow.  Can’t believe it’s Spring Break!  I can’t wait!

365 Day Photo Project: Day 70 / 71

I forgot to post my cell phone rain picture yesterday so here it is now:

Rainy window picture from the HTC Incredible

And then there’s today’s SUPER exciting photo.  I told my roommates I ordered a THRILLING surprise for our apartment… but they never expected a 6′ Colorado flag!  Nico is pretty excited about it.  I was planning on getting a normal sized flag, but for some reason it was half the price to get a giant one.  Bargain!

More tomorrow :)

365 Day Photo Project: Day 48

Another dreary day in Boston… as seen from the Student Atrium of my building, StuVi.

On the left, Cambridge and MIT, on the right, Brookline and Boston University, in the middle, the frozen Charles River with downtown Boston in the background.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 28-135mm lens, f/10, 400 ISO, 1/320th sec, 28mm

On the left, the BU Law building, on the right, Warren Towers, my freshman year dorm and the 2nd largest college dorm in the country.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 28-135mm lens, f/10, 400 ISO, 1/320th sec, 90mm

West Campus– three towers mostly populated by Freshman– with Nickerson Field in the foreground.  Note the one poor little student walking across the field of snow.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 28-135mm lens, f/10, 400 ISO, 1/100th sec, 65mm

Allston and Brookline covered in snow.

Canon EOS 7D w/ 28-135mm lens, f/10, 400 ISO, 1/125th sec, 47mm

StuVi 2 and the Mass Pike

Canon EOS 7D w/ 28-135mm lens, f/10, 400 ISO, 1/160th sec, 28mm

365 Day Photo Project: Day 1

Many times have I tried to begin a project where I take and post a photo every day.  But, this time, I’m actually going to do it!

(We’ll see how that statement holds up in a week or two… haha)

Here we go, Day 1.  A few pictures I took messing around in my room with shutter speeds.  I have two windows facing the highway, so you can get some great looks from it.  For all you non-photographers out there, the super-slow shutter speed is what makes the streaky white and red lines from the headlights and tail lights of cars.  For all you photographers out there, here’s the trick to these type of shots:

1.  Use a tripod and set your camera to self-timer mode so your own hand clicking the button doesn’t disrupt the shot.

2.  Underexpose by at least 2 stops

3.  If you stop down your lens to a certain point (most of these were around f/22), you’ll get that great “star” effect on every light.

4.  The longer the exposure, the better the tail light / headlight streaks will be.  Most of mine were between 5 and 30+ seconds.

The cinematographer in me loves the variation in lighting in these shots.  Mmmm, juicy.

P.S.  Haven’t cleaned my room in a while.  You can probably tell.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS w/ 18-55mm lens, f/5, 100 ISO, 6.2 seconds

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS w/ 18-55mm lens, f/22, 400 ISO, 30 seconds

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS w/ 18-55mm lens, f/36, 400 ISO, 32 seconds

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS w/ 18-55mm lens, f/22, 400 ISO, 25 seconds

That’s all for today!

Goodnight.