Award-Winning Digital Strategist
This week, we learned how to use a light kit in our photography. We focused on a technique called SQIBB, also known as “Studio Quality Invisible Black Backdrop”. To accomplish this, we learned how to set up a light kit, use a trigger, and use a snoot.
REXBURG – Reconstruction for local improvement districts have caused flooding in older homes, according to the city council public hearing on Jan. 18.
Local improvement districts, otherwise known as LIDs, are areas of the city that can be petitioned by locals for improvement, according to the City of Rexburg’s website.
Part of the LID’s construction process is to raise the sidewalks and roads for new buildings. However, this causes flooding for some homes due to incorrect elevation and poor water drainage.
“This has caused a great burden on us … our garage is 2 inches below the sidewalk,” said Tracy Olsen, a city local and opposer of LID 51. “All of the water will run towards our garage and into our basement. We have to bring in dirt around our house so it won’t fill up our basement.”
Tracy’s husband, Keith Olsen, worked in construction for years. Keith has frequent projects in progress to prevent the basement from flooding.
“If you were to look at my driveway right now, my car is in 4 inches of water,” said Keith with tears of frustration. “I have had to build a dam of snow and ice to stop water from coming into my house because somebody can’t get the elevation right … I’d like to see any one of you guys come and stay at my house and not slip and fall.”
Tracy and her neighbors have relied on Keith’s service efforts to prevent their homes from being flooded. The city has yet to replant the streets on Chad Drive.
“We had only planned on and budgeted for a certain amount of money to do this project,” explained Tracy. “My husband did a lot of the work.”
Rexburg mayor, Jerry Merrill, was already aware of the situation.
“I know there is a problem (in your neighborhood),” said Merrill. “We have had discussions about it internally and are planning on working with you to correct the situation … if that hasn’t been communicated to you, I apologize.”
Rexburg’s Public Works staff member, Justin Beard, added context to the discussion.
“We’re aware that it’s a problem,” Beard explained. “We’ve had several meetings (with Keith) lined up to talk about it. Those meetings were canceled.”
Keith explained that he frequently travels out of town for construction work and that was why the meetings were cancelled.
City council member, Bryanna Johnson, said that she and the other council members were not aware of the flooding on Chad Street.
“I guess I didn’t explain,” admitted Merrill. “I didn’t really see that it was a big deal to get the whole council involved … it’s down on that one end of the street, the rest of it all is fine.”
Council President, Jordan Busby, concluded the hearing.
“I think that if the council is aware of it and the city is aware of it … I think we can move forward.” said Busby.
For our first photography assignment, I wanted to apply my creativity with the things I already have. In a world saturated with advertisements, media and easy ways to spend money, we can forget to be grateful for the things we already have. For my OSES project, I wanted to apply just that.
For those who don’t know, OSES stands for “Ordinary Spot, Extraordinary Shot”. This means taking your photos in an “ordinary” or boring spot and making them spectacular. With Christmas just last month, I still had some flashing lights I had in mind to use as props. Over the summer, my family and I went to Mexico and collected seashells. With the treasures I already had in my home, plus other knick-knacks, I could make an ordinary spot in my apartment extraordinary.
The editing process was rather simple! I used sliders in Camera Raw, such as temperature, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, textures and clarity. I took things a step further into Photoshop by dodging and burning and applying a final “Levels” filter. I also applied “Smart Sharpen” and my watermark.
I am parked at a red light, watching the faces of strangers go by.
In various vehicles lay the lives of many, known to none, understood by one.
The man upstairs understands these voices – how crowded his phone lines must be.
From the college student driving home from class, just waiting to hear some good news.
From the father, dressed in his suit and tie, anxiously on his way home from work.
From the young couple, afraid and exhilarated by the world ahead of them. One hand on the wheel, another by her side.
From the teenage boy with clouds in his cheeks, beanie on, windows down.
You see, when your sound is intentionally turned off, you people watch. You think of the bubble outside of yourself.
We are all from the same place, going to our own spaces.
How beautiful this life could be if the good people of the world were genuinely heard
How busy our phone lines would be too.
Juston Wadsworth, affectionately known as the ‘Soupman,’ passed away unexpectedly on December 13, 2022. To celebrate his life, family members gave away his soup to the community.
Juston Wadsworth was born on August 28, 1978. The father of three children and the owner of Rexburg’s very own soup shop, “Soup For You,” Wadsworth positively impacted the sleepy college town of Rexburg, Idaho.
Inside the red brick shop with yellow antique tiling, the ambiance was heavy but full of love. Parents, children, family and college students created a line outside of the door, all for Wadsworth and his house-made soup.
The food options for the little soup shop’s last day of business were: Curried Seafood, Chicken Soup For the Soul, Cheesy Jalapeno and Bacon, Herbed Lentil, New Mexican Corn, and Creamy Tomato Pesto.
“Soup For You” was still filled with the same recognizable plants and collectible art, but this time, a shrine was made in Wadsworth’s name at the center of the store. Rexburg locals gave their condolences and graciously donated funds for Wadsworth’s funeral.
Written by Marica Davis, Emily Manwaring, Isabelle Justice, Carly Amon, and Dallin Jenkins
Trustworthy news appears to be a thing of the past. With how easy technology has made it to share information, journalism as a whole seems to be questioned by the public. However, this may not be an accurate narrative.
A BYU-Idaho survey1 discussed what factors affect people’s willingness to trust the news and how this affects on-campus students. Looking closely into the data, 6 questions arose and their implications were studied.
The first question tackled was: Does the frequency of news consumption correlate to more trust in the news? When the data was placed, there was a clear relationship between news consumption and trust. The more news is consumed, the more trust a viewer has for it.
In a BYU-Idaho context, this makes sense. When students are researching a political topic, the use of news is one way to find more information on these issues. The journalists and guests on the news have a sense of knowledgeability that is impressionable to viewers. If an individual becomes available and is heavily influenced by constant news exposure, they grow a dependency according to the data. As this continues, they begin to see and trust what they want to hear.
The next question was: Do political leanings affect people’s trust in the news? Knowing where someone stands politically can affect their interpretation and feelings toward the news. This is proved by the data. From the data in the graph below, we can infer that the political leanings are consistently varied, with the lowest percentage at 3%, the highest percentage at 100%, and no clear trend.
That being said, those who trust the news are not led to trust the news more or less depending on their political standing. In a study written by Y. Tsfati2, it states that “the more one consumes news and public affairs information, the more likely one is to feel confident in their ability to understand politics.” This point is also proved by the data.
The third question addressed was: Does enjoyment of the news affect perceived reliability? The numbers of a BYU-I survey were looked at closely to find the answer. The results of those who said they enjoyed consuming the news were addressed, but also those who felt the news media understood them. The average answer of those who thought the news understood them was 5.2 (out of 10). On the other hand, the answer of those who enjoyed the news was only 4.6 (out of 10).
From this, we can see that just because people may feel that they are understood doesn’t mean they enjoy what they are being fed as news. In general, people didn’t trust the news. The average answer was a low 33.1 (out of 100) in whether they trusted the news. From this, we learn that enjoyment of the news doesn’t seem to affect reliability as much as feeling understood by the news media.
Then the fourth question: Does actively searching for news effect perceived reliability? This seemed to be contradictory at first, but after looking at the numbers from a BYU-I Survey, it does seem to affect the way people view the news, but in the negative. When people were passively intaking news, they seemed to be more apathetic with what they were reading.
As you can see from the chart, a good majority of the people were NOT actively looking for their news, and most people who responded did not trust the news in general. Those that were actively looking for news seemed to believe what they were reading more readily than those that stumbled on it via social media, etc… In general, the people looking for their news tended to trust what they were reading more than those that passively found it.
The fifth question was: If people think the government has a hand in the news, do they trust it less? While one may think that people deem the news to be more reliable when the government stays out of the source, the data in this study at BYU-Idaho says otherwise. When asked if the government funds much of the news, students’ answers were nearly split even, favoring the affirmative answer.
In addition, those who said that the government does fund much of the news responded with an average rating of trust of 30/100. Those who responded that the government does not fund much of the news, also provided a similar average rating of trust, 37/100. This insinuates that they each have only about 33% trust in the news, which means that 67% of their sentiment toward the news is distrust.
Seeing as the trust on both sides of the question is very low, the instance of whether or not the government funds the news, does not seem to have any bearing on how much BYU–Idaho students trust the news.
The next question added a new dimension to this topic, which was: Which programs are the most trusted and least trusted? For BYU-Idaho students, the top three viewed news sources were the Huffington Post, now known as the HuffPost, CNN, and the Wallstreet Journal. If we infer that perceived news viewership correlates to viewership trust, the chart below would be correct.
These results are surprising, especially based on BYU-Idaho’s “conservative” stereotype3. While BYU-Idaho is a church school and Latter-day Saints are a mostly conservative group, the most trusted news sources were CNN and HuffPost which are very left-leaning.
For a deeper context, the average accuracy for news sources is 61.9%. The HuffPost, has 54.6% accuracy4. CNN has a 53.3% accuracy5 and the Washington Post6 has 64.4% accuracy. HuffPost and CNN are considered left-biased sources, while the Washington Post has an above-average grade and a moderate right bias.
The news sources with the least perceived viewing were Vogue, Vox, and The Atlantic also. Vogue7 had a 39.86 Reliability Score and is left-biased. Vox8 had a high accuracy at 74.2% and is left-biased. The Atlantic9 had a 67.3% accuracy and is left-biased. This small data sample shows little correlation between low news reliability and low perceived viewership levels.
In conclusion, there is overall low trust in the news, whether or not the government is involved. There are varying levels of political views at BYU-Idaho and the more news is consumed, the more it is trusted. Most viewed news sources are left-leaning and have low accuracy scores.
For these shots, I used a white backdrop, light kit, and gold diffuser. My model brought flowers, and I purchased some more to incorporate contrast.
In Camera Raw, I decreased the texture and adjusted the lighting. In Photoshop, I smart-sharpened, used a Gaussian blur mask, and used the healing tool to emit some of the distracting wrinkles with the backdrop. I then used Lightroom to create presents for this shoot and altered them individually on each photo.
I was worried the photos would be too dark to fix in post-production, but I was pleasantly surprised. I used plenty of dodge and burn to make the images more interesting.
I used to take myself so seriously
But not in the way you might think
I took myself
In the way you study for a test
The way you think about a gift
The final draft
The culmination of your work
Cut to perfection at all times
I sought life as a series of rights and wrongs
That someone was just waiting for the moment I crack
Pen and paper in hand,
Ready to dock my worth
Maybe today, I still care a little too much
But I believe that is irrevocably woven into my soul
As a blessing, rather than curse
This morning, I don’t take myself so seriously
I see life as a game, and this time, I like games
It’s challenging
Prospering towards growth
You see, when the past spends the night curled in my living room
I work overtime
Dissecting and worrying
But maybe,
Life isn’t so deep
And they can spend another night
And that’s alright
This evening, I will take myself
The way you care for someone young
I take myself
The way I love another
It’s none of my business what you think,
I take myself not so seriously
This semester I have grown so much. At the beginning of this course, I didn’t even know what aperture or ISO was. After studying how a camera works and personally testing it out for myself, I have become really proud of my work.
For my 16×24 Fine Art print,
I chose two photos.
The first photo I chose was of a beautiful mustang named Maserati. He was part of the Bannack, Montana photo excursion I was able to go on. When editing this, I really wanted to accentuate the texture of his hair and his aging spots. Sister Esplin gave a personalized workshop for the Digital Imaging students and she helped me understand how to do this in Photoshop. After she helped me, I made some adjustments myself. I used a lot of masks and used adjustments such as sharpening, Camera Raw filters, gaussian blur, and levels.
Below is the original image.
The next photo I chose to print was of my macro leaf shots. This was actually an in-class activity where props were brought into class for us to take photos of. The leaves outside were beautiful and I wasn’t impressed with how these macro shots were turning out. I decided to go outside ad try things from a new perspective. After Sister Esplin showed me some tips in Photoshop, I wanted to apply this for myself. So, for this photo, I used a Camera Raw filter, a sharpen mask, a gaussian blur mask, level adjustments, and the healing tool to cover up distracting holes in the leaf.
Below is the original image.
As the semester tips over its halfway point and our in-class photography is complete, we were assigned to compile our top 5 photographs.
Looking over my work, I am pleasantly surprised by my improvement. I can also see how much my taste in photography has changed! Photographs that I thought were my best work at the beginning of the semester has changed. It was really nice to look back and physically see my progress.
Elevate is a campus-wide competition at BYU-Idaho. Students from different majors get together and present a project to a set of judges. The purpose of the project is to create something that will improve the campus experience. Each semester, Elevate has a different theme. This semester’s question was: How can we achieve unified discipleship amidst, diversity, distance and difference?
As we competed in the Elevate competition, our group discussed the concept of unity and connection. Why are students at BYU-Idaho so disconnected? What makes this university so different than others? My group studied the difference between BYU- Idaho and Ricks College and noticed the biggest difference – the lack of a mascot. We proposed that BYU- Idaho should reintroduce the Viking Mascot digitally. This will increase school spirit and unity among students, all while spending little to no money and providing networking and internship opportunities for students.
Reintroducing the Viking Mascot, known as Thor, can bring new opportunities to students in the form of design practice, internships, and overall student connection. The Viking Mascot can be implemented in BYU-I social media and merchandise, including but not limited to, the University Store. Hashtags can also be used online to increase school spirit.
The skills that I used for this Elevate project were my graphic design and writing skills. I wrote the abstract our group submitted as well as formatting the Google Slideshow. I also made the mockup Viking logo, which took a sufficient amount of time. I spent about 12 hours on this project, according to my tracking journal. I felt that my team was really connected and worked hard. Even though we all had busy schedules, we made our Elevate project great!
During the performance, I presented the slides that went over the logo design process. I talked about how the logo will help the school in three ways: internship opportunities, campus involvement through a student logo competition and new merchandise for the university store, bringing in new income and excitement from students.
In class, we practiced macro photography. This assignment was where I realized there is a lot of potential for a photo in post-production.
For Caryn Esplin’s Digital Imaging course, we participated in a photo excursion to visit a ghost town in Bannack, Montana.
Even though this town is abandoned, I felt at home because there was so much character to explore. I am so grateful for the visitors who still come and the models who truly bring Bannack back to life.
I took nine photos at Nature Park in Rexburg, Idaho. My husband, who is in the Professional Imaging course, was able to give me some helpful tips for landscape and wildlife photography. Nature Park is a place that means a lot to both of us and I am continually in awe of how beautiful Rexburg can be when you take the time to look a little closer.
The subject (or constant) in these photos is the same body of water. To humanize the landscape, I photographed the bridge (photo 6) and my texture blend was where I completed a mask with dark clouds (photo 9). The biggest challenge for the added texture was to hide any light edges. I used the clone stamp in the water to remove any blue skies and desaturated the image. I was impressed with how well Photoshop could mask the tiny leaves on its own, but it was hard to make the image not look photoshopped. I think I did a good job as a beginner!
In fact, that is what this assignment taught me: to look a little closer. I crouched down and looked through bushes, bridges, and water reflections as if I was going to create an art piece. I realized that photography in itself is a form of art because it is a way to share a new perspective. I think this assignment taught me just how much I love landscape and wildlife photography. The perfectionist in me doesn’t love all of these pictures, but I think they are an important document of how my skills are progressing.
Above are the before and after of my photoshop processing, as well as the free image I used from Unsplash.com.
I am extremely proud of this image! I found this collapsed rose in the gardens of the Smith Amphitheater on campus. The way it was dramatically placed by nature itself became my perfect shot.
I took some great editing advice from my professor who advised me to crop the image and create my focus on the sharpened part of the rose. I also liked the way I edited this picture and I think the post-production really made this image unique.
This is my very first photography project where I understood how to use the manual options of a camera, such as shutter speed and ISO.
I have never done light painting before, and this was something that I always wanted to try. I had a lot of fun setting up the scenes for my projects, and learned just how much fun photography can be when you have someone to help you.
In a beautiful garden
I have this bit of serenity
The imminent feeling of being completely alone
While being close to so many
The rush of water
Chimes of tangled branches
Shadows that balance a summer’s light
A ladybug that dances
She is paused
Preparing for flight
I remember so peacefully
This feeling brings the wool around my heart
That feeling is known as comfort
Knowing I am in a world
Where nature is the music
My own, hidden covert
They will always sing
It rings so conferring
To those who have the ears to hear it
Maybe that is it – we are our own
These hidden and beautiful worlds
Only few people really know
And every time a person comes to visit
To walk amongst these complex forests
They appreciate the beauty, the exquisite
And notice all those who walked these woods before
What did they leave behind?
And what did you fail to take out?
It does not matter
Nonetheless, it stays
A beautiful garden remains
A road trip to Baja California in Mexico was one to remember. I took a few photos one sunny morning. I hope you enjoy!
In Spring of 2022, I took a course that taught students how to use Adobe Illustrator and create professional vector graphics.
Click on the title of each piece to see my Behance post. There, you can learn the process behind each design.
I took these photos in the summer at a few new stores that came to Rexburg. One is a beauty store (Golden Beauty Co.), another was a thrift/plant store (Daisy Links), and the last one was another thrift store (Thrifted Lennons).
Isabelle Justice 