As I mentioned in my last photography update,  about the presentations I held with Cailin to announce the photography competition based around the theme 'Uniting the Nations;, we were both chosen to be part of the jury(!!!):



But what does this have to do with CAS? Not much directly, but it demonstrates how much Cailin and I have achieved through our photography and it feels really good to be recognised for something that we are both so passionate about. I'm extremely proud that I've been able to participate is such an amazing competition and help other budding photographers develop. 

Following the huge, and unexpected success, of the photography blog I run collaboratively with a fellow IB student Cailin (which now has over 3200 page views in just under 3 months), we were asked to hold a presentation about photography. We were initially approached by the Head of Upper School and then also by the Head Of Middle School to inform the respective year groups about how we approach photography and how they can get involved in the activity.

The school has arranged a photography competition based around the theme 'Uniting the Nations' in honour of International Day. Throughout our presentation, Cailin and I were asked to:

• Describe the basics of photography
• Show some of our own photography work based on a certain theme
• Announce the competition
• Demonstrate some other photographers interpretation of the theme
• Show some of our photography based on the theme of uniting the nations
• Announce the prize of the competition: a huge canvas print of the winning piece, a feature in the school newspaper, a post on our photography blog, a feature on the school website and (last, but not least) two tickets to PHANTASIALAND 

My photography

My photography

Cailin's photography

Alongside this, we asked one of the teachers in charge of organising the competition if we could be part of the voting jury and after a day of deliberating, we received an email with the list of people on the jury... our names were TOP of the list. As part of the jury, we are not allowed to enter the competition ourselves, which is a shame, but I'm extremely excited to be seeing everyone else's interpretations of the theme and deciding which ones are just-that-slightly-or-maybe-a-lot-better than others.

Last week, my family and I went on a trip to Arizona, my birth place, and as with all of our holidays we tried to make it as active as possible. For me, this trip had a 'theme', which was canyons. We managed to visit 6 different canyons all over the state including: the Grand Canyon, Sycamore Canyon, Madera Canyon and Antelope Canyon. To add to this we also visited places such as 'Horseshoe Bend' and various lookout points.

Looking over Horseshoe Bend

For me, this holiday was a fun way to get some exercise in as we did a lot of hiking - in the canyons, to get to the canyons, to get to the lookout point and to find the perfect spots to take pictures and shoot video clips. On an average day, we were walking over 15km, with some days going up to around 20-25km. This also included a lot of climbing up and down, which made it a whole lot more tiring.

A creative shot of part in Antelope Canyon

On the third day, we visited the Grand Canyon, which I've already seen a few times, but never hiked to the bottom. I still can't officially say that I have as we only went part of the way, but we did more than more people would and what is recommended for one day. We hiked 4 miles down along the @@@ trail and then the same route back up. On the way down, the hike seemed almost too easy, but the walk back up definitely made up for it. I was panting and had to keep stopping to catch my breath.

The most unexpected was Sycamore Canyon, which we found by accident and discovered that it wasn't very well known after searching the internet for it. None of us had any idea why it wasn't popular, until we started driving down the 19 mile road that took us to the lookout point. There were no cars. Anywhere. That should have been a sign. The first half of the road was fine - dusty, but fine. Then came the not-so-fine part. The road had miniature canyons embedded in it from previous drivers that must have been about 40cm deep. This made the drive much harder that anticipated. I guess that also explains why it isn't such a popular destination, considering that this it the only route to get there. Nevertheless, when we arrived there none of us could even remember the road. The view was incredible.

Climbing rocks in the canyons

We stayed there for a while and just as we were leaving, I knelt down to snap a few pictures at a different angle and fell leaned straight onto a cactus with my leg. I was pulling out the needles for the rest of the car journey back.

Quick word of advice: don't get anywhere near cacti - their thorns are there for one sole purpose: to hurt you and (laugh at your stupidity)

After we got back, I had some time at home, which is when I started compiling the 200 video clips I had into a video. I don't have any fancy editing software, currently I'm using iMovie, which means that to get the same effect as in other ones, I have to take a long and complicated route. In the end, I'm really happy about the final product as it definitely is a nice way to document our adventures in a fun and different way and I got to have fun editing the video.