Four digital photography students, divided into two teams, placed highly in their “Future Business Leaders of America”, digital photography competition on January 23. The photographers submitted photographs that highlighted a certain product that they picked. One team achieved first place while the other team received second place at the competition.
Senior Charlie Stoner and junior Logan Merlo earned first place in their competition. They decided to use their passion for their sport and apply it to photography. Stoner and Merlo are hockey players and decided to use a CCM hockey stick. He said, “I have been passionate about photography since middle school and I joined the class my freshman year.” Stoner had been in digital photography since Junior High School, summarizing his digital photography career to around five years. He decided he would stay with it throughout the course of his high school career.
Some techniques that the photographers used for their photographs were: leading lines and the differentiation of colors. They also brought the hockey sticks onto a rink to show how the product functions. The team decided to use their hockey sticks and rented out a rink to take their photos. Merlo said, “One of my hockey coaches is the teacher, and it gave me motivation to participate in digital photography.” Merlo also mentioned how it was easier to compete in a team because of their shared workload and ideas.
Seniors Kate Wilson and Vienna Lossing earned second place in the competition. They used Sour Patch Kids as their object. They competed in a team where they figured out creative ways to take their photos. Both students have been into photography for a long time. Wilson has been in photography since her sophomore year, while Lossing is someone that had a passion for photography since her freshman year. Lossing said, “I like taking sports photos and that being in this class, you get to check out the cameras and I like having access to those.”
They used different techniques to get shots of the Sour Patch Kids that interested the judges and were able to help them stand out. Wilson stated, “We did a picture of a bag dropping onto a pile of sour patch and we did one of all the different flavors. We also did one light painting. We used high shutter sink lights… when we took the photo. A light went off at the same time to freeze the moment.” These techniques helped the team get different shots that pleased the judges, which led them to achieve second place.
The digital photography teacher, Scott Lundahl, mentioned how well his students have done in this competition for the past two years. Lundahl explained, “The last three years I have had somebody finish first place. . . we have kind of been crushing that competition.” Lundahl helped his students succeed for years before and hopefully years to come.
Both teams executed their photography well and placed high in their competition. The competition was the last one that Lossing and Wilson had decided to partake in; however, Stoner and Merlo plan to compete in the State competition later this month.
State competition is in April and it takes place in Tucson and it will be highly competitive. They will use the same photos that they took in their previous competition for the state competition.
