Category: Virtual Coffeehouse (Page 1 of 2)

“ Finding yourself in the forest “

This was a two-day getaway with my best friends. I view the three of them as brothers. Now that college has started, & our schedules are getting packed more than ever so we wanted to have this camping trip at the end of August as a way to end the summer. This trip was a getaway from city life, away from cell phones which allowed us to have the world at the palm of our hands. We were disconnected from the responsibilities the world brings. The prime focus was to survive on our own, to try new things, and to see new sights. Hiking an hour to climb up the peak of that waterfall was all worth it just to be able to do a few poses under the steamy, cold running water. The view was worth it. 

“ One call away “

On September 15th at 5 pm, I was outside my uncle’s house on Hillside Avenue, Jamaica. I was in the process of buying snacks for my little cousins and juice for my maternal grandmother. Once I got to the door of their house, I realized the calling bell had been removed and strangely enough no one was picking up the call. I walked away after no response. Unfortunately, the next day at noon I got a call from uncle informing me that my grandmother has passedaway. it felt as though the world had crushed down on me. I was right there yesterday, across the wall, but I didn’t get the chance to even see her. Now,she won’t be here anymore to call my name when I step foot in her house.

“ Robbery in progress “

This picture was taken during the quarterly review meeting at my job. In this photo above, two of my new colleagues are volunteering to demonstrate what needs to be done if the bank ever faces a situation of robbery.  As a banker, we have quarterly meetings where we need to discuss statistical analysis, meaning how well our progress has been made as a branch. This is a long nerve-wracking meeting as every one of us gets a soft check in which is like receiving a long, detailed verbal progress report. This means we will go over whether or not we are doing terribly or exceeding the exemplary expectations. During this, we have our moments where we are recognized for our efforts. I was recognized for being the second-best Bank teller in the whole banking rank division at my position for the last three quarters. Ranked above me as the number one exceptional Bank Teller was my best friend who works alongside me.  However, any praise can wash away quickly as you’re evaluated as a team by the regional director. When it comes to quarterly reviews, it becomes a team effort to be the best and coordinated.  

Seeing myself on TV

“Proud moment”

One of the proudest things I did in my life. On Friday I was over a friend’s home who I haven’t seen in a while. We asked each other usual stuff and asked me if I had access to the broadcast of me being on the news since he had never seen the footage, and sure enough I did. It was the time I appeared on TV talking about my card collection. I wasn’t nervous being in front of a giant camera and a microphone. Actually I find presenting in front of a classroom to be more nerve racking for me.

My idols

“Three legends”

This photo of those three cards ties into my previous story. I got those cards because I was in card club and my teacher had lockers filled with boxes of cards that came from around the country. I actually keep a few cards in backpack in any given day as form of “good luck”. I chose those cards to take a picture because those are three idols I look up to as well as the three main sports that I love very much, soccer, Formula 1, and WWE/wrestling.

Selfie at MSG Studios

“Cast”

This last photo was actually taken in December last year and it’s me at MSG Studios. I’m made friends with an anchor (the one on the top left) that works for the New York Knicks and said I can come to the Studio to watch a game. While I do consider basketball to be a highly entertaining sport and would rank it near the top as one of the best sports ever, I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I still watch when April rolls around.

“The evening glow over the waterfront”

This is an art photo taken in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I was in a state of depression and booked a flight to visit my loved ones and clear my mind. When I had stepped foot onto the balcony, I just had the urge to capture this very moment of the beautiful scenery of the buildings’ lights, the sky, and the yachts on the water that caught my attention. The view created a calm atmosphere for me and made me realize that even during my depression, there is beauty to life and light to the darkness that is felt inside. Seeing the yachts instantly took me back to when I was 16, and my dad and grandparents took me on my very first yacht ride through Miami. Mentally, I felt low, but physically, I was above the ground, midway in the air, feeling connected to the world below. The quietness of the area encouraged a peace of mind for me.

“ Light Beyond The Ocean”

This photo is an art photo of a sunrise happening in Florida. My cousin and I planned to wake up early in the morning to catch the sunrise. It was drizzling lightly, but when I noticed the sun breaking through the gloomy clouds, with its rays piercing through, I knew I had to capture that as my decisive moment. This photo has a high reality effect because of the realistic nature event of the sky and ocean happening. There is also a boat that can be seen  in the distance but sun caught my attention more.

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  Burying my Heart”

  This photo is a documentary and portrait photo that was taken of me taking a picture of my beloved grandfather’s casket during his burial in August 2022. The app VSCO was used to edit the photo and the preset effect a5 was used. The grayish effect applied to the photo was intentional, meant to reflect my emotions at the time. It showed the heaviness I felt inside and mirrored the emptiness and sadness that seemed to go on throughout the day. The dominant expression of this photograph is the casket in the carriage. You can see me taking a photo on my phone, and in my mind I was capturing what would be the last sighting of my father figure who I loved dearly.

“Deportivo Leon 15/16”

This photo was taken in 2015, and it is a team picture of a Sunday League team owned by my father since 2008. My father, brother, and myself are located on the left, with my father standing out as he is wearing a different shirt than the rest, my brother is directly to his left and I am right under them. Although there are many team pictures I could have chosen throughout the years, I preferred this one in particular because it is one of the only team pictures where I am wearing the same kit as the other players. To many the dominant impression is the team, however, I have a personal punctum with the field the team is on as I grew up playing in Flushing Meadows Park.

“New Generation 24/25”

This next photograph is one taken more recently in early August, it is of the same team only with many different people, and my father and I are once again located to the left of the whole team. This picture is also taken in the same park and field I grew up playing on and I chose it to represent a story of changes and growth, from being a kid watching from the sidelines to being a starter in my father’s team. The change in age can be shown through my height as I am now taller than my father compared to the other photograph, and a detail that allows me to stand out is my dyed hair.

“Pier 5 Brooklyn”

This last photograph was taken this week at a different park called Pier 5 here in Brooklyn. Even though it seems like an average picture of a field, I have a personal punctum with this section of the field as it was grounds for a new connection I made with people at my workplace. Something to note is the studium as it is nighttime while my other pictures are during the day, this is because it is one of the only fields in New York that has lights. It also is a good example of a decisive moment, if I had taken this picture at any other time it would have been overflowing with people, making it more about the people than the field and view itself.

Holy New Year 

I took this photograph on January 1, 2024, at 2:50 AM before leaving our baby Jesus behind. For the past two years my family has decided to rent a small party hall or restaurant so we can celebrate New Years together. We have become an overwhelmingly big family and as funny as it may seem, we don’t fit in our small apartments anymore. It is a tradition as Catholics to recreate the Nativity of Jesus, that’s why there are so many Baby Jesus in the picture because almost everyone in my family has one. The composition was arranged by my cousin based on how well each Baby Jesus fitted in a spot, by pure chance ours ended up in the middle. 

Yikes 20 Candles 

I took this photo on June 18 at 10:10 PM as I was standing from a middle high vantage point while my family was singing Happy Birthday to me. I could not believe I was turning 20 years old and leaving my teen years behind was a very emotional moment for me. I had thought about this moment for which I purposely bought 20 candles to represent every year I had lived. As I blew every candle one by one, I thought about all the good and bad things I had gone through. When I got to my last candle I thanked God for the opportunity of living so much surrounded by my loved ones.

Old Money Vibes

My family loves spending days off productively and visiting new places especially beaches during the summer. I took this photo on July 17 at 7:04 PM at Coopers Beach in the South Hamptons minutes before leaving. I was waiting patiently for the right moment to capture a beautiful image of the beach. My decisive moment was when I noticed the seagull flying close to the moon and instantly took it. I almost missed it by a second. It was our first time visiting The Hamptons and I can say it was a wonderful experience. We were able to see so many beautiful mansions and a different lifestyle.

This photo is a prime example of a decisive moment; it was taken in a split second moment where my cat Sushi was standing in front of the sunlight emitting from the window of the front door. Sushi is a very active cat and doesn’t like standing still, so a few seconds before, he wasn’t near the area, and a few seconds after, he ran away. The rule of thirds can be used here to emphasize not just Sushi, but the sunlight. What is the dominant expression? Sushi? The light? It can be both. The contrast between his fur and the light makes both aspects stand out in the neutral colored living room. It just seems like the perfect photo that I am so lucky to have been able to take because it looks like he is posing for the photo. The background is also blurred, giving it a focus and shallow depth of field.

This photo was also a decisive moment because of course, it’s Sushi, and he doesn’t like staying still. This photo was taken when we set up the automatic litter box for the first time, and Sushi went in to explore it. The way that the photo is taken to not show any of the background makes it look like he is in some kind of spaceship or alien aircraft. The green lighting inside the litter box really emphasizes that. The dominant expression could be the litter box itself with the way it is lighting up green, or it could be Sushi with the way he is being lit up by the litter box itself.

This third photo is of my other cat, Socks, staring at me through the wooden stair beams, although just by looking at it, one can’t really tell it is stair beams. This could also be considered a decisive moment because he could have moved any time I took the photo, making it vastly different. However, he is a lazy cat so he’d probably be there a while. The way this photo is cropped makes it look like he’s either stuck in a box or prison bars, like he can’t get out. Socks loves eye contact for some reason, so him looking straight at the camera makes it feel like he is trying to tell the viewer something, like “Let me out!”.

“Distraction”

This is a photo of my sophomore year studio desk at my previous college in Delhi, NY. It was the first project of the first semester of my second year and had quickly claimed the corner desk in front of the window. My hope was to be in the corner so I could hone in on my work without getting distracted too much by conversing with my peers, however, the beauty of the window in front of me and watching the seasons change as time went on proved otherwise.

“Commute”

This is the White Plains Metro North Station that I take to get from where I was raised to where my foreseeable future shall be. I only started taking the train by myself after I had graduated high school and it was always intimidating coming from such a small area. Taking this train is now such a regular thing as I come and go from seeing my parents of the weekend to going to school in Brooklyn and I am interested to see where this new way of life takes me. Transferring from a small campus in the middle of nowhere upstate New York to now Brooklyn is a huge change and I think about it constantly on the trains I take to class.

“Passenger’

This photo has the dominant impression of the two skeleton animals in the moving box. The bear one I gifted to my boyfriend around Halloween last year and the dog we found in the basement of the house he grew up in. I was helping him pack his stuff from Vermont as we were about to take a five hour drive down to Brooklyn with his father. We were both ready for a new chapter in our lives, him starting a new job and me starting at a new school, and pretty nervous about it. The good thing was that we had each other through it though. Having each other’s support through big changes and “riding” it out together made it easier on each other, and while there have been bumps through it its nice to have a passenger sticking along.

This second photo was taken while I was in the gym. The gym is one of my favorite places to be at anytime of the day and no matter the mood I’m in. The gym honestly feels like my safe place. In the photo we can see my running shoes, water bottle, lifting straps, gym bag, and some dumbbells. I first began with running before I started going to the gym. I wanted to become a better version of myself and running became my first option which is why it’s in the center. This type of photo is depth of field. In the photo we can see that it’s concentrated on the items mentioned but the background of it is in a blur.

In this third photo we can see the entrance to a movie theater. I have gone to this movie theater for as long as I can remember with my best friend. Every time a new interesting looking movie would come out we would go to this exact theater. Each time we would go he would pick me up at my house and we would walk to the theater. The theater is about a 35 to 40 minute walk but with them it feels like 10 minutes. We would get the same beverage each time which is a large Pepsi slush and share it. In the photo we can also see two stairs on the side which we would always avoid and take the escalators that are hidden behind the stairs. This photo can be seen as a focus image as the name of the theater is the brightest or it can be a dominant impression photo since the sign being so bright can capture the viewer’s attention first.

This photo was taken during my trip to Colombia with my two best friends. It was during our trip to a zoo when we were heading to the exit and realized there was a performance going on. We decided to stay to watch the whole thing. I love the fact that they have bright yellow clothing on, it makes them stand out in this photo and I waited for them to be in the center of the photo so they can look like the dominant impression.

This photo was taken at Madison square garden, at a concert my sister and I went to about two weeks ago. The blue lights came on during a pause in the show and it looked like the perfect moment to capture an art photo. The blue light created an abstract effect that made the arena look beautiful.

This last picture was taken in the beginning of the year. It was new years and it was my attempt at capturing the moment of celebration into the new year. I love this photo because to me it is an example of a decisive moment. I made sure to have my camera near me to quickly capture a beautiful memory.