Improving Portrait Photography

Since I got my Canon Rebel back in January, I have made an effort to not only take better photos with my camera but to also do a better job of editing the portraits in Photoshop.

Looking back a few years, I'd say my technique has improved. Take a look and judge for yourself! Believe me, I am still practicing using my manual modes to get the best portraits possible. In fact, two sessions ago I ruined over half the photos because I did not readjust the white balance setting. Tough learning. But learning is good.

Practice and Pinterest have helped immensely, and I will continue practicing and refining the look of my product!

Before:

 After:

College Effects:

 The effect I use three years later:

Wedding Slideshows

One thing I love to do is create short movies and slideshows for events. Here are a few examples.

Senior year of high school, I created this videos of my brothers as part of my senior project.

Here are two wedding slideshow examples.

What Makes a Pin Popular?

http://www.pinterest.com/morgancheeseman/
I may not be big on social media, but I have by far the most followers and traffic on my Pinterest page. Is it because I create the most unique "posts" or pins here as opposed to Twitter or Facebook? Or is it something else? I decided to do some research to find out why some pins are more popular than others by analyzing my most repinned pins.

My Popular Pins
I took a sample of my most popular pins (< 85 repins) and tried to find similarities. I found that they:

• Had accurate descriptions: not just "cool" or "love."
• Fell into popular Pinterest categories, making them easy to search.
• Could be found as a "related pin" from somebody else's pin.

Experiment One
I found a pin related to my Olivia Benson haircut pin and repinned it twice: once with the description, "Cool," and one with the description, "Love Sandra Bullock's haircut." The goal is to see which one gets more repins and to find out if having key words in the description make a difference. They are in the same category on the same board. The constants are the image and the category; the variable is the description.

Experiment Two
To explore pins even further, I repinned the same image and description but onto two different boards with different categories. The goal is to see if a category has an impact of the popularity of a pin with the same description. The constants are the image and description and the variable is the category.

I will update as soon as I have results of these two experiments, as well as give my two cents about optimizing your pin popularity.

In Marketing Communication Production during my senior year of college, we were challenged to design a viewbook for the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Here is the link to see both my creative brief and the final viewbook (choose my name, Morgan Cheeseman, to see my work): http://www.inspireandempower.com/KU/J553_portfolio_2010.html

Below are the PDF pages of the viewbook.

Campaigns - Senior Capstone Intro Video

My last Journalism class, Campaigns, was the most grueling, time-consuming and rewarding class that I attended at the University of Kansas. Not only did I connect with our client, Kansas Parks and Recreation, but I also loved all of the work involved to create a comprehensive campaign with my team.

Here is the intro video to our presentation. I came up with the overall storyline and found the music.