After traveling through Europe during the one-week breaks, Barcelona still has to be my favorite. The wonderful weather, efficient metro transportation, and the constant barrage of new things to do on a daily basis makes all other cities pale in comparison.

Computational photography was one of the "Barcelona-s" of classes this summer-- one that certain people sat in on even if they weren't in the class. It gave a different perspective behind all of the work that goes into pictures (from the camera to the computer), and really explained exactly what goes on in those commonly used Photoshop functions. The photo I chose to use was the last assignment of the class-- the "camera obscura" assignment. I chose this specific picture for sentimental reasons. The process of setting up the "camera" was a group effort, and I will have fond memories of the hours we spent finding a suitable room, pulling all of the blinds down and blocking all but one source of light, and fumbling around in the dark as we tried to best capture the image projected onto the wall with a borrowed DSLR. The personalization process is what you can see in the picture-- we made shadow puppets, posed like statues in front of the camera, and played with light in order to produce individualized photographs. The light source from the back of the room was purely accidental-- someone walked in while my picture was taking and let in the hallway light-- but I love the addition it made to the story behind the picture, and to the picture itself.