Reflections!! (on a semester)

1) What did you learn about photography that you did not know before?
What I learned about photography is that it doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have, what matters is how you use it. A person could have a really nice expensive fancy camera but take a photo less impressive than someone with a regular digital camera or even a smart phone. This is because you need creativity and passion to take a great photo. I learned that adjusting the shutter speed while standing still and taking a photo of something moving makes the photo have moving objects blurred and the background normal. I learned how to make prints in the dark room with a roll of film and with a cell phone. I learned that you can take photos of ugly things and make them look beautiful. I learned that placing an object right in the middle of the photo is not appealing to the eye. Rule of thirds! I learned that photography is not as easy as it seems. A photograph is not about how good the person, place, or thing looks like, but rather the story that the picture tells. I learned that taking pictures actually takes a lot of time and effort.

2) What did you learn about yourself this semester?
Something I learned about myself this semester is that I do have the ability to photograph, I just have to try. However, I also learned that maybe photography is not my thing. I learned that my creativity just depends on my determination. I learned that I would rather take photographs of what I wanted and edit them the way I thought would look best rather than having to follow a certain criteria.

3) What do you wish we had done that we didn't do?
I really liked the idea of light writing, it was assigned but only as an optional extra credit assignment. I wish that we would have made it one of the assignments so we all could've learned how to do it and made our own light writing photos. I also have always wanted to try to take fish-eye photographs, but that requires a certain camera with a certain lens which I understand cannot be provided for everyone.

4) What was your struggle?
A struggle for me was not really knowing how to work the camera settings. Another struggle was how to use photoshop since I had never really used it before. Also, I wasn't exactly sure how my photos were supposed to turn out, I was sort of just taking them and hoping that they met the requirements. A big struggle was finding enough people or objects to photograph in such a short amount of time. I have work and school almost everyday, so it was hard to complete a whole photo assignment in just a couple of days. Another struggle was finding the right setting to take the perfect picture.

5) What did you conquer?
In the middle of the semester my grade dropped down to an F. After making up lots of missing assignments and working hard to turn in all the new assigned projects in on time I got my grade back up to an A. I did the cell phone print all by myself which I thought was an accomplishment because the other dark room assignment we did didn't turn out that well for me because I didn't know what I was doing.

levitation

BLUR PHOTOS

light photos

I observed that direct light casts a lot of shadow. I also observed that light is blocked when there is an object in the way. I struggled with finding a good source of light and finding objects that would cast a distinct shadow. I learned how to make a silhouette photo by placing the object right in front of the light. This project was somewhat difficult because most light is diffused.