Reflections on a Semester

What did you learn about photography that you did not know before?

        This semester  I learned about the qualities of  photograph that made it better than just snapping a picture such as : the rule of thirds, how to manipulate light and shadow, how to make and take a keyhole picture, I learned that a blurry photograph doesn't necessarily mean a bad one, and most importantly I learned how to develop film. I loved watching the different videos about interesting ways of taking photographs, such as the keyholes as large as a room, and using a truck to take pictures. 

What did you learn about yourself this semester?

       I learned that I like photography, but not enough to do anything about it. I like taking my own photographs on my own time of what I find interesting or beautiful. However, it was difficult to be told what types of photographs to take, at a certain type period, of a certain thing. It felt forced and I like the idea of photography being more out on a whim, capturing a moment, not setting up a "moment" in order to get a good grade. 

What do you wish we had done that we did not?

       I definitely wish we had done more film photography because that is originally why I signed up for the class. I understand that it is important to know how to take digitally good pictures and manipulate them in photoshop, which don't get me wrong was still fun and interesting, but having taken Digital Arts it was very repetitive. I think it is a rare opportunity to be able to take film pictures and actually develop them yourselves, and though very time consuming I think the opportunity should be taken advantage more of. I also wish we could have had more assignments that were vague where you could take photos of a more broad spectrum, or maybe I should say having more time to take the photographs would have been nice. 

What was your struggle?

     My struggle was having time to take good photographs that were not too forced and set up. It was hard sometimes when we were assigned a project to do during the week on top of other homework, work and after school activities. 

What did you conquer?

    I "conquered" different techniques of photography and being creative in taking pictures. 

Blur

Light

Here is a mixture of silhouettes and direct light photos. 

I struggled with creating a silhouette, but then i concluded that the best silhouette is created using natural light. Such as dusk, which is when the following photographs were taken. Also, I used one overhead light for the photographs taken of the horse head and shadow, and it created a near perfect direct light photo. 

Stereographs

This is a stereograph of my backyard. I think it turned out pretty cool although I am not a fan of the pinching in the center. I like the look of all the trees though. 

This is a stereograph of Tualatin High Schools field

Clone Panorama

This project was fun because it looks very realistic that there are multiple horses in the same arena at the same time. But it was also very challenging to align all the boards along the wall to make it look like one continuous picture.

Scan Photo

This is a scanned photograph of my face. It turned out to make me look like a warped elf, but I guess it's in the spirit of the season.

Self-Portrait

These self-portraits reveal happiness and love for photography because of their different angles.

Black and White

Multiple Exposures

 Sabattier