Photography 1

Yes, I do think that overall my experience in Photography 1 was very successful. I learned so many new things throughout the class and the semester. At the beginning of the year we learned through several assignments how to take photos with different prompts such as textures and patterns, shadows and reflection, portraits, etc… all these assignments and more challenged me to spot things in my everyday life that I could take pictures of that I hadn't always noticed before or thought to take pictures of so it really broadened my mind to the potential of different photo opportunities. I also successfully learned how to use Photoshop's digital editing app, learn to use a film camera, develop film, and make prints of images I took. This was all hard in the process but the outcomes and my growth were all great, so overall I feel that I had a great experience on photography 1.

The hardest obstacle that I had to work hard and practice over and over to overcome and surpass was rolling firm in the dark bays. I don't really know why I struggled with this so much initially. My first couple of times but my first time specifically I had a lot of trouble and could not figure out how to fit the film roll into the spiral roller. I think that the fact that I was struggling to try to roll the film in when it wasn’t even in the dark baywhere I couldnt see what i was doing, but that i was doing it while looking during the initial practice of it and was struggling so much, caused me to have a defeated attitude that I could not not it sucedully. I think that it was my defeated attitude  that mostly led to how much I struggled, along with the fact that it was very hard to do while not being able to see what I was doing. But after several times of practicing by the end of the semester I wasn't messing up while doing it and all my prints came out great!

Throughout the semester of Photography too I had two favorite projects. The first was when we used Photoshop for our “Multiplicity” project. Though this project was very hard to articulate the outcome was super cool in my opinion and it was never anything that I had learned how to do before. During this project we used Photoshop to align  several images so that it appeared that there was two or three of the same subject within one image. For this project I did one of me by a tree and one of my friend Rihanna on Halloween night in the street. This project was one of my favorites because  what I created was very cool and  I had never thought about how those types of images are made and it was very cool to figure that out using editing. My second favorite project of this year was probably our “intro to film.” I loved this project because we got to learn how to use film cameras develop film make contact sheets and make prints,  and overall the whole experience of what photography and what the rest of our semester in the class would look like. I love how film cameras work and I love the pictures I was able to create during this assignment.

My least favorite project during our semester class of Photography 1  was the “kaleidoscope” project. I think there were several aspects of this project that made it my least favorite first being that It was the  first or second project that we had to use Photoshop for and my laptop and my Photoshop app gave me quite a bit of trouble. This assignment was tricky and difficult for me not for lack of understanding the assignment and understanding what I needed to do to complete it but because my laptop and Photoshop editing app weren't working accordingly so it made the project very time consuming,  and take a lot more effort than it probably needed to. I also think that the results of the project isn't very cool or unique or interesting to look at. Maybe it was the photos I chose or maybe it was my Photoshop app not working very well during that time but the final product of that assignment didn't really look like anything special or specifically attractive to me personally.

I would say that my understanding for photography and compositional techniques that photographers take for specific photos has definitely grown a lot and I'm a lot more knowledgeable in that area now after taking photography 1. Originally  I didn't really know of any photography composition techniques as a unexperienced photographer myself I would just take pictures in whatever way of people and things that I thought were pretty or cool without as much thought behind the way in which I was taking the images. After taking photography one I've learned a lot of compositional techniques and the work of a photographer and what goes behind every single photo that is ever taken. There's a lot of thought process that a photographer can take to emphasize the quality and appeal of an image and I learned how to do that as a photographer. Overall my knowledge of how to use digital editing apps how to think as a photographer in the way I take a photo and what compositional techniques I can spot in potential photos, and how to use my edits to enhance photos and make them more appealing has grown. I loved  learning how to use film cameras roll film develop film make prints in a dark room it was all a tricky process to initially comprehend but after learning it it became like a second nature and it became so much fun.  I admire a lot of what I've learned in photography 1  and am  very excited to carry on what knowledge I have learned into photography too which I will be taking next semester and to grow further as a photographer and hopefully make even better photos.