Purpose:
To learn more about photography on a professional level;
To explore various ways photographers communicate;
To understand that there are many different types of photographers and photography.
What surprised you?
One thing that surprised me the most was the prominent showings of monkeys, there were all types of monkeys, and some monkeys were shown with people, some monkeys were in trees, and others were in cages.
What did you find interesting?
Something that I found interesting about this film was the different types of people worldwide. The photographers chose to go to places with very different people with very different lifestyles and that was interesting to me.
Is this a career you would choose? Why or why not?
This is a career I could be interested in because of the freedom of the job and the benefit of traveling the world.
The National Geographic video that I watched was about a french man named Michel D’oltremont. Michel is a wildlife photographer in Europe. He captures all types of animals including birds, foxes, and bison. The video focused on how Romania was introducing bison back into the ecosystem after 200 years of extinction, and Michel went to photograph them. Michel portrayed the struggles of getting the right photo and how to overcome them and use the struggles as motivation to stick with your project until you get your result. This was shown by his multiple week-long trips and Michel only capturing photos of the bison on one of the days. This is relevant to my learning about photography because it shows one of the most important aspects of the art: patience.
The three most interesting things that I learned from watching this video include, Patience, how to motivate yourself, and that bison are being reintroduced in Romania. The video conveys the importance of patience firstly through the title: (On the Hunt for the Perfect Shot) which implies that the perfect shot will not be easy or quick, and secondly by giving the example of Michel and his trip to Romania to see the bison. During this trip, Michel is walking through the Romanian countryside looking for bison for weeks on end, and only one day out of his entire trip was he able to capture the majestic creatures. Secondly, Michel teaches motivation through hardship and by hardship. He says that everyone will experience the hardship of not being able to capture a photo the exact way that you want to, but the way that you act after the fact is what shapes the outcome because if you give up as soon as you hit hardship, the next day could be exactly what you are looking for. So you should use the difficulties to motivate yourself to keep going. Lastly, I learned about the reintroducing of wild bison into the Romanian ecosystem after extinction for more than 200 years, this was very interesting to me as I love to see animals coming back into their natural habitat and living free and in the wild.
This Ted Talk video is about when or when not to take your phone or camera out. The video focuses on how capturing a moment is great, but living it can be better, more often than not your camera is a blockade from reality rather than a conveyer of it. Erin Sullivan- the speaker aims to show people when they should take the photo, and explain the significance of the experience itself. If you are only going to go have an experience so that you can take a photo and show others, is it really worth it, or would you rather keep your memory to yourself? This video is relevant to my learning because even though I might have a photography project due in a few days if I’m living an important experience I shouldn’t be pressured to take a photo.
The three most interesting things that I learned from watching the ted talk video include when to take my phone out, how to make photography enjoyable, and the value of special moments. When to take out your phone can be difficult because you always have to weight the odds, is it more worth living the moment, or capturing the moment? That is for you to decide, but if your are just capturing the moment to show other people you had that moment, research has shown that you arent any more happy after doing that, so maybe think about living the moment instead. Building off of the study about photographing for others, one way to make photography more enjoyable is photographing for yourself not others. The research shows you are more happy when you take a photo to keep to yourself. Finally, I learned about valuable moments, they are special and should be remembered, but remembered in a photo is much different than remembered in your head, and science shows that taking a photo can harm your brains memory of the experience and thus you only remember the experience by the photo.