Photo 2, Fall '25

Gwen Zimmerman

Reflecting on my goals for the semester

I believe that I have completed nearly all of my initial goals this semester. I became nearly fluent in using my DSLR, being able to adjust the settings manually to create photographs with purpose and specific style. While doing this, I also continued to focus on the basic techniques such as framing, leading lines, different perspectives, and many other small details that contribute to make an entire photograph. Not only did I become more fluid in photographing and editing digitally, but also in film. At the beginning of the semester, I was extremely hopeful that we would photograph in different mediums and learn new techniques relevant to this different way of photographing. Film really taught me more about light and how it plays such an incredibly important role in photography in the grand scheme of things. Overall, I was able to expand my knowledge on how to effectively use and combine basic techniques, become comfortable using a DSLR manually, and learn more about the variety and specifics of photography through different mediums such as film.

"Hidden Mansion"

"Reflective Perspective"

9/10/25

"Jazz Hands"

10/12/25

On a scale from 1-5, I would rate myself a 4.5 on effectiveness in terms of planning, shooting, and editing my assignments. At the beginning of the semester, I had trouble finding time to photograph during the school week and weekends and would often complete them last minute, but was nonetheless fairly successful in shooting. I also rarely edited my photos, appreciating the rawness of the products but also neglecting how a few touches could potentially enhance them. However, towards the end of the semester, I realized how planning my shooting could make my photographs more thought out and how it could affect the quality of them. I started shooting out of Yarmouth, brining a camera with me when I would travel or making a short day trip to Freeport or Portland to better achieve my goals for the specific assignment. I also realized how I can use editing to my advantage and tame it to my purpose with the assignment. If I wanted to keep the natural beauty of the photograph, I could simply tweak the lighting or exposure a bit. Yet, if I wanted to emphasize certain aspects of the photo, I could edit the saturation of certain colors, use background blurring, and other tools to be more successful in my creative process. Despite my less effective photographing at the beginning, I think I really grew in this area of the class as time went on and learned how to better plan, shoot, and edit. One thing I would like to continue to do is to keep exploring with editing my photographs and different styles of it, seeing how it can impact aesthetics and emphasis. Something I would like to improve upon is motivating myself to photograph for at least an hour once a week. I think consistency is something that I have always had trouble with and is something that I lose once I don't have an outside motive (such as class).

Some of my biggest successes this year were my increasing comfortability with manually using my DSLR and experimenting with different types of photography to learn more about my creative self. I think I could really see this in my black and white photographing such as our photo walk, film unit, and my emulation project. Throughout all of these projects, I became more and more biased towards black and white photography, as it allowed me to really focus in on the composition of the photograph and the more minor details, rather than the color and how that could affect or take away from a photo. I learned more about my love for capturing different textures, especially in architecture. However, the assignment that I am most proud of are my street portraits. During this assignment, I went out of my comfort zone in many different ways; I had to overcome my bit of social anxiety to go up to strangers and ask them to take a picture and make conversation and experiment with color, specifically with editing. Not only did this assignment help me grow as a photographer, but it also showed me the potential that I have as an artist. I completely came up with this assignment concept on my own, planned out how I was going to execute it before shooting, and spent a lot of time editing to see how I could emphasize different elements that I thought were important to my purpose.

"I was patient when my child was screaming"

January, 2026

"I would say my resilience to change" "I can't think of something as deep as that, so I would say my eyes"

January, 2026

Goals for the semester

After completing Photo 1 last year during the spring semester, I hope to mainly expand upon the skills that I learned and began to grasp. Overall, I hope to learn more about how to create a photograph with more purpose and meaning by using the techniques that I have learned. I would love to expand upon my knowledge by learning more about the different functions of the DSLR camera to be able to adjust the settings exactly to my vision and purpose. Exploring more of a variety of photography mediums would also help enforce this, experimenting with digital, film, and other means. A few assignments that I hope we do to further help my goals are using the dark room, practicing certain photographing techniques, and focusing an assignment on the functions of a digital photography and experimenting with these elements.

Page updated

Report abuse