3/9/2018 0 Comments Final Post"Get your cameras from the cabinet and go take some pictures." The day I heard those words, I felt completely and utterly out of my element. It was early on, still just the first week of the trimester, and I truly didn't have a clue what I was doing as I wrapped the camera's string around my wrist and ventured into the school hallways. What was I even supposed to take pictures of? Maybe the auditorium stage, I thought. Nope, too dark. What about the flags? I thought next. Nope, the movement makes them blurry. The library books? No, the colors are too dull. Wait a minute, why isn't it going? Oh, hold on, I pressed the zoom thing by accident. Location after location, subject after subject, I ran into problems, none of which I was sure how to solve. Even when I did manage to take a picture, it never looked quite right to the eye. I felt defeated, discouraged that the class was not as easy as I'd anticipated, and concerned that I wouldn't be able to improve. Maybe photography simply wasn't my thing. In one sense, I was right: the course definitely wasn't easy. In the other, I was wrong: I have definitely improved. From the first photo I snapped, when I could hardly hold the camera still, and words like "shutter speed" and "aperture" sounded like a foreign language . . . to my light painting portrait, when carefully chosen camera settings lent themselves to the magical effect seen below. If I could travel back to that first time I held the camera, I would have a solution for every issue that came up: Too dark? Switch into manual and manipulate the exposure triangle. Unwanted motion blur? Increase the shutter speed. Dull coloring? Adjust the saturation levels in Photoshop. While I am still by no means an expert, I have grown so much, and twelve weeks worth of progress can be seen below. Below are some of my worst photos. Some are so blurry that my sister's body appears faded and wispy, others awkwardly positioned so her face is turned away from the camera. Several are plagued by distracting backgrounds and digital noise. The last couple are so brightly lit that you can hardly make out the full scenes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this second slideshow displays my best photos. These were deliberately positioned, rather than snapped at moment's notice. The technical aspects (exposure, color, etc.) are properly set, and different composition factors (space, rule of thirds, etc.) are at play. I put so much time and effort into these shots -- both during the photo shoot itself and the editing process -- and I'm proud of the way they turned out. My Photoshop skills have skyrocketed as well. I remember opening the app for the first time and feeling a bit queasy at the sight of the endless tool bars. In the beginning, it was just as annoying as I expected it to be. The keyboard shortcuts didn't stick for me, and I couldn't seem to get a grip on many of the tools (especially Quick Selection). My first Photoshop assignment (seen below) has rough and uneven edges; I erased half of my sister's hair, and we look out of place against the solid black background. By the fourth assignment, however, I felt shakily confident in utilizing the basics. Photo-shopping our school balcony into a Parisian park ended up being my favorite task this trimester: I was pleased with how clean and polished the sky/scenery/grass edges turned out, and I love the added detail of the girl's shadow. At this point, I no longer need step-by-step instructions when using Photoshop; I can problem-solve my way through different projects using the techniques I've already learned. In the end, the biggest lesson I've learned doesn't concern ISO's or layer masks -- while those factors are important, I've realized more than once that photography is more than the sum of those simple parts. Rather, it is an art form. It helps to enhance our current reality, to capture details that may otherwise go unnoticed, and to forever appreciate a moment by freezing it in time. At the same time, it allows us to create visions of worlds that we wish to see, worlds in which we have three identical clones and our school windows overlook the Eiffel Tower . . . the camera is a powerful tool indeed.
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