Throughout the course of this trimester I have learned a lot in Digital Photography 1. I chose to take this class because I have always been intrigued by cameras and how to use them, and my older sister's incredible photography skills inspired me and motivated me to learn some techniques myself. I am definitely not at her level, but I definitely grew in my skills these past couple months. With regards to my photo assignments, in the beginning I struggled a lot with lighting and also clarity of photos due to focus issues. I learned that the location of the photo really matters and that you can't just randomly take a photo. A good photo requires patience to get the settings and composition of the photo correct. In my worst image you can see lighting issues, an unpleasant background, and a fuzzy image. However, my best picture is bright, vibrant, focused and well composed. An area of this class which I struggled with a bit more was in photoshop. The layer stacks and some tools such as the quick selection tool definitely stumped me. However, with each photo shop assignment, I learned to really pay attention to the directions, not be afraid to ask for help, and always be aware of my layer stacks. After I took these things to heart, I would say that my photo shop skills improved. Overall, I had a really fun time in this class and I learned a lot of beneficial and interesting information about computers and the art of digital photography.
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For this final photo shop assignment, we were instructed to use professional portrait photography techniques and take photos in two different locations or of two different people. We then had to manipulate the photos in photoshop. Some of the techniques we used were positioning the camera vertically (portrait), using a tripod for stability, using a white card stock sheet to position light and avoid shadow, and filling the frame. These were all very helpful hints and I think I utilized them correctly. Putting the camera in manual mode also helped to achieve the right shutter speed and aperture for portrait photography. The only thing I struggled with was the photoshop aspect. Using the correct tools and layers was confusing at times, but I think I got the hang of it in the end.
For this photo shop assignment, we were allowed to showcase some of our creativity and experiment with photoshop. We were given a document of tutorials for photoshop but we could pretty much do anything we wanted. I chose to do photo blend, dash of color, and polaroid. I am not the best at photoshop, so this assignment was a little difficult for me, but the tutorials I looked at were very helpful and descriptive and also had images of the layer stacks which helped. I only ended up doing two of these open assignments because I was absent one day, but I definitely think that these helped me learn a lot more about photoshop and I widened my skills. Once I figured them out they were pretty fun as well.
BLACK & WHITEFor my final photo assignment, I chose to do black and white. I had quite a few images from previous assignments that worked really well in black and white I think. I also took a few new ones at my house. This photo assignment was fairly simple, I just took pictures I had already taken and a few new ones from a quick photoshoot at my house. I then desaturated them in photoshop so they were black and white. I played with levels and brightness a little bit to enhance the black and white.
For this photoshop assignment we were instructed to take photos of a place in the school on a tripod in manual mode, and then gradually take photos of ourselves within that scene without moving the camera. After that we were given instructions on how to reveal each image within the scene by using photoshop. This photoshop assignment was really fun. I really enjoyed thinking of different poses and exploring around the school. As for the photoshop aspect of it, it was a little bit tedious, but once I mastered the lasso tool and layer arrangement it was a breeze. I learned a lot and had lots of fun while doing so.
MACROFor my sixth photo assignment I chose to do the category of macro. I took pictures of lots of things around my house such as flower bouquet's, tulips, books and photos of my sister's eye as well. I felt that all of these things could look really cool close up. This photo shoot definitely improved my photo taking skills I think because I was finally successful with focusing my camera and I worked a lot on composition as well. Also I learned a lot about the Macro feature on my camera and I will definitely be using it again. This was overall a pretty successful photo shoot I would say.
FOODFor my fifth photo assignment I chose to take pictures of food. I definitely enjoyed this one because I got to enjoy some delicious food while doing my homework! Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took... I had a couple difficulties with this assignment because my lighting wasn't the best, so I had to set my camera to a really big aperture and slow shutter speed to let more light in. Because of this, a lot of my photos turned out kind of blurry. For the most part, I think that these 5 turned out good, however next time i'm working in low-light situations, I have to be really careful to make sure that my camera settings are correct and my camera is focused where I want it to. Overall though, this was a really fun assignment.
For this photoshop assignment we were instructed to take photos around the school and manipulate them to look like a completely new, creatively crafted scene. I chose to use many photoshop elements such as the quick selection tool, the magic wand tool, the eraser, and much more. I really like how the final photoshopped image turned out. My inspiration for this scene was the cold weather outside. I am very excited for spring break, and I was trying to capture my want to be sitting on a beach, taking in a beautiful sunset, rather than stuck in Michigan in the snow. I definitely struggled with this photoshop assignment. The quick selection tool is very precarious and difficult to work with and the eraser gave me some trouble as well. Something I learned was how to insert shadows into a photo by playing with the opacity. The editing did take me a while, but I am pretty happy with the end result.
For this photoshop assignment we were instructed to take a series of photos in manual mode with a tripod to create a Panoramic image. I used tools such as photo merge, the crop tool and other photo enhancement features such as brightness/contrast and levels. I learned a lot more about my camera as well as photoshop because of this assignment. I learned how to manipulate manual mode better, and I learned how to use the very useful photo merge tool which will definitely come in handy. I also learned how to use a tripod which is also very useful and helps to eliminate blurriness. Overall, this photoshoot went pretty well I think.
PEOPLEFor my fourth photo assignment I decided to take photos of people. We had a snow day on Friday which provided the perfect opportunity to take some photos of my friends while the snow was falling. I think that the photos are pretty good overall, and I had lots of fun while taking them. These photos were fun to take, but were a little difficult to capture at times . The wether conditions made my lens blurry at times, and I had to cover my camera with a plastic bag. Adjusting camera settings was not as simple as it normally is. I was able to use aperture to my advantage to catch the falling snowflakes, but the majority of the time my camera had to be in auto, mainly because I did't want to take off my gloves to adjust the settings in the freezing cold. Overall though, as I said before, I really enjoyed this assignment and I think I got some pretty good shots of my friends :) .
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March 2018
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