PORTFOLIO

I am no stranger to photography. During my undergrad, I took a photography class in which I learned the basics of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. After graduating, I worked in several marketing and social media roles that occasionally required me to either take photos or manage photography shoots. However, I never felt comfortable with my abilities, and knew that I still had a lot to learn. Over the years, I forgot most of what I had learned in that class. My reason for taking this class was to get a better understanding of photography overall, including technical aspects of cameras and lenses, visual aspects like composition and lighting, and editing to add the finishing touches.

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In this class, we covered all of my objectives, with a heavier focus on shooting than on editing. I even learned a few shooting techniques (like panning) that I thought would be way too advanced for me. Below I highlight some of the challenges, successes, and insights from this semester, and discuss my aspirations in terms of photography.

 

Challenges

This course brought many, many challenges. In the beginning, I struggled with getting the camera settings and exposure correct. In particular, I seemed to always have my shutter speed too slow, which caused blurriness from camera shake. Even after figuring out shutter speed, I still had many instances in which I had issues with blurriness. I naturally have unsteady hands, which gets worse after holding a camera for a period of time. During the lighting assignment, I realized how useful a tripod is. Even though it can be a pain to carry around on an outdoor shoot, having clear photos is worth it. 

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My saddest and most frustrating moment this semester came during the composition assignment, when I had a significant challenge with technology malfunctions. After spending a couple of hours shooting some of my best work to date, I tried to import the photos to my computer and only a couple were imported before the rest disappeared. I lost my favorite photo I'd taken that day- one of a spider suspended on its web between two gardening gloves which were perched atop fence poles. The light (taken during golden hour) was hitting the scene perfectly, and I managed to get an amazing foreground/background shot with the spider in full focus and the glove behind blurred. After I lost the photos, I went back the next day and of course the spider's web had been destroyed. Eventually I figured out what the problem was. I used a USB extender to give my computer more USB slots. My card reader was plugged into that, rather than directly into the computer. The USB extender was, for some reason, connecting and disconnecting while I was trying to upload the photos, which damaged the files and caused them to be lost. 

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Finally, my biggest challenge was that of my lack of patience. I'm the kind of person who wants to get the job done and move on. Reshooting is my biggest nightmare. Throughout the course, I had to learn to take my time and do a really good job of shooting the first time to avoid having to reshoot later. Even so, I did have to reshoot a couple of times. Those reshoots often took longer than the original shoot, as I was taking care not to make the same mistakes again.

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Successes

The assignments that I consider my biggest success were the "Discovering Light" and the "Narrative" projects. I was extremely nervous about both assignments prior to starting them. In "Discovering Light," I was worried about creating a studio space and using light effectively. I've done similar tasks in other (video) classes, and they did not go well. However, Professor Marinovich's lighting demonstration video gave me a good idea of how to set up my space and light it successfully. I feel that my cactus and bulldog-shaped salt and pepper shaker photos came out quite well.

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In the "Narrative" project, I had a hard time coming up with an idea, which set me behind schedule right off the bat. I've just moved to a new state where I don't know anyone besides my husband, and knew I wouldn't have access to anyone for long enough to do this project. I ended up choosing an alternative topic that didn't involve people. I worried that it would be boring in comparison to my classmates' work with human subjects. However, I came up with an idea in the end that I am quite happy with, and I was lucky that I had no major issues while shooting or editing.

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Insights

I knew that photography was hard, but every time I shoot I'm reminded how much work goes into each and every photograph. Now, whenever I see a photograph (including my classmates'), I'm in awe of how much time it must have taken the photographer to get their photo to that stage. It's a lot of work to find a subject, determine composition, find the correct exposure, take multiple shots while changing focus, settings, and angle until it's just right, and then going back and editing, captioning, and publishing the photo.

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Aspirations

I don't plan to become a professional photographer. I don't have the patience or the creative eye for it. However, I do feel that this class has better equipped me for the light photography work that I do in my daily life and career, and for taking nice pictures of my cat and dog (now that I have shutter speed down). The skills I've gained this semester are certainly an asset to my resume, and I look forward to seeing what I can do with them.