Brenda's Photography Blog: December 2014

1. Reflecting upon this first semester, what do you think is the most important thing you have learned? Please use details and please tell me WHY you think this.
The most important thing I have learned is camera etiquette. I have learned so many new things about professionalism and dealing with situations while on the job. I have even come to use some of these techniques already and I am thankful to have learned these kinds of etiquette. I have come to be more professional due to this class and I know it'll be useful later in life.

2. What is one thing that you wish we had spent more time on? Again please use details and tell me WHY.
I wish we would've spent more time on motion and sports photography. We never really discussed sports photography and capturing clear motion. I feel like that's a very important topic to discuss because most of us shoot for the school and are constantly shooting sports and activities that require motion.

3. Lightroom is a pretty powerful tool and I know we have only touched parts of it, what are two things you would like to either spend more time on, or what function do need more training on? If you need to open Lightroom you should do so, please try to get the correct name for the controls you are talking about.
I wish we would've spent more time learning about the spot removal. I know that there are some techniques to make that process easier, but I just personally have a lot of trouble making it look nice and natural. Also, I think we should talk more about graduated filters and what this tool can achieve. I have only messed around with it a few times, but I never exactly knew what it did or what I was doing, I just knew it looked cool.

4. This semester I pushed really hard to finish as much of the required curriculum that I wanted to cover that models the ACC assignments. We are four assignments short of finishing but 2 of them will be done in class, so we did well to get as much done as we did. With that being said, do you feel the work load is acceptable for this class? Please tell me WHY?
I think the workload is very acceptable. It is very important that we are constantly shooting, and we should already be shooting even more than the requirements in order to get the proper practice we need. The assignments are very reasonable and I personally have no trouble getting my assignments turned in.

4A. If you have struggled to keep up with the assignments (and I know who you are, so please be honest), please tell me what caused you to fall behind? Please be specific and also please be realistic with your answers. If you didn't struggle, you do not need to answer this question, move on to #5.

5. So far, what was your favorite assignment/photo shoot that we did? Please include details of why this was your favorite and what parts of the task that made it your favorite.

I think pet portraits were most definitely my favorite assignment to complete. It was amazing to get to show my pets personality, and also to hang out with them. It took a lot of time and hard work to get them to stay, but I am more than satisfied with my shots. I loved getting them all dressed up and adding festive elements to the portraits.

6. Which assignment was the most difficult for you to understand/complete? Again, please be specific and include details of why it was that way for you.

The assignment sunny 16 was very difficult for me to complete, due to it's ambiguous instructions. It was very hard to really get a clear meaning because we hadn't discussed a lot of the terms that were on the worksheet, so I had to google a lot of them up, and even then, it was very confusing and took way too much time. I think we should've talked more about this assignment in class and made sure everyone was clear on the vocabulary.

Below is a list of the content/assignments we will be doing next semester. Please look over the list and answer the questions proceeding:

Commercial Photography 2^nd semester topics:

Steel wool shoot - 4th

Tilt-shift lens - 4th

HDR images – 4^th

Macro photography – when we get back

Using a Flash – early in the semester

News/Photojournalism formal – early 4th

5 stations (includes colored water droplets, spinning lights, black acrylic, bubbles, and focus stacking) – early in the semester

Studio – with formal shoot MU/Model/Clothing – late 4^th, and 5^th 6 weeks

Silhouette free shoot - 4th

Time-lapse video – 5th

Hyper-lapse video – 5th

Captions – 6^th

Print show – 6th

Film – maybe 6th

Guest speakers – 2-3 people – Mark Heaps - all-around photographer (includes studio tour at his new location), Jeff Campbell - wedding photographer, Jay Janner - Austin American Statesman lead photographer, Steve DeMent - Portrait photographer, Imiko Miller - Portrait photographer, Ariana Price - former student Columbia College Chicago Film School, Jennifer Ramos - specializes in Roller Derby and other event photography.

Field trips – wildflower center, downtown – March for Wildflower, April Downtown, May Enchanted Rock/Fredericksburg flowers - Mark Heaps studio location.

Meet-ups – steel wool, any field trips we can't make during school time

7. Which topic listed above are you the most excited about? Be sure to explain why.
I am most excited about the silhouette free shoot because I feel like we can get very creative with it and I am very excited to experiment. I think silhouette shots are very interesting and can say a lot about a person although you cannot see their face. I am very excited to tell a story through silhouettes and learn more about that kind of photography.

8. Are there any photography related topics that you want to know more about, but you don't see covered above and that we haven't touched on this semester?

I think everything is covered. I am very excited due to this immense diversity that we will get to experiment with this upcoming semester. It makes me so happy.

9. What are you photographic goals for the future? Do you see yourself going to college specifically for photography? Do you want to learn more about your collegiate options specifically for photography?
I think photography will end up being just a hobby for me. I do not see myself actually studying photography in college, I don't think it would be easy finding a job that would sustain my economic needs being a photographer. I know for a fact that I will never quit shooting and I will always take photos of my kids or other peoples kids.

10. One thing I haven't spent much time on, and that isn't in my plans is about equipment, do you think that we need to spend a little time talking about photography equipment? If you answer yes to this question? Is there anything in specific you want to know? What types of things should I prepare to share with you in regards to equipment.

I agree, you didn't talk a lot about equipment. I think we should discuss lenses and what each do. I also think it would be helpful to talk about all of the must have things that we must always carry in our camera bags (like lenses that we must always have on us while on the job). I would also love to talk about external flashes, what are they? how are they used? what effect do they have on the photo?

11. Post your best/favorite photo that you took of the semester.

12. Finally, since this is the first semester of teaching this class here at Bowie, what suggestions do you have for me about how this semester has gone, what I could be doing better. What suggestions do you have to improve any part of this class? For example, you could tell me about student/teacher relations, student/student relations, the content we are covering, the lesson plans themselves, the structure of the formal assignments, the directions for event and free shoots, etc. I am open to anything. Part of my job is to make this a positive experience, yet it is also an educational opportunity for all of you and the other part of my job is to teach you new skills.

The first semester of this class, we didn't do any kind of hands on activities. It was just blogs, blogs, blogs. While I did learn new things through blogs, it would've been more helpful to learn by actually doing these activities. I know we had assignments to actually experience some of the things we read about, but it sometimes seemed like we were just being thrown out into the open and expected to make magic happen. I personally am a very hands on student and that's the way I learn best. I think that having more activities in class than just sitting at a computer the whole time could really benefit a lot of us. I also think that these assignments would've turned out better if we would have talked a lot more about them instead of you briefly mentioning them to us for a couple of minutes. However, I do understand that you want us to be big kids and I do not expect you spoon feed us, but I do think that some assignments lacked instruction and clarification while some were easy to understand on my own.