Serendipitous Phedoras

In this class I came to understand why photography can be considered great art. Going into the class, I didn't really understand why people had passion for photography, taking a picture of an amazing event seemed far less compelling than creating amazing drawings and literature and such. But over the class I understood that it wasn't just photographing amazing things and events. Sure, if your camera trigger finger and aiming abilities were good enough you might capture something that happens in just a flash, or you might take a photo of some amazing architecture, but that didn't necessarily make a good photo. Basically any object or thing or whatever could be made beautiful through photography. Many factors, such as good composition are what matters. You could use features like macro to get a new point of view on everyday things, or you could take the time to set up some sort of weird or creative shot that wouldn't occur naturally.

I learn about myself as well. I guess I could go with the cliche of not judging books by covers, since I wasn't expecting much from this class, but that isn't particularly important. The main thing I noticed throughout this experience was a kind of natural talent. Not in photography, I learned that I could really get into the work, and enjoyed it, but I wasn't one of those people who could easily think of a clever or appealing composition, and I wouldn't really be able to analyze what looks good or bad in a photo. In this way I learned that people can be great at something if they are really interested in it, but if your mind works in a way that naturally analyzes and knows how to improve an art, you can become awesome at that. It isn't really "natural talent" now that I think about it, it's basically having a love for an art from a young age, and having that art warp your mind into naturally understanding it from basic observation. If anything, this class reinforced my faith in my drawing and game analyzation skills, but also taught me much about composition and natural beauty.

It's hard to say what I wish we had done for this class. My knowledge of this art is limited, so I wouldn't have many project ideas. On a personal level, I wish I had just carried my camera around and taken tons of photos of cool stuff that I just naturally encounter, and keep a ton of non-assignment photos. Because of this class, I am constantly wishing for a camera during random times, but I haven't got into the habit of keeping it handy.

My main struggle was really with my desire to make a great product, instead of just getting a good grade. Sure, you could just take some basic pictures that basically fit the requirements, and you could pretty much do well, but a lot of the time I had this sort of "silly artist not wanting to sell out" kind of complex. Usually with my personal art, I have no deadlines, and can be lazy until struck with inspiration and make something that I can be proud of. But with these projects, I don't have time to be struck with inspiration. It happened occasionally, when I went on like, a 3 hour walk taking macro photos, or staying up into the late hours in the night taking photos of myself (and getting out my sister's pink wig at one point). On the other hand, there were projects like Light and Blur, where I either had no inspiration or had gotten horribly sick with the flu. In the end, the projects were both pretty late, and I found the results to be unsatisfactory. Some people tell me that I just need to push through the times when I have no inspiration, and just do it. Although this is good for deadlines, all of my best work in anything comes from when I NEED to works on my art, not because I NEED it for a project but I physically NEED to create what is on my mind. I guess these are just silly complaints though, I'll need to learn to work with deadlines to adapt into this wacky world of stuff.

In the end I'm not really sure what I conquered. If I did something well it's because I didn't find it difficult. If I had to work hard, I wasn't really happy with the results, so I didn't even feel like I conquered anything. I guess if I have to say I conquered something, this class helped break a few barriers in my creative process, mainly by actually venturing beyond my street on foot to go take pictures, and learning the exceptionally simple process of crossing a crosswalk across a highway road. I guess that could be a thing. I also wore a pink wig and stuff, that was pretty silly.

I ran into some complications during this project, due to catching the flu for more than a week. Still, I feel that some of these shots were partially effective, but I would have liked to have used some outdoor lighting. The direct lighting was the most interesting for me, if I was able to find an object that would cast an interesting shadow. Creating backlight proved to be more difficult, and the results tended to be less interesting with my light setup. Sometimes the light that I used created a silhouette, but it couldn't be captured on the camera, since the light just appeared as a large glare, blocking the subject. Natural lighting outdoors could have proved to created stronger silhouettes, but with being sick and having to make things up I just needed to finish this project as soon as possible. It would be interesting to try this project with outdoor lighting on my own time, just for fun.