Last Day Reflection

What did you learn about photography that you did not know before?
This semester I learned a lot about photography and cameras. First off, I really did not know about how the photographer could control the camera; things like apature, shutter speed, exposer, etc. I thought that the camera did that by itself and unless you had a very nice and fancy camera, you could not control those variables. I learned also learned a lot about photoshop and I am fascinated by it. I absolutely loved working in photoshop to create unreal looking photos.
What did you learn about yourself this semester?
I learned that I am more creative than I thought. I have never been good at english or creative writing things, but I think art has a different side of creative. I never have thought of my self as creative. However, throughout the semester I impressed myself. I was often proud of my pictures and wanted to show them to other people. I am really glad I took this class so that I could realize that when I want to, I can be creative. I learned a lot about myself through this class and I really enjoyed it.
What do you wish we had done that we did not?
Personally, I wish that we would have spent more time in the dark room. I really wish we could had more rolls of film and assignments with our film cameras. I feel like when we did use our camera, that roll of film was just to get to know our cameras and we never got a real assignment with them. Also, at the beginning of the year you mentioned that we would be able to pick at one point whether we wanted to continue with film or go digital. I don't remember getting that choice. I think with film it's much more fun and the excitement of developing your film isn't there with digital. Now I am not saying that I didn't enjoy the digital photos we did, because I defiantly did. However, I think for the pictures that didn't need photoshop (like blur, light, portraits; unlike levitation which needed photoshop) I wish I could have had the experience in being able to use a film camera.
What was your struggle?
One project that I struggled with was the blur project. At first, I tried to use the nighttime mode so that the shutter speed would be slowed and turned my iso very low. However, when I did this my camera turned the entire picture white even though it wasn't that bright. I also tried to use firework setting and the same thing happened. So, I ended up just having to use a normal picture setting and having my subject move very fast. This actually did end up working, however I think if I would have been able to control  my shutter speed more I would have been able to have some more creative pictures.
What did you conquer?
I learned a lot about this semester including how I manage my time. At the beginning of the year I didn't think about our assignments very much outside of class and the night before. With photography, you have to make sure you have good lighting and its not too dark in most cases. I had to learn to manage my time better to get quality photos and a variety of them. Towards the end of the semester I noticed that I no longer was panicking to make sure I had enough photos and I thought about the assignments a lot more; Therefore, I got much more variety in my pictures. I think that this semester I conquered not procrastinating and putting effort into my pictures.