Week 1 - Hidden Faces
Revisiting digital photography.
I wasn't sure how much I was gonna learn from taking another digital photography course, but this has been a lot of fun. I took all the photos through the Adobe Lightroom Android app. Attempted a few edits on the app, but felt more comfortable editing on the desktop. Once I found my first face then I couldn't stop spotting them everywhere. It is addicting. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed using Lightroom. It's change a lot. Still feel the urge to run to Photoshop to work on layers, but I've spent a significant amount of time exploring the different light, color, effects and details.
Here is the final image:
Week 2 - Portrait (self-portrait)
Incredibly fun and somewhat disturbing?
This week videos really helped me focus on the portrait assignment. My original plan was to do portraits of my friends, but I ended up braving the self-portrait, as I've never truly felt comfortable with this challenge.
For this week's assignment, I took 20 pictures, flagged 10 as picked and finally selected 1 as a final.
I did all my effects in Lightroom Android. I tested multiple options, from auto to professional to timer and multiple effects.
I've been really enjoying overexposed and over saturated pictures lately. I went with an incredibly overexposed picture that highlighted the brown in my eyes. In essence, not a very flattering picture but one that is certainly evoking an emotion.
Already got some feedback from friends and the consensus is the same "disturbing"
Week 3 - Still Photography
The struggle is unreal. This assignment was a little bit tougher than I thought. It has opened my eyes to everything around me. There were many times I didn't even have to stage a scene. I opted to edit all my photos in Adobe Lightroom Classic. Definitely felt more in control of each edit. Found that working with the histogram was a little bit intimidating. I'm now feeling really comfortable with the brush effects and healing brush tool.
This picture spoke to me as the final one. I applied very few effects. I placed the robot on a glass table and lit it from underneath for dramatic effect.
Week 4 - Landscape
Adobe Lightroom CC
Back to the editing room. For this week's assignment I chose to focus on Oregon. All my pictures were taken with my Pixel 2 mobile phone. Some of the pictures were taken with Adobe Lightroom CC Mobile in HDR mode. All edits were made with Adobe Lightroom CC on the desktop app. I still feel more comfortable editing in Classic mode.
I chose the fog bridge picture because it reminds me of an old timey photo. I worked in it in Monochrome profile with high contrast, strong whites, low blacks, some vignette and sharpening.
I was surprised that I wasn't able to merge photos in Lightroom CC. It's a little frustrating to have different features in both apps, as well as the mobile app.
Week 5 - Motion Photography
Playing with light.
This was a little bit harder than I anticipated, mostly because I'm still working from my Pixel 2 camera.
Luckily, the Adobe Lightroom CC mobile app has a great manual feature for my mobile. I took a lot of pictures I wasn't happy with, but I managed to get a few that I had fun playing with.
The image I selected has my subject holding his mobile flashlight up to his face while his wife moves her mobile flashlight behind him. I did very few adjustments in Lightroom CC. Basically the traditional S curve and darkened everything around him except for the light source.
The other images were edited in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.
Final Reflections
This course has been a lot of fun. It was a good refresher for me. I took black and white photography 20 years ago along with 2 digital photography courses.
I have to say that I was a little hesitant to work with Adobe Lightroom. I recall it being an average app. Lightroom has certainly evolved and is definitely one of my favorite Adobe apps. I'm still a little confused about all the different features across the multiple versions. I wish it was more uniformed. Adobe Lightroom Classic is definitely my favorite version, specially it having the Before and After feature.
If I managed to do this course with my Google Pixel 2 camera, then I can definitely teach this course with students.
I think this might just be the most comprehensive EdEx course. 5 week courses work better than 2 for sure. Looking forward to other photography courses in the future.
Credits:
Jorge Santiago