Personal Growth

My experience with cameras before taking this class was very limited. I could only take photos on the automatic setting. After taking this course, I am more versed in the use of a decent quality camera. I am able to take photos in the manual mode and expose images correctly while utilizing skills such as rule of thirds to make the composition and subject matter of my images interesting. My skills at editing photos has grown exponentially as well, having worked extensively in Adobe Photoshop and Bridge throughout the semester. I had no idea how to use any aspect of photoshop, but now I know the basic skills to edit images to correct for exposure and perfect composition. The most difficult parts of the class for me was finding the right shots for the assignments, especially since we are pretty limited on time and take most of our pictures on Whittier campus. This class has furthered my interest in photography and I hope to buy my own camera in the future to continue practicing the skills I have learned and create my own unique works of art.

Skills Learned

The main skills we learned throughout the semester revolved around the use of the camera itself, and programs on the Macs to edit the pictures we took. We began with learning how to use the camera on manual mode so we could control the aperture and shutter speed, which lets us implement depth of field and motion blur into our photos respectively. We also learned about the rule of thirds, a tactic employed by photographers to improve the composition of their images. The image is thought of as sliced into thirds and the focus of the image should be placed either in the corner of the image or along the lines of the thirds. The other skill set we learned was on the Macs in the computer lab. We utilized Adobe Bridge to import our photos and transfer them to Photoshop for editing. In Photoshop, we learned skills ranging from correcting exposure to editing ourselves in as different characters in one image. After learning these skills, I have a newfound appreciation for photography and recognize the composition and work put into other photographer’s photos. I plan to keep practicing the skills I have learned in this class and hopefully I learn even more as my academic and photography career progress.