Final Self Reflection

What Photography has helped me learn about myself is that I can be artistic. I don't usually refer to myself as an artist because I am a terrible painter and I can not draw at all, but photography is a form of art. You have to know your camera and know what makes a good photo like how you need to know what art supplies you are supposed to use and how to blend colors together correctly in art class. Some of the challenges that I faced this semester was finding things to photograph or ideas of what to do. I can be very picky about how a certain angle is or the lighting and often times I took a very long time just trying to get one photo because everything had to be in the right position. Also sometimes going out and taking photos was difficult due to all my other activities and school work and I had to do during the day. I think my best work this semester were the light box photos. I put the most time and effort into them because I wanted everything to be positioned perfectly, and I had a lot of ideas that came naturally for me during the project. The project that I would want to redo and improve on would be the perspective play project because I didn't know what to photograph. It was difficult to take pictures of things that all didn't look the same and I didn't love the project that much so I didn't put as much time into it as I did for other projects. In the future, when I take photographs, I will be mindful of all of the camera settings such as the aperture, iso, and shutter speed. Before I would only take photos on the automatic settings, but this semester I really tried to change all the settings to make everything line up and make a good photo. So I need to practice more when I take future photos.

How I would describe light to a non-photographer would be how bright or dark a subject matter is in a photo. If the back round is too bright or too dark, then that means you need to change your angle/ position if you are outside, or you can change the shutter speeds on a camera to make a bright or dark photograph. Personally, my favorite time of day to take photographs is during the golden hour. I really did like waking up early and taking photos when the sun rose last year and this year because it makes all the subject matters that you are photographing really radiant and beautiful. To make a good photograph, you don't need to even have an interesting subject matter, but you do need to spend time and make an effort to make a good photo. If you know your camera settings and put time into taking a photo then it will turn out alright. For me, a good photograph is a matter of opinion. Like all art, people may love one piece, while others may not. It's all about personal taste when it comes down to what is a good photograph because there are thousands of amazing photos in the world, and if something has meaning and a purpose behind it, then any photo can be beautiful.