Photography Class - The Beginning

Now I know a few things

During the fall of 2013 I was enrolled in a beginning photography class. I had actually tried to take the class during the spring of 2013, but not enough students enrolled and the class was cancelled. I waited until the next semester so that I could take the class from that same teachers. Turns out there were only 5 students in the class this past fall, but since the teacher already signed her contract, we got to stay.

I think in the end, it was a blessing to be in a small class. We were able to get some individual attention and I never felt lost in the crowd. Each class member made a difference to each class.

So, the reason for taking this class was to really learn how to use my camera. I had to shoot in manual and my images were captured in RAW not JPEG. Also, NO FLASH was allowed. I could only shoot during the SUNNY 16. Which is when the sun is within 15 degrees of either horizon. Basically, I had to shoot between 8 and 3 on most days. This became a HUGE issue for me. My contracted hours at work are 8 am to 3:30 pm. To top it off, I had class Saturday afternoon from 2 pm to 6 pm, and I couldn't even get into the digital lab at school on a Saturday morning. My work had to be ready to turn in by Friday night at 10 pm. That meant that I was completing my assignments the day after they were assigned - Sunday. It was a stressful 16 weeks, but at the end of the semester I ended up walking away with an A by one point!

When the class first started out, we had to complete some shots to show that we understood the different composition rules. Here are my images:

Blurred Action

Everything in Focus

One thing in Focus

Panned Action

Stopped Action

There are 10 composition rules when taking a picture. These rules are to help make a great image. They are:

1. Simplicity: A simple background

2. Rule of Thirds: The subject of the image is on a third division line of the image

3. Leading Lines: The image has the idea that a line is leading you to something 

4. Repeating Patterns 

5. Curve 

6. Framing 

7. Symmetry 

8. Asymmetrical: looks like two images together 

9. Forced Perspective: Something forcing your eye to the subject 

10. Merger: A distraction. This one happens to be a head merger. 

It was after this last assignment that I was not liking my teacher. When I didn't get something right, and I asked why, or how I could have made it better, her answer was just keep shooting. There was no partial credit - it was an ALL or NOTHING.

The first real assignment was the Freemont Experience. We were to take our cameras to downtown Vegas and shoot. That's it. We weren't given any more guidelines other than use your composition rules. So my awesome husband and I picked up a class mate and went to Freemont. John was still dressed in church clothes, so it looked like someone important was around. We had "CIA" and "photographers." Boy, did we catch the eyes of people.

After the shoot, I spent time in the lab critiquing my work and finding the shot that I thought was ready to mount. We actually had 2 weeks for the project, because our teacher wanted to "flag" our images so that we would have an idea of what she liked. Out of my 150 images, she likes 2. And neither one was one that I thought was good. I was not happy.

That day in class, we needed to choose an image to print and practice mounting so that we knew what we were doing. This would not be the image that we were turning in for the assignment and we could not submit it for a redo. Basically, it was an image that didn't count. I chose an image that I liked, but the teacher did not; since I couldn't use it anyway. When my teacher saw that, she said no, I had to pick one of the ones that she liked - But I only had 2!!!!! This is the one I picked:

"Mixin' it Up"

The next week, my parents were in town and I took a half day from work and they went back to Freemont with me. I got about 100 more images. Ran to the school, critiqued and mounted them before class the next day. This is what I turned in:

"Great Ball of Fire"

I was really happy with this image. It was mounted great and I had all sorts of composition rules happening. Curves, one thing in focus, rule of thirds. BUT my teacher was NOT impressed. I got a D on the assignment. Fortunately, I could turn in a new print the next week to make up the grade. I went with the other image that she liked:

"Doorway to Fun Times"

Ironically, I got a lower D on the redo than I did on the original. It was after this assignment, and the redo, that I started to seriously consider auditing the class. I didn't like the pressure of the grade and a teacher that wasn't telling me HOW to improve when I wasn't making the grade. In the end, I didn't audit and I feel like I did improve.

I need to take a break for now - time to make dinner. But I will be back tonight to finish putting up the images from the class and to get this blog up to date.

~Amy J. Gardner