This year during photography class I have learned quite a few things. I don’t think I am going to take another photography class, but the Photoshop skills I have learned here could be pretty useful for future endeavors. The most important things to me in a photo are interestingness, mood, Photoshop techniques, and perspective. I couldn’t care less about composition, color, lighting, portraits, or black and white though. I really like taking pictures of weird things out in the public. It just feels like everything has a story, and it’s fun to make them up for yourself. I also like taking pictures of people making silly faces, because it’s good to laugh every once and awhile. I also like taking pictures of landscapes, because when you capture such a large area of land in your camera, it’s almost like you have a little world in your camera.

I really, really, really hate black and white photos of someone staring at the camera with a straight face. People trip over themselves with praise for these, but they are so easy. All you need to do is take a portrait, and click the black and white button. It is so freaking simple and so many people do it. On the other hand I love interesting layer masks. One picture in particular that I like is a picture of someone taking a picture, but the screen on the camera shows an entirely different picture, like it’s some sort of camera that can see ghosts or something, and it’s really cool. I just don’t get why someone would like a picture of someone looking bored in black and white over a camera that can see ghosts. I use a Nikon 3100 (which is provided by my school) to take most of my pictures. I also sometimes use a Fujifilm FinePix AX655, which is my own camera, but it isn’t great.

I don’t think I have any future plans for photography beyond this class. I didn’t have any pictures I was particularly proud of (aside from my magnum opus), and I didn’t have a whole lot of fun, mainly because I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t know already in terms of Photoshop, but I did get to hone my skills. It felt like the instructor liked some people and expected everyone’s photos to be like theirs, and I thought that their photos were the most boring things in the world. I may not have liked it a whole lot, but this class was still a good experience.