Isabelle Morley
IMG_7819
At the start of this semester I really had no idea what I was doing with photography: I didn’t have any projects in mind and didn’t really know what I wanted to get out of it. So my first project this semester was to basically take photos of things that interested me. I scoured my house for intriguing things and spent a few days wandering around Great Barrington aimlessly with my camera. To my surprise, I found photos in some of the unlikeliest of places. My fireplace. The snowbanks across from my house. The old school. And a bridge. I discovered some of the interesting little things we often miss when going about our busy lives. My next project was over April break. I hadn’t been doing much photography after that first project, so to get me back into taking photos, my assignment was to take ten photos everyday. They didn’t have to be good (something I struggled with) but it just had to be ten. It was way more difficult than I imagined, especially when I was basically stuck at home the entire week: again, I found myself looking at the smaller details of my life, the things I wouldn’t normally have noticed. My third project was similar: I had to take only one photo a day, every day. This started out as a normal project. It just required five minutes each day. Again, I struggled with finding things that I wanted to take pictures of. I found myself making excuses to not take a photograph because I didn’t want to take a photo of something boring or only take a bad photo that day. This is something I still struggle with. And so, for my final assignment this semester, I had to take photos without looking through the viewfinder (which is quite difficult). This was to help me not think so much about taking photos, so I could try to stop overthinking them. I surprised myself by actually getting a few interesting/decent photos out of this exercise.
So, looking back on all of the photos I’ve taken this semester, I started to see a similarity between them all. I realized that the two things I focus most on when taking a photo or editing a photo are composition and lighting. For me, these two things are essential to making a great photo.
IMG_7819
At the start of this semester I really had no idea what I was doing with photography: I didn’t have any projects in mind and didn’t really know what I wanted to get out of it. So my first project this semester was to basically take photos of things that interested me. I scoured my house for intriguing things and spent a few days wandering around Great Barrington aimlessly with my camera. To my surprise, I found photos in some of the unlikeliest of places. My fireplace. The snowbanks across from my house. The old school. And a bridge. I discovered some of the interesting little things we often miss when going about our busy lives. My next project was over April break. I hadn’t been doing much photography after that first project, so to get me back into taking photos, my assignment was to take ten photos everyday. They didn’t have to be good (something I struggled with) but it just had to be ten. It was way more difficult than I imagined, especially when I was basically stuck at home the entire week: again, I found myself looking at the smaller details of my life, the things I wouldn’t normally have noticed. My third project was similar: I had to take only one photo a day, every day. This started out as a normal project. It just required five minutes each day. Again, I struggled with finding things that I wanted to take pictures of. I found myself making excuses to not take a photograph because I didn’t want to take a photo of something boring or only take a bad photo that day. This is something I still struggle with. And so, for my final assignment this semester, I had to take photos without looking through the viewfinder (which is quite difficult). This was to help me not think so much about taking photos, so I could try to stop overthinking them. I surprised myself by actually getting a few interesting/decent photos out of this exercise.
So, looking back on all of the photos I’ve taken this semester, I started to see a similarity between them all. I realized that the two things I focus most on when taking a photo or editing a photo are composition and lighting. For me, these two things are essential to making a great photo.