Last Day Reflections

While before this class I knew a lot about photography from what my parents taught me and what I taught myself, through trial, error and a consistent desire to take photos, I knew next to nothing about different techniques and photo development, (which I certainly needed), and I learned different photo manipulations that I never thought of before. But that's just the digital aspect of this class. With film, I really didn't know anything. Also, I'm completely surprised that I never thought of it, but before this class, I didn't consider at all the origins of photography or how it became the way it is today. I still adore my digital camera, but I have found a new love for the antique and beautiful imperfection of prints.
I think that, generally, (mostly through the self-portraits and portraits,) I learned, or for the most part, got more confident and comfortable with myself this semester. Though I often ask myself who I am and try to look deeper, art often aids in delving into one's mind and finding one's true feelings and personality. At this point in my life, I don't have a firm hold on exactly who I am, and I'm not sure that I ever will; I'll have new experiences with different people and places, and I'll change from those interactions, which may or may not be positive, but hopefully I'll grow from it, and become wiser and make the best of life.
That considered, I have found that I got more comfortable with myself and other people, which I have had much difficulty doing, and slightly conquered my fear of being in front of the camera, which I have had  even more difficulty doing. Also, I thought a lot about human behavior and thought processes, and about our actions. I often do this, however, I find that insightful thinking might simply come almost naturally to many artists, because we use inspiration and emotion to reveal or state things about human nature or simply about the world around us.
It was sometimes difficult to find time to get everything done, which is always a problem with homework, (because of sports, music, distractions, and other homework) but with photography, as like any other art class, I try to put more effort and thought into it because art should show my creativity and hold meaning. However, I struggled with making time to do this, and trying to focus because I often found myself preoccupied on other projects, and sometimes sleep deprivation from other classes rendered me incapable of using my highest creativity, imagination and especially, inspiration.
I wish that this class was longer, or just that there were no classes but art classes, but I'm pretty sure that that's not going to happen. So really, I wish that for some of the projects the weather had been nicer or that we lived in either a beautiful city or in the country with a forest or something, but those are just limitations that I'm putting on myself and letting myself be lazy with inspiration. I couldn't really have asked for a better introduction to a more in-depth world of photography.

Blur

Light

At first I thought this project would be quite easy, in a sense, but it ended up more aggravating than some of the others. At first I tried to set up my own light with a lamp or find other lights in the house that were somewhat solely illuminating an area, however, the places were too dark and my camera wanted to use flash, and if I didn't, the shutter speed was too slow. The silouhettes eluded me as well, I couldn't seem to be able to determine anywhere that could provide the bright light that was necessary to end up with pleasing results. After that I decided to go with simplicity and just take pictures for several days, as I usually would, and trusted that they would turn out better. This method produced much more desirable and worthy photos; as a general habit, I kept my camera with me so that whenever I saw something eye-catching, I let my mind focus my body and thoughts on that sole moment as it directs my lens towards the object and my finger pushes down to take the picture.

Floating

Cloned

I need to redo this.

Rain

Portraits

Sabattier

Original Color/Other

Original color, adjusted and the background turned white.

In this, much like the blue tinted one, I instead tinted it orange. (And also, on the original, I made her eyebrows darker and bluer so that they matched her wig.)

In this one, I liked the blue in the picture, so I tinted the entire picture blue, much like for cyanotype except it still has other colors with saturation.

Cross Processing

Cyanotype

Multiple Exposure

My attempt at multiple exposure; not sure if I did it right...

Sepia

Black and White