Having been involved in HS Beyond Snapshots for over a month, I feel that I have enough of an understanding to write the first reflection. Unlike what I initially expected, the classes are focused primarily on practice and demonstration rather than theory or ‘lessons’. Being on my feet and using the camera every class keeps me engaged and interested, despite it being a Monday afternoon.
So far, we have covered the fundamentals of using a DLSR camera, and the different settings on it. We have learned new terminologies such as ‘shutter speed’, ‘aperture’, and ‘ISO’. ISO refers to how sensitive the camera is to light, and you have to adjust it according to the environment around you to take a crisp photo. Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the shutter is open, which means you can set it to take an action shot or blur moving backgrounds. Lastly, the aperture is the size of the lens opening and controls the focus in a photo. Even after covering these new words over the course of around four weeks, it is still difficult to have all the different settings to work together to create the image I want it to, and that is what I found to be most challenging. However, constantly practicing for the majority of class time, and doing this together with my friends made the challenges more enjoyable.
My experience so far connects most with LO2: Challenge/New Skills. Most recently, we learned how to take better portraits, and what angles to take to get a more interesting shot. (images inserted below) This class was the most interesting to me personally because it was most applicable to my daily life. Through social media platforms and online resources, taking photos of people (or yourself) has become an increasingly popular practice, but it’s something we usually take on our phone quickly when we have some spare time. I had never used a proper camera to take portrait photos and found that it made a really big difference despite phone cameras being so developed recently. As we only have a few more weeks of season 1 activities, I am excited to learn the last parts of using a DSLR camera properly, and hope to continue to develop my personal skills outside of school.
