Artist Statement

This first semester in Photo class we have done many things having to do with cameras and Photoshop. First we learned how to actually take pictures and that was accomplished by learning how to use the “Rule of Thirds”, “Leading Lines”, and using the “Macro” function. After that we had to learn the difference between a snapshot and a photograph so that we could understand into more detail what the class was actually about. Then after we got the basic information about photographs and cameras we began to take photos. We did many projects including: Extreme Angles, Cropping, Contact Sheets, Self Portraits, Creative Me, Scary Expressions, and Lyrics.

I feel that I did well on my portfolio. Even though I didn’t do some of the projects I believe that it’s still good, but if I would have done everything it would have been much better. One thing that I learned was that using compositional tricks can affect the way that people look at your photos. Also even though I have Photoshop at home I still learned different tricks that I had no idea about. There were actually two things that I feel I was successful with. First was the lyrics project because it had to do with music and it let us express how we feel and make it into a photo. Out of all the projects it was the one that got me excited about doing it so it was the hardest one I worked on. The second one was the Self Portraits project. For some reason I felt that I did a good job composing the pictures and finding good areas to take the pictures. The project I struggled the most on was the Haunted Chavez project. Mostly because I wasn’t able to get the pictures that I wanted. That is the reason why I ended up not doing the project. In the future I think that I can improve by being more comfortable in front of the camera. I feel that my pictures could have been much better but it’s like I get embarrassed when it comes to taking the pictures. I actually see improvements on my picture taking skills and being able to see what would and wouldn’t work in the photos. If I feel that what my partner wants to do isn’t a good idea then I try to help them out and come up with a better idea for their ideas.

To conclude what Photo Class was about this semester, Miss Cook did a superb job in showing us and giving us tutorials on how to do things on Photoshop and on the cameras. I don’t think I would have done very well if Miss Cook didn’t have a positive attitude day in and day out. She was always willing to help me out so we really didn’t have any problems. Well I enjoyed this half of the semester and I hope that next semester is much better.