Introduction to Photography: Week 13

27.6.2014 (Week 13)

Casey Chong Jing Ping (0318756)

Introduction to Photography

Presentation: Final Project

Lecture

For today's lecture, Mr.Vinod started the class by giving us our individual feedbacks on our progress in the final project so far. He did not give much, just enough to give us a heads up to continue our progress even better than before. When it came to my feedback, he said that my photographs are too similar to each other, which means that my consistency is too high. He said that it might be because that the place that I am taking these photographs at is a little too small and does not have much things to take photographs of. But in my case, it was actually because I was too lazy to explore the place further except going opposite the church. It was also partly because I was too afraid to venture any farther from the church as that place is quite isolated. Mr.Vinod told me to go beyond the limits and to wander farther and not be lazy to do that. Also, pesonally, I think that I should be braver and not be afraid to venture farther and take more photographs. After that, Mr.Vinod talked about our Learning Style Inventory. It is a test that we took, and I put the results of my test in my previous post. The results say that I am an auditory learner. At first, I disagreed with my results, because I thought myself as a visual learner, but as Mr.Vinod explained about the results, I began to understand, and I understood why I am an auditory learner. Most of the facts he said about the auditory learner applies to me, and I have learnt a lot from that. Next, Mr.Vinod discussed about the Multiple Intelligence Test. We had taken that test at the starting of the semester, and then we retook the test recently. I posted the results to both the tests in the week 11 post. The reason why we took the test again was to show that we changed our ways during these pass few weeks while learning in Mr.Vinod's class. There are slight changes to the results of the tests and that proves something. Through this test, I have learnt and understand myself better, as Mr.Vinod explained everything thoroughly. After the discussions, Mr.Vinod briefly told us about the studio photography work we have to do for the next two weeks. We are to find a photograph taken in the studio during the 1930's to 1950's and dress up similarly to the photographs and take a self-portrait. It will be so much fun. Mr.Vinod briefly told us about the things to do and to bring for nest week and the week after. Lastly, he brought us to the photography studio and told us how the equipments work and the rules of the studio. After that, the class was dismissed and we went to have lunch.

Exercise: Final Project
In these 5 photographs, I went to another different section of the abandoned building place and took the photographs, so this gives a whole new perspective to the subject.

This photograph gives a new perspective to this topic as I have always just taken photographs of walls, cars, and the road. In this photograph, I took the entire building in perspective view. If I could take something out, it would be all the cars because they do not really fit into the picture. But as I had limited time that day, I had to take the photographs fast. Next week, if I have time, I will retake this photograph and hopefully there will be no cars. 

Even if this photograph looks quite messy, I just like the perfect and unmessy grill gates that lead to darkness, and then you can see the messy wood and planks in front of the grill gates  And to add to the photograph, the two planks on the left, their intersecting points seem to be right at the intersection point for the Rule of Thirds, which is perfect. 

This is a simple photograph of a huge crack on the ground, and the top part of the photograph has a plank on the ground. I seem to love taking photographs of the ground cracking, I'm sorry but this is just me. And I really love this photograph. It's so simple, yet the Rule of Thirds apply so greatly here. Can you spot how I used it?

This photograph is a whole different way for me to take the photograph. I had to face my camera upwards, towards the sky and balance it. This is where my awesome camera's flip screen comes in handy. Again it is simple, if I could, I would take the air-conditioners away, but somehow, they actually help to enhance the photograph. 

In this photograph, it is the back of a building with two old dustbin and the floor cracked and dirty. Now that I look at it, I realize that I probably should have cropped the right part of the wall off and the lower part of the floor off to make this photograph much better. But it's actually quite good like that too. 

Screenshots for Hardcopies:

Reflections

Observations:

From this week's class, I have observed that quite a few of my classmates did not attend class this morning, but not because they intended not to come. They could not wake up in time to come to class, they overslept and by the time they woke up, it was too late as they would probably not be able to make it to class due to the traffic jam even if they tried. It is a pity that photography class starts so early in the morning and everyone is usually sleepy and tired in class. Some of my classmates came late to class too because they woke up late, but they woke up in time that they we at least able to make it to class before it ends. I have also observed that some of us got the hang of taking good photographs while others are still getting there. I think that I am one of those who are not very there yet as I still have yet to take amazing photographs with amazing consistency. I need to work harder. My friend Katrina is an example of someone who got the hang of it, as most of her photographs came out amazing and she has great feedback. I have also observed that as each week passes, it is getting more difficult to get good photographs for the project, as there are less and less things to take photographs of. I also realized that people change. When Mr.Vinod told us about the two tests, he said that everyone's answer everytime they take the test again. Also, everyone is different in their own way. Everyone's test results come out different and no two people will get the same answers and results in their tests, especially for the Multiple Intelligence Test. Moreover, I have observed that the photo studio is almost similar to the class that we have photography class at. The only difference is that the photo studio is fully equipped with all the necessary things for studio photography, such as the screen and lights. The photo studio is also neater and has a lot less chairs then the photography class classroom.
Lastly, I have observed that Mr.Vinod is a nest person as he takes good care of his photo studio and he is strict with the cleanliness and tidiness rules of the photo studio. The photo studio is a very clean and neat place, and shoes are not allowed inside the studio.

Experience:
My experience this week was quite intense. It started a few hours right after class ended. Class ended early and we had quite some free time before our next class, so my friends and I decided to go have lunch at Empire or Subang Parade. On the way back to school after lunch, I noticed something that really captured my attention. It was a burnt up shell of a once usable motorcycle lying on an island by the road right next to the car I was sitting in. It was ugly and it was creepy, but most of all, it was fascinating. We were stuck in a minor jam, and it was right there beside the car and I was so tempted to ask Jannie, the driver, to stop the car right there in the middle of all the traffic, whip out my phone and tripod, and just snap a few photoes right there in the middle of the road with all the angry drivers behind us staring and honking. But, the major problem was that I did not bring my camera or tripod along with me, and I regretted not bringing it along with me, as that epic photograph would make such an amazing photograph for my final project. Maybe if I get to go to Empire and pass by that spot again, I might get to take a photo of that carcass of the bike. I will make sure to bring my DSLR and tripod along with me. The next day, Saturday, came and it was time to go to church. As I arrived at church too late to take photographs, I took them after church. It was getting dark after church session, so I had to take photographs quick. This time, I wandered quite far away from the usual spot, and also quite far from the church area, which was pretty scary as it was isolated, because it is an isolated building that I chose as my theme. I did not manage to take that many photographs, but I quite liked the outcome of the few photographs that I managed to get before it got too dark to take photographs. These photographs are quite different from the usual broken glass and roadsides. It was aiming more to the buildings this time. As for people staring, I managed to sneak away from the crowd without anyone noticing, but I did tell a few of my friends where I was going and to wait for me and not leave me behind without realizing it. As I tried to sneak back into the crowd unnoticed, two friends of mine noticed me and asked me some questions. It was quite weird and embarrassing but I think I am getting the hang of all these ''embarrassments''. Apart from that, everything worked out fine. I hope to go to church earlier net week so I can spend all my free time taking even more and even better photographs.

Findings:
I found out this week through the Multiple Intelligence Test, I have changed a bit. The results from my tests uring week 2 and week 11 were different. Furthermore, I found out that I am an auditory learner. It means that I can remember and learn more through sound, like listening to the speaker speak, or taping a lecture and relistening to it when I get back home to refresh my memory. At first, I strongly disagreed to the test results, because I felt that I was more of a visual learner, as I quite liked to draw and write notes down during lecture. I even wrote down notes for this ePortfolio blog before typing it out. But as I listened to Mr.Vinod's explaination, it began to make more sense to me and I slowly realized that the test was right. Mr.Vinod said that an auditory learner tends to think a lot, and therefore you can see that as their ePortfolios, blogs, or essays tend to get very long as hey voice out all their thoughts and opinions there, and as you can clearly see, my ePortfolio is filled with so much words and thoughts. Sometimes, I'm really tempted to just write a few sentences and get it done with my blog, but somehow, I always end up typing more then I intended to, I guess it's the auditory learner in me. Another fact was that auditory learners tend to listen to music as they do their work and assignments, or even while studying. I tend to do that 99% of the time, so that is very accurate. So, now I learned that I am an auditory learner and not a visual learner as I thought I would be. All the different types of learners are in all of us, it is just that one type is more dominant and tends to stand out more. In addition, I have also learned that in order to take good photographs, you need time and rushing while taking photographs is not a very good idea. It will result in not very good pictures. I have also found out how to ship clothing over from my hometown to my current address here. This is because for the studio photography assignment, I chose a photograph that requires a long white dress. I do not have one here and I do not have money to just go out and buy a long dress that I will only wear for a few hours, then I realized that I have one that I bought for a dinner last year at my home back in my hometown. So I learned the ways of how to ship the clothing over to my current address. 

Introduction to Photography: Week 12

20.6.2014 (Week 12)

Casey Chong Jing Ping (0318756)

Introduction to Photography

Presentation: Final Project

Lecture

No lecture this week as it is the mid-semester break for us.

Exercise: Final Project

These are the 5 photographs I took over the semester break:

This is a very messy photograph, but it shows all the thrown away things, all bundled into one place. Look at the perfectly usable guitar case, even when it's still usable, it is still neglected, like us sometimes. We feel unwanted and neglected. We feel like there is no use of us in the world, but we do. We have a use, people just don't see it because humans are not perfect.

This is the road with broken glass on it. The texture of the road is so vivid and beautiful. And the tonality shows its roughness, while the glass, even when it is broken, it is smooth, and the tonality is soft, unlike the rough and dark toned road.

This photograph is of the inside of an unwanted car. It shows that nothing is perfect. Even an expensive car like this BMW gets thrown away to rot. Nothing lasts forever. 

I just want to show the simplicity of this picture. The gate from the old days. From the old times when we were young and life was simple, just like the lines of this gate. Always remember our roots, where we came from and who we are. 

This is a photograph of the road and part of the sidewalk and the inclined plane from the road to the sidewalk. Again it shows simplicity, even when there is three surfaces in here. It's not too busy a photograph. It also shows shade and light, which adds a nice touch to it.

This photograph below is a result of a test, the Learning Style Inventory that Mr.Vinod requested we take through Facebook. My results say that I am a Auditory Learner.

Screenshots for Hardcopies:

Learning Style Inventory

Final Project

Reflection

Observations:

This week, I have observed that a lot of my other classmates are too caught up with all the other assignments during the week to update their photography ePortfolio, even though it is the mid-semester break, we still have so much assignments to do, it is very easy to think that they are much more important than the ePortfolio, but I know that this is equally as important as all the other assignments. All subjects are equally important and we cannot neglect any of them. Photography was the first thing I did during the breakas to me, it is the easiest thing to do, and it is the fastest to finish. All I need to do for the blog was to take 5 photographs and post my reflections and what we learned during the lecture, and I took the photographs on Saturday as it was the only time I get to go to church to the old abandoned building. So for me, it was quite fast to finish writing the new post on the blog. Next, I observed that it is much better to do the blog and ePortfolio the first thing right after the class ends and also right after I am finished with taking the 5 photographs and to record the lecture and experiences that I had, because the thoughts and experiences will be fresh in my mind and I can remember more, rather than waiting until the next Wednesday or Thursday to do it, then forgetting what I have learnt during class. I also feel like I can recall more things and therefore can write more thoughts if I do it fresh out of my mind rather than procrastinating. Lastly, I have just now observed that this ePortfolio and blog is very similar to a diary, a Photography Diary. This is because we record all our thoughts, feelings, and experiences in this blog. It is much like the way we record our thoughts and feelings on our experiences into our diary or journals, or our personal blogs or even on tumblr. I have found that doing this is very important and helpful as we can always look back to what we have learnt in the past, and we also can learn from our past mistakes. Whenever we need help or guidance in our current assignments or final projects, we can always look back and recheck the past lessons that we had. We can also see how we have improved in photography as the weeks and lessons pass, and see our progress through this ePortfolio.

Experience:

After I did last week's blog, since I took quite a few photographs, I only posted the writing on my lecture and reflections first. Then, I rechecked, cropped, and then chose the best 5 photographs before I updated my ePortfolio with the 5 photographs that I have chosen. The next week, which is this week, Saturday comes, and I went to church. I went to take photographs of the abandoned buildings and cars opposite the church again. This time it was more challenging as I already took photographs from the exact same place last week, so now I have to find new spots to take photographs and also new subjects to take photographs of. I also need to improve from last week's photographs and get better angles and exposure this time. This took quite some time, but at last I managed to take quite a few good photographs. This time, it was quite a different experience from last week, and that is because I arrived at church one hour early. I do not own a car, and so I need someone to transport me to church every week. This week, my ''driver'' has to go to church early as he is serving in church and has to prepare for the service in advance, meaning he has to go to church early to prepare for the service. This is perfect for me because when we, my driver, two other girls who need transport too, and I, arrived there was nobody at church yet, only a few people who went early because they too were serving that day. The outside of the church was basically empty, and so I could take photographs to my hearts content without anyone staring. When I did not immediately go inside the air-conditioned church, my driver and the two other passengers did question me and ask me what I was doing, but I quickly explained to them that I was doing this for an assignment, and they left me alone after that. Taking photographs outside alone was very fun as I could do anything I wanted at my own pace, but the only thing that stopped me from doing it slow and easy was that it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and it was scorching hot and humid outside, so I had to take the photographs with the sun beating down on me, and I was sweating profusely, it was not fun at all. But I still took some time taking the photographs, choosing the angles, choosing the subjects and the exposure, positioning the camera sometimes. At last I finished taking the photographs and I could finally pack up and go inside the cooling and comfortable church, but not before I caught a worker from the shop opposite staring at me, wondering what I was doing in the hot weather, taking pictures of some ugly unused cars. He's a worker, a mechanic from the car workshop opposite the church, and I was taking photographs of the cars that he and his colleagues could not fix, and I felt quite bad as it seems like I was taking photographs and recording all his failures, but that is just my imaginations, as he was just curious as to what I was doing there all by myself, but as I was already done with taking the five photographs, and he did not question me directly about what I was doing, I just packed up my things quickly, gave an awkward smile at him, and went into the church without a word. I found out that I like it when I arrive at church early to take photographs as there are no, or less people there to see me and question me, and I like the fact that I do not have to rush and can take my time with taking photographs as long as I want, even under the sun. I hope that I get to go to church early every week so I could take photographs contentedly from now on.

Findings:
This week, I found out that I can share anything in my blog regarding my photography. If I don't know something, I can always share it in my blog, because it is okay to share, and also to find an answer by asking. Asking is good, like a detective, and you learn much more from sharing and asking rather than just thinking by yourself and not sharing. Also, if we are confused or are not clear about something, we can always ask Mr.Vinod and he will always reply and help us if we need any guidance. Moreover, I have also learnt that photography is not necessarily a serious thing. It can be very fun if you do it right, especially when you do it with your friends. Furthermore, I found out that anyone can do photography, it is either professionally or amateur. Everyone can take a camera or a camera phone and snap some pictures with the camera, but the picture can come out good or better. Also, anything can be a subject of a photograph. You just need to see the beauty in it and have the passion for photography. There is a beauty in "ugly" broken things too, for example the abandoned cars and buildings that I am using as my subject for the final project. You just need to look closely to find the beauty in those objects. There is no ugly subject, becasue with photography anything is possible and we can push the boundaries. There is even photoshop to help us with correcting photographs. All that sai, I also realized that photography is not as easy as it seems. There are a lot of aspects we need to look into for a "perfect" photograph, such as the exposure, which already has 4 different things to learn about, and also composition, with even more difficult and complicated things to know if you are not familiar to them. You can take a random photograph of food, or even a selfie, and you are already a photographer, albeit an amateur one. Nowadays, everyone can take good photographs with their advanced smartphones that help them to take photographs automatically, except for the placements of their subjects, but the photographs only come out great in good lighting and exposure, because automatic cameras in the phones can only capture the pictures at zone 5, when the lighting is neutral. When the lighting is too bright or too dim, the photographs will come out not as good, and most phone's front camera gives out grainy results in the photographs. So in order to take great and awesome photographs, you need to have a DSLR camera with manual mode and you need to adjust the exposure yourself, especially when the lighting conditions are too bright or too dim, or the subjects are in different zones, more or less than zone 5. The camera on a phone can only take good photographs in neutral lighting conditions.

Introduction to Photography: Week 11

13.6.2014 (Week 11)

Casey Chong Jing Ping (0318756)

Introduction to Photography

Presentation: Final Project and Introduction to Studio Photography

Lecture

For today's lecture, Mr.Vinod started the class by having us in a group circle and telling us about what we are going to be doing for the next class. He said that even though the final project is the main and most important thing for the class right now, there will still be some other small ungraded class work that we will be doing during our classes. For the next class, we will be learning how to use the photography studio's lighting to take photographs. Apart from taking some photographs for our final project, we also need to go back home and do some research on photography studio works during the 1930's to the 1950's and find one photograph that we think we are able to reenact and take a photograph of. That is because after the mid-semester break, during our next class, we will be doing some studio photography and we will be using the photography studio's facilities that are provided to take the photographs that we found and researched about in the internet. After telling us about that, Mr.Vinod proceeded to tell us about the final project. We did not really do much research about the various themes that we wanted to use for our final project, mostly due to the sudden pile of other homework from other classes that flooded our entire week, so Mr.Vinod told us to do more research on the project, especially the themes that we want to use, so that we will understand what to do more clearly and we will be able to meet the criteria much better. After that, we went around in the group circle one by one and told Mr.Vinod and our classmates briefly on what we wrote on our blogs for the previous week explain what themes we had chosen and why we had chosen those themes. Mr.Vinod will tell us what theme he thinks will be the best choice for us and give us some advice on our themes. When it came to my turn, I told Mr.Vinod about  my three chosen themes. The theme chosen for me is the theme 'Abandoned', which is about the abandoned buildings and cars. The reason why the other two themes were not chosen was that the first theme, 'Trapped' was quite similar to a theme chosen by our previous batch senior, and the second theme, 'Broken', which features broken pavements and broken glass, was not suitable because Mr.Vinod said that it is difficult to take good photographs of them because they are flat surfaces and it is very limiting to just take photographs of pavements and glass. Also, Mr.Vinod said that the 'Abandoned' theme is quite interesting and he wants to see me experimenting on that theme. After everyone has discussed about their themes, Mr.Vinod ended the class and we were free to go for lunch. 

Exercise

Studio Photography Assignment:

Here is the list of photographs that I found from Google Images. From these photographs, I found one that I wanted to use for the final take.

The list of photographs:

This is the final photograph I want to use:

 The original photograph is too revealing, so I sensors it a little:

Final Project:

This is the front part of a car. As you can see, it is damaged very badly, but I see a certain beauty in the broken glass' lines and also the patterns and lines of the rust on the metal of the car.

This is a long-closed shouldn't. It has several tiny pieces of unwanted paper sticking out of the side of the gate. The lines are so defined and simple, the texture of the gate such as the dust and rust on it adds a simple beauty to it.

This is another front part of a car, but a different car this time. I want to focus more on the wheels and the roundness and the fact that even when the car is all damaged and beat up, the wheel still looks perfectly useful and seems as if it can still allow the car to go places.

This is the gate again, except it only focuses the lines and tonality of the gate. Even when it is the same gate and was once the same colour all over, now it has at least three different tones. It shows that over time, things change.

This is a photograph of the floor with an empty cigarette packet that's crushed and unwanted. I like the texture of the worn out ground and it just gives the feel if an old place.

This is the broken glass on the car, see how the cracks come from one place and spread out over the entire glass. For me, it symbolizes that one wrong thing, one lie, can lead to another and slowly, a chain of bad events will follow after that one wrong-doing.

I also took a test during class. And here are the results of the test:

This is the previous test results that I had when I took the same test during week 2.

This is the results that I had during his week's class.

Screenshots of the Hardcopies:

Multiple Intelligence Tests

Final Project

Reflection:

Observations:

This week, I have observed from class that we all have different tastes. Some of us are deep, some of us are normal, some like to experiment with different themes and have fun. For this final project, I decided to be deep, and I chose to experiment on things that are neglected, rejected, old, unused, and unwanted. Some of my classmates chose simple things like lines, patterns, textures and buildings, while some want to take pictures of things in their everyday life, such as their pets and shoes. Some of my classmates want to break the boundaries and choose to take photographs of Melaka town or small villages that not many people would choose to go to. I also have a few of my classmates who are like me and like to explore darker and more sad places like an old abandoned playground for instance. Moreover, I have also observed that everyone in class has ideas. Nobody came to class without any idea what they want to do for their final project, we all came to class with more than one theme that we want to explore, and that is a very good thing. Although I have observed that we are quite lazy people when we choose to be, maybe because we have been quite busy this week, and that made us neglect to do research for photography class, I have also observed that we do think and we do not just randomly choose a theme without analyzing what we can do about the theme first. We all have reasons why we choose a certain theme, and if you look closely, each theme that we chose might even reflect who we are and what we are thinking inside. I have also observed that we are slowly learning and expressing ourselves through photography. We might not be the best yet, but we have potential, and we are slowly getting there. We are no longer who we used to be before this class, people who do not know what photography actually is and don't know how to apply if properly. As each class commences, we learn something, we absorb knowledge given by Mr.Vinod and through the research we do. Each class, we take home a lesson learnt or two, and we are always growing both physically, and most of all, mentally.

Experience:

This week, I have experienced that when I was telling Mr.Vinod my theme ideas, I realized which them I could use the most and before Mr.Vinod even suggested anything, I already know what theme I want to choose personally. And it turned out that it was also the theme that Mr.Vinod chose for me too. I discovered my potential, and what I could and could not do. I also realized that I could actually merge some of the other themes into my main theme and create a feeling of abandonedness and sadness into it. Because I have discovered that all my themes actually connect through the feeling of being abandoned, broken, and sad. For example, I can merge the abandoned cars and buildings together with the broken pavements and glass, as you can usually find broken glass from car windows and cracked pavements and roads near old buildings. During Saturday afternoon, I was planning to go to church earlier to take photographs for the final project as the old buildings and cars are right beside the church, but my plan failed because we arrived at church only 5 minutes early, and that was too late to take photographs for the project. So I decided to do it after church. That day, church service ended suprisingly early, I guess God is helping me to be able to complete the project in time before it gets dark. Complications came when I wanted to take the photographs because after church, everybody goes outside to talk and mingle around with others. So it will be obvious when I am lugging my camera around trying to take phototgraphs of abandoned things. But I had a breakthrough that day. The week before, I did not dare to take photographs of the place at all out of fear of being judged, but this week, I threw away that fear and with the help and support of my friend Constance, I managed to be brave and build up my courage to go and take a few photographs of the place. I found out later that it did not take long and I got quite a few good photographs.

Findings:
I found out this week that I am still indecisive because out of all the photographs I took, I still do not know which ones to chooseto post on my blog. Thankfully, I asked some of my friends like Mae-Chel, Katrina, Cigie, Cherry, and Jannie and they helped me to choose. Also, I found out that I am not that good at consistency, at least I do not think that I see any good consistency in my photographs yet. So I have yet to practice more on that topic. Also, I found out that I have to do more research on my theme to be better at taking good photographs related to that theme and also to help with the consistency. On the other hand, I have realized that I am slowly learning more and more and I am actually applying these things that I have learnt in my everyday life too. For example, whenever I take photographs of anything, even the simplest of things, I will apply the Rule of Thirds. The photographs that I have posted on Instagram apply the Rule of Thirds and I even post some photographs using black-and-white when I usually love to post colourful photographs. Furthermore, I have also discovered that I am slowly becoming more and more brave and have more courage to go out there and take photographs randomly, either for class assignments or just because I want to. I also found out that I enjoy photography and appreciate photography more now. I have a joy when I take a great photograph and I will most likely edit the photograph and post it on Instagram. I do not like to delete photographs, especially the ones that I really like. I am also not too dependant on colours anymore. Before this class, I always look for photographs with vibrant colours and seldom like to see or take photographs of dull things, but nowadays my Instagram feed is filled mostly with black-and-white or dull photographs. I also found out that deep inside, I am quite a sentimental person, even though at the outside I am usually happy, fun, and weird, or a least I try to be. In addition, I have also discovered that everyone is different in their own unique way as I listen and discover about the various themes that they wanted to use for their final project, and each of the themes that they all chose are different from each other's. I found out about what they wanted to express to the world through photography, and from that I found out about who they are deep inside, which is that they are all very different people. Last but not least, I realized that I find out more and more about photography that I never knew about before as I attend each class, and as each class commences, I learn more about photography and I get better than the previous weeks. 

Introduction to Photography: Week 10

6.6.2014 (Week 10)

Casey Chong Jing Ping (0318756)

Introduction to Photography

Presentation: Overall (Project Briefing)

Lecture

Today, Mr.Vinod told us that we have reached the moment where we all have to do our most important thing of the entire semester, or it is to me. He told us not to worry too much about it as it would be quite easy for us for we have learned all that we need to pass with flying colours in this last and final project that will last or take us 6 weeks to prepare. If we aim for higher marks, we might have to work harder and do something out of the ordinary to get that because as designers, we have to be extraordinary and capture other people's attention. I for one plan to do that, and I quote Mr.Vinod's words of wisdom, "Take a stab at it!" Mr.Vinod started by refreshing our minds of all the previous things that he had taught us from week 1 to week 10, time sure flies by fast! He asked us a few questions on the basics that we had learned throughout these past few weeks and corrected us or filled us in on the minor things that we somehow had forgotten, which was not many things at all. After the brief flashback, Mr.Vinod moved us to the main topic, the 6 week assignment, or as I call it, project. He told us that the instructions was by the end of these six weeks, we had to produce 5 photographs in black-and-white, which applies all the things he had taught us about Photography. The 5 pictures must have the element of consistency, that means that they must have a theme, and they also have to have a meaning to them. The more extraordinary the photographs, the better. After that, the photographs were to be edited a little, then printed out in the photo lab. I'm not really sure about that part, but I'm pretty sure that it will be excellent and exciting to do. Mr.Vinod said that for now, we just have to think of a few themes, at least 2 themes to start off with the project first. We have to take five pictures (some of different themes) and upload them up on the ePortfolio and also print them out as hardcopies to show to Mr.Vinod to see if the themes are valis enough to be chosen or not. I have a thousand themes floating in my ind right now that I don't know what to choose!!!

*Mr.Vinod say that supervision for this final assignment will be kept minimal to see if we can use all that we have learnt to our advantage without him to give us feedback like the other exercises before this, which means that there will be no feedback, general or personal, in these last few ePortfolios.

Instructions

1.Choose a few themes and take a few pictures of the selected theme.

2.Upload 5 photographs (some of different themes) to the ePortfolio.

Exercise: 5 Photographs Project Assignment

***These  photographs that I post are not taken by me. They are all taken from the Internet in Google Images. Some of them are originally black-and-white, while some of them I changed to black-and-white using photo editing. 


Trapped:
For this theme, I want to show photographs of trapped feelings, to show that we are always restrained by the world, and also trapped in our own world of pain.

Broken / Cracked:

In this theme, I want to take photographs of broken or cracked things, for example, cracked windows, cracked mirrors, cracked road pavements, even broken glass. I want to portray that there is a certain beauty in imperfections. I have always been especially fascinated by broken glass, such as broken glass that is on the side of a road from car crashes, the way the little pieces of glass glisten in the sunlight. There is also a certain beauty in cracked things, such as the cracked road pavement in the photograph below, the cracked road pavements have a certain pattern, kind of like a spider web feel to it.

Abandoned:

With this theme, I want to show abandonment and portray the feeling of abandonment and loneliness. For example, these long ago abandoned cars and abandoned buildings. They create and stir up a feeling of emotional sadness when you look at these photographs, especially when they are in black-and-white.

Reflection:

Experience:

My experience for this is that I missed out on some very good opportunities in taking some really good photographs, just because I was not brave enough. During photography class when Mr.Vinod asked us to come out with a few ideas for our theme for the next assignment, or project as I call it, I thought of a few themes. Out of those few themes, I thought of a theme that I really like, and I know exactly where to take the photographs. The theme I thought of was abandoned cars, some rusted unused cars outside a building that was most probably a car workshop. The place I thought of was my church. My church is a small church, and beside it is an abandoned car workshop that has some cars that are unused and abandoned, with rust on them and broken glass around some of them. I thought of bringing my camera to church to take a few photographs to show to Mr.Vinod on that Saturday when I go to church. But what stopped me from doing that was fear. I was afraid of the questions that people ask me if I was a professional photographer, and the stares I will be bound to get when people see me walking around bringing a DSLR. I do not really like to have people staring at me and being in awe at me when I am just an amateur, or people expecting a lot out of me and asking to see my list of photographs then getting disappointed when they see that my photographs are not that good. I also feel like I am asking for attention if I bring my camera purposely to church. So with all those petty reasons going on inside my head, I convinced myself enough to not bring my camera to church with me. That was alright, for I can actually use my phone to take some example photographs for the time being, just to show Mr.Vinod a rough idea for what I theme wanted to do for my assignment, but that opportunity flew away again because when I reached my church that day, I was quite late and the church service was about to start. Furthermore, I completely forgot about the photography assignment as I was dropped off in front of the church doors. That was also fine, as I still had some time after the church session to take a few pictures using my phone. But that opportunity went away again because after the service, I kind of forgot about the assignment again until it was time to leave, and I was suddenly stuck by the realization that I still had not taken any photographs for my photography blog yet. I realized that as I was walking to a car, and I passed by one of the abandoned cars. I actually still had some time to just stop for awhile and take a few quick snaps of the abandoned car while my church friends were slowly walking towards their car, but I panicked and I was scared again that I would keep them waiting for too long or that I would look weird trying to take photographs of a rusted old car, so at last, I made up my mind to not take the photograph and just hurry along to catch up with my friends at their car, which turned out to be a very bad decision, because then I ended up with no photographs to post n my blog, which was a major setback. So I had a plan B, which was to bring my camera down to campus during Sunday to find some places to take some experimental photographs in the school campus, which is where I am currently living in. But on Sunday morning, I woke up ready to go downstairs with my DSLR, but then I remembered that I was supposed to go out grocery shopping with my friend. I figured that it was for awhile and I would be back after lunch, but I was wrong because my friend decided to go watch a movie and that took up a lot of time. By the time I reached back in campus, it was already 4pm and I was tired and accidentally fell asleep until 8pm. When I woke up at pm, it was already dark out and I could not go on with my plan of scouring the campus for good pictures any more. Every time I wanted to bring my DSLR down to class, there was either no time to take photographs or I was too shy to take my camera down, and I had a lot of excuses. Time was running out, but I still did not have any pictures for my blog to show to Mr.Vinod, but thank goodness Katrina told me that for this first week, we can actually find pictures from the internet and show some examples of the themes that I want to use to Mr.Vinod during class on Friday. So, I went on Google and found some pretty good photographs that actually kind of folow my theme, and I am showing them to Mr.Vinod during class on Friday. I might be saved now but sooner or later I will have to bring my camea to church to get some real photographs of the abandoned cars and not internet pictures, which means that I would have to get out of my shell, be brave, and just "take a stab at it", as Mr.Vinod says.

Observations:

What I have observed in class is that as I was thinking of some ideas when Mr.Vinod wanted us to think of some themes for our final assignment, I realized that most of my ideas clash with ideas of my classmates, or ideas that are already done by our previous seniors. That means that most of my ideas are too mainstream and that I have to think harder, and think out of the box. For example, I thought of a theme that is roads, but when Mr.Vinod showed us some work from his other photography class, there was one theme that was also roads. Also, at the end of the class, some of us went to ask Mr,Vinod some questions about our final assignment, and I went there to see if I can get any more information from Mr.Vinod and my classmates. From there, I found out that Andrea, one of my classmates, also thought of the theme roads in perspective form, which was exactly what I was thinking for my road theme. So,after hearing that, I decided to scrape off my idea of the road theme, as it was not the main theme that I wanted and also I had other themes that I wanted to try too. Another theme I thought of was blood, but when Mr.Vinod showed us some of his previous students' work, one of the themes was about the butchery at the wet market, which was pretty close with my blood idea, as it had some blood splatters in it.Moreover, I also observed during class that most of my ideas are too insane and unreachable, and very difficult to find. For example the theme blood. It is difficult to find blood everywhere you go, and you cannot just cut yourself or stab yourself or others just to achieve that theme. So I had to cut off that idea too. I also thought of roadkill as a theme, because it is out of the word and it brings out a very deep emotion in people if they see photographs with that theme. But it is difficult to find roadkill, especially if I want to find 5 different roadkills. Outside of class, I have observed that I have been neglectin photography class this week as it was a very hectic week, what with 2 assignments we had to pass up in Creative Thinking Skills Class, and drawings of paper cutouts that we have to do for Principles of Design class, and there is also the issue of the woodblock and lino from Print Making class. Also, we were to have an exam in fundamental drawing, which was very difficult to pass and we have to practice very hard for it. There is also an assignment coming up for our English class. Usually, I would finish my photography assignments on the Saturday or Sunday right after class, but this week was hectic, and here I am doing some last minute work. I should not neglect my photography assignments, because they are important, and I will try to not procrastinate my photography class works in the future.

Findings:

I have found out this week that it is not easy to be a photographer, because it is not at all easy to take great photographs, especially when we have to incorporate all that we have learned in class for this entire semester. Also, it is not easy to be brave and to just whip my camera out bravely to take photographs of random things that normal people would usually not take photographs of. People will stare and ask about your camera, and they will judge your photographs. And we have to learn to take all the criticism in and not take offence from it. I have also found out that most of my ideas for the themes for the final assignment are too mainstream. Also, some of those theme ideas are also very difficult to find, unless I have a car and go out of the way to drive everywhere to look for those themes during my free time. But I do not have a car, and my friends who do have cars are too busy to just go out of their way just to bring me around cruising and looking for places and things with the particular theme that I want. I have to dig deep and find out who I really am deep within, to find my type of things, and to portray those things about me out in my photography work. This is a once in a lifetime thing, and I have to work really hard for it and do well, and not be just another normal photographer, taking photographs of normal things. Like Mr.Vinod says, I must take a stab at it, and just go out there and do it. I must find something outstanding, something that makes people stop to take a second glance, something that creates an emotional stir in others, something that captivates everyone. Other than that, I have also realized that I am getting lazy lately and I have been neglecting my photography blog for these past few days, mostly to rush to finish my other assignments, especially the two assignments for Creative Thinking Skills class. Also, I may be a fun person in the outside, or I try very hard to be a happy and hyper person to the world, but I am also a very deep and emotional person. I feel alone most of the time. Sometimes, I like to be alone, because I have found out that deep inside, I am a loner. That is why the final theme I want for my final photography assignment is to bring out a very sad and emotional feeling in people after they see my photographs. I am choosing abandonment as my theme, abandoned cars, broken glass, abandoned buildings, I want to let people know the feeling of being lonely, of being abandoned, the feeling of sadness. Last of all, I found out from the websites that Mr.Vinod asked us to check out that all the collections from the photographers have a certain theme to it, because they have consistency, not too much, but also not too little consistency, and we have to do this for our final assignment because the 5 final photographs will have to have just the right consistency to them. I have also come to realize that this final assignment that Mr.Vinod gave us has a lot to do with Consistency. When Mr.Vinod taught us about the topic of photo editing and consistency, Mr.Vinod told us that we did not have to do any assignments for consistency, but instead jumped right into photo editing by giving us an ungraded assignment on photo editing, which was the assignment on our selfies. We did not have to do assignments on consistency mainly because Mr.Vinod said that it is very difficult to achieve just the right amount of consistency in our photographs. But I realized that, now that it has almost reached the end of our semester, for our final assignment, we should be able to incorporate all that we have learnt during this entire semester's class, including Consistency into our final assignment. This final assignment is to test and access our knowledge of all that we have learned during class, Mr.Vinod will give us minimal feedback, so this assignment will be almost like we are on our own, and we will have to apply everything we have learned in class into this. I hope that I will do well in this and I will try very hard to ace this assignment.

Introduction to Photography: Week 9

30.5.2014 (Week 9)

Casey Chong Jing Ping (0318756)

Introduction to Photography

Presentation: Photo Editing 

Exercise: Selfie (Ungraded)

Lecture

During class this week, we started class with a group discussion on Adobe Photoshop. Most of us did not read the reading materials on Photoshop. I read the materials the week before when Mr.Vinod posted it on our facebook wall, but I forgot to read it again before class started. I really forgot until Mr.Vinod mentioned that there was reading materials. But I briefly remembered what I read the week before, and frankly, I do not understand anything that was being taught in the reading materials. Photoshop is very foreign to me. Even if most of us did not manage to read the reading materials on Photoshop, we still did the group discussion and asked a lot of questions regarding this foreign topic that we were so curious about. After the short group discussion, Mr.Vinod gave us a presentation of Photoshop by connecting his laptop to the projector in front of the class to project out what he photoshop's in his laptop. He used a sample photograph that he uploaded onto his computer and used it to teach us what we had to know about Photoshop. He just taught us the basics of Photoshop, because Photoshop is very complicated and we might get (even more) confused if he taught us more than we should know about Photoshop for now. After Mr.Vinod taught us all we need to know about Photoshop, it was our turn to turn on our laptops and try our hand in photoshop by photoshopping our selfies that we had taken the week before. Mr.Vinod went around the class to look at our selfies and give us his comments and feedback on them while we attempted to photoshop our selfies. If we have any questions, we would just ask Mr.Vinod for help. I had a few difficulties and Mr.Vinod helped me a little, but after that I had to larn for myself so he left me alone to learn myself. Naturally, I was frustrated at this thing that was too complicated for me and that  I could not seem to understand and I panicked, but Katrina (the class expert at photoshopping) and Cigie (even though she does not know anything about photoshop at all, she was still willing to help me) were so kind as to help me with the photoshopping. I finally managed to photoshop my selfie successfully (with the great help of Mr.Vinod, Cigie and Katrina--- My lifesavers!!!!!!!) and I was so relieved and grateful that that trial of mine was over. At the end of class, we were done with our photoshopped selfies and Mr.Vinod surprised us by asking us to put our photoshopped selfies as our new profile pictures on facebook until the end of this semester and also to post the photoshopped selfies on the Intro2Photography facebook page. We were to record the reactions of the selfie-profile pictures, such as the number of likes and the comments if there are any. Some of my classmates were quite reluctant to post their selfies on facebook as their profile pictures as they had just changed their facebook profile pictures not long ago, some were shy or did not like their selfies very much, but it was okay for me as my current profile picture was not that recent anymore and I was also quite satisfied of my selfie. I was one of the first people that immediately changed my profile picture to my selfie because I wanted to get it done and over with. The amount of likes I have right now is currently around 30+ and that broke the record of all my previous profile pictures, which was quite a good achievement by itself, so I am quite happy with the results.

Instructions

1.Photoshop the selfie where necessary.

2. Post the selfie on the Intro2Photography facebook wall and change your profile picture to the selfie until the end of this semester.

3. Screenshot the facebook wall.

4. Record the selfie before photoshop and after photoshop. 

5. Record and keep track of the reaction (amount of likes and comments) until the end of the semester.

Exercise

photoshop selfie (Ungraded)


The photograph of my ''selfie'' before Photoshop-ing it.



The ''selfie'' after I Photoshopped it.



A screenshot of my facebook page with the photoshopped ''selfie'' as my profile picture.



The feed posted on my facebook wall to inform everyone that I had changed my profile picture to the ''selfie''.



If you click on the picture on my facebook wall, this is what will appear.



This is a screenshot of the ''selfie'' that I had posted on the wall of the group Intro2Photography's page.



If you click on the photograph in the Intro2Photography page wall, this is what will appear.






Screenshots of the Hardcopies:

Feedback

Specific feedback:

***None (Because it is an ungraded exercise)*

General feedback:

***None (Because it is an ungraded exercise)*

Reflections

Experience:

The first thing that I experienced during this week's class is anxiety. Photoshop is a very complicated thing and for a simpleton like me, it is way to complicated for me to handle. I almost died trying to photoshop some simple things on my laggy laptop. Luckily, God sent down two angels from Heaven to stop me from jumping out of the window from my anxiety attack. These two angels are Soon Cigie Leng and Katrina Khaw. Katrina is considered an expert in photoshop compared to all my other classmates because she has had experience in using the photoshop program before, and I am very lucky to have a kind-hearted friend like her, Thank You Kat!!! Cigie is also an angel because even though I am freaking out about such a small thing like this, she does not get angry or impatient with me and instead tries to help me (and she managed to help me quite a lot, successfully!) with my photoshopping even though she has never used photoshop before. I have experienced that the photoshopping world is a very scary and dangerous world. It is very difficult to photoshop even a bit of thing and if you do something wrongly, it takes a lot to undo it. Furthermore, Photoshop does not listen to me. Whenever I try to do something, nothing happens, but when Kat or Cigie or Mr.Vinod or anyone else for that matter tries to do something, it complies to them. Later on, I found out that I was doing the photoshopping on the wrong layer. Layer??? Man, this just gets more and more complicated!!! I also found out that photoshop does not really work on my tiny little netbook. A netbook is not meant to keep such a large program such as photoshop, and my laptop also lags a lot, which means the photoshop feature lags too. Also, in my netbook, some crucial parts of the photoshop (for example, the feature that allows me to change my frame to white colour) does not appear because the photoshop file is too large for my mini laptop. One thing that I do like about photoshop, on the other hand, is the fact that it is quite easy and not too complicated to change the photograph from colour to black-and-white, now that I can do.

Observations:

I have observed in this class that I am not the only one that have difficulty of downloading photoshop, because others in my class also have that same difficulty. I have also observed that some people in my class have great selfies but some just have normal selfies because they did not try to go out of the boundaries. I tried to be different from other normal selfies, but I am not sure if my selfie is that good. Moreover, I have observed that some of my classmates were quite reluctant to post their selfies on facebook as their profile pictures as they had just changed their facebook profile pictures not long ago, some were shy or did not like their selfies very much. I also observed that only a few, which is about 2 of my classmates have used photoshop before. Before that, I thought that I was the only one who did not know how to use photoshop. I have also observed that photoshop takes up a lot of space on the laptop. I observed that more people like my ''selfie'' profile picture than all my other facebook profile pictures. Another thing that I have observed is that photoshop eceives people. The name sound like it is so easy to use, but in truth, it is the hardest thing to use in my entire lifetime. I have also observed that even photoshop is not entirely perfect. If you look closely enough (please don't though), my photoshopped selfie has a lot of flaws. The lasso tool does not really outline irregular objects perfectly, because after all, it is us humans that manipulate the photoshop to outline the objects, and we all make mistakes, however minor those mistakes are. I have also observed that one of the least complicated things in photoshop is to change the photograph from colour to black-and-white. Lastly, I have also observed that no two people are the same. For example, no two people n our class came out with two exactly similar selfies. Cigie's and Andrea's selfies look a little bit alike, both having the same concept, but at the end of the day, there are still differences in their selfies. Cigie used her iPhone whereas Andrea used a Polaroid picture. You have to look at their selfies to understand that, but you get what I am trying to say even without that example.

Findings:

From this week's class, I have found out how to use Photoshop. I have also immediately found out that Photoshop is very complicated and that I am afraid of photoshop. I have learned that I do not like to use photoshop. Furthermore, I have also learned that it is better to finish off my work in class rather than drag it and doing it at home, because in class, Mr.Vinod is there in person to help us whenever we need help. I finished my photoshopping in class and that was great because I don't think that I can be able to do a nice photoshopping without the help of Mr.Vinod and my helpful friends. I also found out that my netbook is not made for large programs such as Photoshop because it takes up a lot of space on the laptop. Large files like this is the main cause for my ;laptop being laggy, and a laggy laptop means even laggier file applications. This makes the Photoshop in my laptop very slow and laggy. Next, I have found out that a 30 day trial for the Adobe Photoshop ends very fast. Before you know it, it's already 30 days and the 30 day trials are finished and you have to find another way to get Photoshop. Even if I am not used to using Photoshop yet and I currently don't like Photoshop, I've learned to appreciate Photoshop because even though it is not perfect, it is still very useful for us designers and future designers. Apart of Photoshop, Adobe also has Illustrator and other applications that we can use. I also learned to appreciate Adobe because it has all of the things (if not all, then most of the things) that a designer needs. Apart from that, I have learned to appreciate the people who actually use photoshop in their daily life and make great photoshopped photographs as a living or even as a hobby, because now I know how difficult and complicated Photoshop can be. I have not learned this yet, but I am just putting it out there that I am trying hard to learn to love Photoshop and to practice Photoshop if I can, because I will have to know how to use it often in my future, especially during my degree. I will also need to use a lot of Photoshop in my future career, and so I have to learn to love to use Photoshop.