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.