Digital Photography has always thought was interesting and cool but it was something ive known little to nothing about  had no experience with at all. I’ve just always been a fan of pictures that look cool and entertaining to me. With this course i was able to learn about the art of photography, And how powerful pictures can be. I learned to be able to view things from a newer and different perspective which is something i’ll continue to do from now on. What i learned to love about photography is how there’s always more then meets the eye when taking a picture or viewing an image. Because of this i can definitely understand the saying “A picture is worth 1000 words”. This is a course that ive enjoyed the most and was the most interested in now, and i look forward to learning alot more about digital photography in the future.
Final Evaluation – Dree Morin
This was a fabulous class!! I’ve always been a fan of photography, but before this semester, I had looked at backlighting, especially by the sun or a cloudy day’s diffused lighting as a hindrance to taking pictures, rather than a useful and creative tool. I learned about proper portrait lighting and terminology. The painting with light class was one of my favorites because it was so creative and I’d had no idea how that was done prior to this semester. I also noticed that I have been taking photos for years utilizing certain terminology/techniques, without knowing it.
I’d seen many photographs that used shallow depth of field (thought I didn’t know the terminology) and knew that professional photographers were doing this on purpose, but I did not know how create this effect and when this would accidentally happen in some of my photos, I would see it as a failure of my skills and the photograph. Now I know how to do this intentionally and make use of this technique. I truly understand the function of the shutter speed and how to use it. I’m still struggling with function and use of the aperture; I think this is partially due to the limitations of my current compact digital camera, and the fact that there wasn’t enough time to work with it in class. I’ve been considering getting a DSLR on and off for years, but felt that I didn’t know enough about how to use one. Now I am confident enough to purchase a DSLR and know that I will have plenty of time to practice with it next semester in Photography 2. This was one of my two favorite classes this semester and I expect Photography 2 will be a favorite next semester as well.  I look forward to learning more!!
 Another thing I really enjoyed about this class was the personal interaction when we worked in groups in class. I liked the fact that the groups were always changing. Although I didn’t get to work with everyone in the class, I worked with many.  In so many classes you can go through the whole semester and never talk to or even know your classmates names. Â
This class has given me more confidence in my skills as a photographer.
Filed under Final Evaluation
Painting with Light
(I just noticed that I never hit the send button on this one either, sorry again!)Â
I thought the painting with light exercise was really cool. Â I’d seen pictures like this in the past but never knew how they were done. Â One of the key things I learned was that the lighting must be right in order to capture the person and not the background. Â Also when the light fired, the motion had to be quick enough for the colored light to be captured without the light source.
This was my favorite photo today because it looks like the light is going through my face and changing colors as it does so. I also really like the shadows on my arms from the positioning of the strobe light.
Filed under Learning Log 7-Painting with Light
Final Evaluation: Rafael Cespedes
This class was a great experience! Before this semester i had no knowledge of how to use a DSLR or take good pictures at all. It was all unknown to me and this class was a great opening step. The one thing i learned that i completely had to idea about before is the importance of lighting when taking a photograph. Lighting can completely change the emotional tone, or message in a photo. In addition to that i also learned how to use a camera in general, that includes setting shutter speed, aperture, ISO if needed and so on. When this class started i was mostly shooting in auto or aperture/shutterspeed priority but for the last few months i been able to shoot in manual without a problem. The part i enjoyed the most about this class were thnd this class was a great opening step. The one thing i learned that i completely had to idea about before is the importance of lighting when taking a photograph. Lighting can completely change the emotional tone, or message in a photo. In addition to that i also learned how to use a camera in general, that includes setting shutter speed, aperture, ISO if needed and so on. When this class started i was mostly shooting in auto or aperture/shutterspeed priority but for the last few months i been able to shoot in manual without a problem. The part i enjoyed the most about this class were the in-class assignments. I feel there could not had been a better way to teach us photography than to actually make us do it. The messing with light and motion was probably my favorite.
Overall this class was really helpful, i’m glad i took it.
Filed under Final Evaluation, Learning Logs
Final Evaluation – Joanna Motyl
I have learned a lot in this class, for sure how to take pictures better. Before I would just point and shoot and now I look whats in the picture, as for the background and other objects in the
photograph. I have also learned about the main focus on the picture, how it should look and for it not to be to much. Also the negative space in pictures that it makes photos look interesting and good. But I have also learned a lot from our class works, about the motion in the photographs and portraits, and how to make an object fit in the image. This course will help me in my career development because when I will be creating an design I know more about photographs and how its supposed to look good to make a great design. To improve this course it could be maybe also some pictures in the dark, like all our homeworks were during day light and I think it could have been interesting if they were done at evening-night time. Otherwise, this was a great class.
Filed under Uncategorized
final learning log – Regina Torres
I really enjoyed taking this class. I think it was my favorite of the semester, in fact. Before taking this class I never thought I would be able to take good pictures, I was just not confident of my skills (and in fact they weren’t good:p) but since I started with this class I started building more confidence about taking pictures and even got better at it! I liked this class so much it encouraged me to take photography 2 next semester. I hope it will be as fun as this class and that we learn as much as we did with this class. The only recommendation I would give to this class would be to have more sessions per semester since it teaches a lot of techniques and fun practices.
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Final Evaluation
I loved the class. I learned a lot about cameras that I never knew before. I really just can’t wait to get my hands on a SLR again. I really enjoyed all the assignments. I really want to take  Photo 2 but since its an elective and I plan on taking other electives, I may not get that chance unfortunately. I used to think that taking pictures were easy with SLR because of the commercials and boy was I wrong. It is not easy. There’s so much more that I want to learn on using those cameras and I would of never got the chance had I not taken this class. Even though it is required, I do know for a fact that I would of taken it anyway just because I wanted to so you know what, I might do that for photo 2. On a side note my favorite shoot was painting with light and the the portrait pictures in different styles.
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Final Evaluation
This is one of my favorite course I took this semester. Honestly at first I thought anyone can take a nice expensive camera and just take pretty picture but I was wrong. This class taught me so many things that I never knew before. I learned how to use the camera in manual (also been using auto),  which included learning about f-stops, ISO, shutter speed, white balance and many more photography terms.  I really enjoy all the class shoots that we had especially painting with light. I would love to take photography 2 next fall because I had an amazing time in photography 1
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Final Evaluation
At the beginning of Digital Photography class, I thought I wouldn’t be able to take good photographs or be able to handle a camera in the classroom studio. However, I proved myself wrong. I have learned so many things such as how to handle a camera with and without a tripod, set the camera settings, how to think about composition while taking my own photographs, how to work in a studio, and the most important thing-lighting. Although all of my images were taken by my iPhone, I learned that Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw (which I had never heard of)Â enhances images to make it look better. My favorite/fun camera exercise we did in the classroom studio was painting with light and motion. That definitely gave me a sense of what the DSLR camera can really do. During my spare time, I will definitely get my hands on a DSLR to recreate that exercise with my close friends. Overall, this course had done its job successfully, thanks to Professor Michals.!
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Final Evaluation
Since I’ve taken this course, I have learned many things that I was never taught before. The first and most important thing I have learned in this class is how to use a DSLR. I’ve always used a point and shoot and learning how to use a DSLR has opened up my eyes on how much you can actually control when taking a photograph. I even bought myself a DSLR to continue practicing on taking better and more beautiful photographs. Another important thing I was taught is to use camera raw to edit photographs before bringing it into Photoshop for final retouching. I never knew how much you can change in a photograph, from its exposure to its vibrance and saturation. One last thing I’ve learned in this class is the vocabulary that is used in the field. It’s great to describe photographs with more specific terms.
This course will really help me for designing because now I am not limited to just using stock photographs for my designs, rather I can take a picture myself and fully control how I want my photographs to look like.
Something that I would like to learn in this course is a basic lesson on how to use Adobe Lightroom. I have seen this program a few times and are curious on how you can edit photographs with the program.
Filed under Final Evaluation
