Not as Different as I Thought
Up until my junior year of college, I had never taken a fine arts class. That changed when I enrolled in World Music. This last semester, I took my university’s photography for non-majors class. Although it may have shared colleges with World Music, I would hardly categorize them as such. World Music was all about diving into the history, context, and meaning of music across the world. Contrastingly, Photography was for the most part about creating the subject matter. Yes, there was a necessary dive into what had come before, but the majority of the class was focussed on what we could create ourselves.
Coming from the engineering school, I found this distinction of interesting note. In engineering classes, you learn about tools such as math, models, or even circuits. You also learn the basics about how to use those tools to solve problems and create solutions. In an entirely unexpected way, PHOT 161 ended up being the same type of class. We learned about our tools, the camera, and at a more basic level light itself, and how to use them create photographs. I think that this contributed greatly to the enjoyment and value I received from this class.
In this post I’m going to outline some of my favorite details about my experience, as well as showcase my favorite images.
Syllabus
We started by learning about the very basics of digital photography, the components of exposure and how the camera captures light. Personally I felt that we dwelt a little too long on this topic, since most of the details we discussed could be learned quickly by simply reading your camera’s manual or watching a youtube video. I was mostly interested in learning more about composition and how to make a photograph, not how to take one.
Project 1
Our first project was a basic \"can you take a picture\" type of assignment. I got some pretty sweet pictures around my house, and enjoyed getting to spend some time with my camera during the Fall.
Project 2
Our second project was mostly focussed on mechanics, like depth of field and exposure. Most of the images I came up with for this one were pretty boring, but there is one that I like quite a lot.
I took this image while camping at Milford Lake in Manhattan Kansas. We were on a short walk right before nightfall and I noticed an owl in a tree. I put my camera into a very high ISO setting and snapped this picture. I think it does well for a silhouette, and I think the graininess actually looks really cool.
Project 3
During project 3 we began to discuss post-processing. Unfortunately, the class required the use of lightroom. Personally, in my admittedly limited experience, I prefer capture one. It was nice to learn about lightroom, and even use it for a short while just to learn what the competition was. I do wish, however, that I had been extended the option to use my image editing software.
Regardless of the sofware used, most photo touch-ups are similar and use the same tools.
I captured this fun image of cousin tubing on Milford lake. I did some color grading and contrast changes, as the original image was very dull and washed out.
I took this picture in my backyard. There were hundreds of flowers back there, and they made for some great photographic pieces. The edits on this image consist of some contrast changes, but mostly adjusting the shadows and brightening some of the darker parts of the image.
Project 4
This was a fun project. It’s no secret that I enjoy taking landscapes. Although I focus mostly on large, open landscapes this project gave me an excuse to try some tighter compositions involving smaller landscapes and subjects.
I wanted to get some pictures of Stagecoach lake, but discovered that the lake had been almost entirely drained for dock maintenance. The draining of the lake made it very easy to get the fish, so there were tons of pelicans sitting on the sandbars. I really enjoyed photographing these guys!
One of the things I’ve learned from experience is that any landscape needs a good subject. This image rides the line between being a landscape and a subject shot, but I would argue for the former.
I take lots of pictures of vehicles, don’t I?
To round things out, here are some shells that were exposed with the draining of Stagecoach.
Project 5
This project was the most challenging for me. Not only was I working under an extreme time crunch (it was that part of the semester), but I’ve never been very good with portraits. I suspect that perhaps most students feel this way, because this project had a different structure then the ones that proceeded it.
We started this project by finding portraits published by established photographers and using them as inspiration for our own images. I chose a number of simple images that I knew I could recreate without too much trouble, but I chose a couple more challenging pieces.
This image was surprisingly good. I honestly just took one picture here. I set Jacob up in front of a culver’s window 5 minutes before they closed and snapped a single photo. Luckily for me, it really turned out quite well.
My favorite photo from this project was my attempt recreating the cover of London Calling by The Clash. That original photo was taken by Pennie Smith, and easily my favorite album cover. I feel like my version comes close to pulling it off, but is just a little off.
The original album cover for comparison.
Project 6
Our most open-ended project yet, I chose to create a series of images that I believe represent music in my life. I really enjoyed this project, and I think the results of this project are the best from the entire class.
I actually do store most of instruments in this corner of my room. Even when it’s not cleaned up artificially for a photograph.
I really enjoy listening to vinyl records. Fight me.
I am so proud of this image. I took it using a long exposure with my camera on a tripod. It’s amazing to me how much light it was able to capture. In the piture it looks to be significantly earlier than it really was. It was pitch black when I took this!
I wanted to capture the energy and action of playing guitar. The main criticism of this image in class was it’s tight composition. I still maintain that I think the tight focus highlights the strumming as the subject of the image, not me or the guitar.
Honestly this picture mostly exists to highlight that I really enjoy listening to Johnny Cash.
Final Project
At the end of the semester we arrived at our final project. I chose to photography my hunting trip to the sandhills. I speak in length about this project and the photos I took in this post.
Final Thoughts
This class was a really interesting dive into photography. I learned a lot about what makes a good image and how to use my camera. I also learned a great deal about how other people view my pictures and the adjustments I can make the improve them overall. It was a great distraction from some of my other more frustrating classes, and offered me lots of time to just enjoy the art form. I highly recommend this class to anyone looking for ACE 7 credits at UNL. You won’t regret it!