Semester Trajectory
I started this semester as an already experienced photographer who's spent a lot of time shooting for different contexts and purposes. In the last year, I've shifted most of my photography focus onto photojournalism since I work for the school newspaper, The CU Independent, as both a photo editor and photographer. Previously, I've had a local photography business doing portraits for seniors and families, and also fashion photography. A type of photography, however, that has stayed steady with me over many years is documentary travel and street photography. I love looking at compositions and learning how to make them complex and interesting. I like to use the techniques I've learned in street photography in all other types of photos that I shoot. I took these skills with me on my Still Image projects for this semester. In the beginning of the semester, I decided to focus mainly on images from sports games I was shooting for the paper. I put them all together and made them black and white. For the next project, I made things a little more varied. Even with the sports images I used, they were less about the action and more about the emotion. Alongside this, I decided to focus on my best friend, who notoriously hates having her picture taken, but on occasion lets me.
I found that my photography trajectory was less one about starting at a low point and ending on a high point. Being someone with proficient camera skills at the beginning of the semester, I put them to use to shoot over 35 events in 4 months unpaid. Although that wasn't exclusively for this class, I found that this semester was more about staying consistent in my editing style and on top of my assignments. My growth this semester was in pushing myself to cover events of all sorts with many different lighting types. Shooting the Nearly Naked Mile required me to use flash and really utilize my knowledge of how to shoot in low light. The afterparty was fun because I got to experiment with strobe lights and fog while outside in the cold. The Pride Office's Halloween Drag Performance was also in low lighting and fast movement. It also brought super fun energy that I got to make into clean, compelling shots that I love to look back on now.