The first few weeks of starting college have been a whirlwind! Already I feel I have learned a lot; from 8-bit processing and how it affects editing images, how broad fashion photography is as a genre, the true creativism that can come from different lighting styles, as well as the fast paced world of photojournalism and the diversity of it as a career choice. Those are just to name a few!
In our second week at college we receieved our first photojournalism brief; to capture an image to illustrate an article based on the idea that dancing in Scotland has reduced by almost half in a decade. We were given a week to plan, shoot, and print our image where we then presented and critiqued our own and other images in a group, before critiuqing as a class and receiving the final decision from our lecturer, Graham McGirk.
Unfortunately I was told to reshoot my first image, as although it was technically competent, it was too literal and therefore did not meet the brief. However, Graham decided to give all that had failed an amnesty since it was our first week and therefore I did not need to reshoot. I wasn’t disheartened by not meeting the brief because it was only our first and I had still worked hard to acheieve the image I had. After all, there would be no point in being in education if I knew exactly what I was doing. I defintely felt I learned a lot from the class, and had a slight better idea of what was expected going forward.
The following week in our fashion class we had 3 different lighting set ups; one theater, one octagonal softbox, and a final ring flash and as groups we were stationed at one set up where we decided how to arrange our lighting and try different things to see the effect. Then we would rotate around the group so we could try a range of different lighting constructs as well as experimenting ourselves. I found the theatre lighting particularly interesting as it was something I had never experienced before and the possibilities seemed endless. Overall it was a really eye opening lesson and I’m excited to try out some of these different techniques for myself.
Now we’re in full swing at college it’s “research, research, research” for a lot of our subjects. Researching is something I actually love doing as it allows me to plan more thoroughly for my own ideas as well as help flesh out where my ideas could be improved. Whilst completing my graded unit I used all kinds of research methods to make sure my plans were as fail proof as possible, and it’s absolutely something I’m going to continue on with.
I will be keeping this blog regularly updated with personal posts about my time at college as well as submissions for my course such as research, notes, planning, etc so look forward to that! In the meantime, I enjoyed this video recently which talks about different colour palletes used in film and feel it is transferrable to photography as well; let me know what you think!
Jade Taylor Photography 