Masters of Photography Project Reflection

1. How do you think your project represents your work as a student?
I think my project pretty accurately portrays how I tend to approach vague instructions like "Model after this". Although I'm not the most artistic person under the sun, I try to incorporate the stylistics of what I'm modeling after into the format given to me. I work my hardest to make my work fit the criteria provided.

2. How has your understanding of photography changed during this school year?
In my lax experience with photography, I used to just see something I liked and take a picture, then move on. I didn't think about how I constructed the background around my focus could affect how someone else looked at my photos. My photography used to be more of a personal art form, a way for me to remember immediately what I thought at the time I took that photo and why I took that photo. I have a near-photographic memory, so I've become accustomed to using pictures to remember significant events. Now, I understand that photography is as much for me as for anyone else who might see it, so I need to convey what I think of when I see a particular scene I want to snap.

3. What are some of the benefits of working in a group?
I liked working in a group because we all had different experience in how we've used cameras and used our experience to help each other. None of us had a camera by the same manufacturer, so learning how to use other cameras with mechanisms we're not used to and can find very useful was quite fun. Working in a group also provided a conversation topic that helped us grow closer to each other and learn how to communicate what we want others to understand. 

4. What are some of the disadvantages of working in a group?
In most groups, there's at least one person who won't attempt to do their part at all and just assumes that they'll get the grade everyone else worked to get. We also have to learn how to work together if one or more of us want to go to a different location to get a different type of photo, but the rest of us don't want to. 

5. Now that you have had more time to reflect, is there anything that you would have done differently with your recent project?
I would've tried to take more photos, because the more I take, the higher the probability that the photos are good enough to present and be proud of. When I looked at them through the camera, I thought they were better than they turned out, so taking more would have given me more of a choice. 

6. Is there anything else that you want to include?The project really taught me how hard it must've been for the Masters to take their photos when they don't have the technology we have now. It taught me to appreciate the different photos and ways to interpret a single scene depending on a variety of factors, such as subject, background, expression, and action. It also taught me how to plan my photos to get exactly what I wanted, rather than haphazardly snapping pictures and just hoping I'd get a decent picture.