Emulating a Professional Photographer
For this assignment, I chose to emulate American photographer William Eggleston. He is widely credited with increasing recognition of color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. I thought it would be interesting to take photos similar to his because his style of photography is very different from my own. His work is characterized by its ordinary subject matter, showing the beauty of the mundane world. His first photo is of a dimly lit bedroom, the only light coming from the fixture on the wall. I attempted to emulate this using my own bedroom and string lights as the light source. The second photo was of a cocktail on a plane, lit by the light outside the window. In my photo I used my water glass and bedroom window. The last photo is of a ceiling fan on a plain white background. I took a photo of my ceiling light on the solid background of my ceiling. It was a different process creating these photos because the subject and execution was much simpler than I usually experience when taking photos, but it helped me learn a different perspective of photography which I now appreciate much more.
Course Goals and Achievements
My goals for this course were to be more creative with my photography, consider the fundamentals and technicalities of photography, and earn more about well-known and professional photographers. I definitely believe I was able to do this throughout the semester. A lot of the lecture material and projects required learning and implementing photographic processes such as composition, color, and the six photographic categories (descriptive, explanatory, etc.) which was new to me. Also, our assignments required exploration of professional photographers and their work. This was super interesting and one of my goals because I was able to learn about different styles and appreciate different forms of photography other than my own. And of course, throughout the semester and our assignments I had to think more and get creative with my photos, much more than I had been in a long time. That being said, I am very happy with what I achieved in this class, what I have learned, and the photos I created.