In Content Creation class we are working through a photography unit. I spent two years in the late 90s in photography school in Seattle. I should be more excited for photography assignments…but if you noticed I said 90s, and in the 90s we used manual cameras with manual F-stops and apertures, we had to set and control how the light hit our film (yes I said film) at all times. Post taking the picture we entered these things called “dark rooms” where we had to develop our film in a small closet and hope that our exposures worked out. If our film processed like it was supposed to then we created contact sheets and picked out the pictures we liked, then we put them in these big machines where we exposed photo paper to light through the film, and then developed the photo paper through a series of chemicals laid out in containers on a table. Red lights were all we had to guide our way. Those were good times.
Is it more convenient now to take pictures? Yes. Everyone and their mother is a photographer. Gone are the days where we are hoping the wedding photos we took turn out, because we cannot go back and recreate the day. Maybe it’s the stress of it all and the tedium that I miss? Maybe it’s the boomer in me that is technology hesitant? I don’t love digital photography. I like looking at it, but the performance of it all has no magic.
So here is my candid photo for this latest assignment. My daughter took a photo of me taking a photo of her.
We needed to create a photoshoot, we were to scout out locations before hand. I love our local park, it’s gorgeous, but I had to be choosy about what day we went out. We get a lot of rain during this season. It was a bright day out and very cold. I wasn’t dressed properly. I should have brought a warm jacket. I also missed reflective discs that we used to bring on site for photo shoots in college. The brightness of the day leads to sharp shadows on the face and that is flattering to no one.
I am glad we are doing this photography unit. It’s introducing me to more that I can do with my camera phone than I knew before.
What She Learned Today 
One response to “Behind the Scenes…”
I also had aspirations of one day earning a living by becoming a sought after memories catcher, but as you say, everybody is a photographer these days. I think things were already heading that way when it became popular for the film-based disposable cameras to be placed on each guest’s table at weddings.
Even when utilising the smartest of all the automatic digital camera settings, aren’t the most striking or appealing snaps still those that use the rule of thirds though? So even digital images can be improved with cropping to reframe things, and sometimes also other post-processing adjustments to lighting, saturation, noise reduction and filters, etc? So there’s still an art in more frequently having the best photographic results, as opposed to having the most? (It helps to get this old man through his day to think so, anyhow!)
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