Visual Literacy Task one Evaluation
I really enjoyed everything that I have learned throughout this task. The workshops set for us have been extremely advantageous and many. I have learnt to operate studio lighting and experimented with many different styles of lighting. I booked two studio sessions to to practice, and have shot in both analogue and digital in the studios. I learnt a lot in this area, and though most of it came from practicing, a big part of it came from Alex Vans live demonstration of setting up the lighting. We were in a small group of 4, and this was highly effective as we were able to ask questions on the spot and immediately be shown the solutions.
While editing the hundreds of pictures I took over the summer, I have learnt specific Photoshop skills to endorse my editing process. This I have done very slowly and allowed many distractions to come in the way. I know I shouldn’t have, because not only does it leave less time for other responsibilities, it inhibits further practice and more skills that I could have learnt from editing all these different pictures, but I simply find it difficult to actively motivate myself with the absence of a deadline for these photos. I could have probably learnt much more had I diligently pushed myself to continue to edit them.
I was really looking forward to the Outdoor Flash workshop, and by my own mistake counted on it to teach me the use of a flash. After finding out that it was postponed, I took more time than I should have to learn it, and left it to the last minute to do more tests than what I have done. I volunteered to shoot a Cider Festival at Leftbank on Saturday 16/10/16, and I had planned to use this opportunity to practice the use of flash. Unfortunately, I did not check the flash properly before I set out, and found that the battery I had in the flash was too low in energy to shoot. I partly blame Cannon for bad design for it does not have a battery power indicator and still turns on even when it is too low to shoot with. Another one of my mistakes was focusing too much on producing an output from these technical skills which I am learning that was visually beautiful or “successful”, which I realised only later on was not the important bit, but instead the learning of the whole process.
Besides what is shown on my blog, a weakness of mine is being able to manually focus accurately with speed on a camera. This skill is especially in need when shooting analogue without the function of the auto-focus, something which I am extremely used to when shooting in digital. Up till two weeks ago I have only been using the college’s film camera to shoot analogue, hence the lack of practice, but now I have recently purchased my own film camera, and have been shooting very frequently with it. This process of development I find is too hard to put down in words, or to show evidence of improvement, but I nonetheless consider it one of the most important skills that I have actively set out to learn.
zenkhyeooi 