Semester 2 Final: Artist Statement

     This year in photography we did photoshoots everywhere from just messing with settings on our cameras to using our personal voices. For our more technical photoshoots like ISO, shutter speed and depth of field I went out and took photos around Noblesville or my neighborhood. The technical photoshoots had a lot to do with learning the elements and principles of photography. During these photoshoots I focused a lot on learning my strengths and weaknesses as a photographer and finding what I will enjoy focusing on in AP photo. Later in the year we were able to incorporate more of our own voices in to our shoots. My favorite shoot was the Portraiture assignment. I was able to use the lighting in the supply closet to take good photos of people in class and I used what I've learned in the technical shoots to help me take photos of people outside of class. I already knew that I love taking photos of people and this shoot helped me find where I want my main AP focus to be.

     Some compositional strategies we learned were things such as balance, emphasis, texture and contrast. I think that all of my best pictures were my best because I effectively used all of those strategies.  A lot of my photos use contrast and and emphasis. I have always been attracted to photos that use a lot of dark and light contrast or have a lot of texture. At the beginning of the of the year my photos had none of my personal voice and I was trying to force those compositional elements and principles so much that my photos were so bad but as the year went on I was able to balance them out in my pictures and make them the best they could be.

     This year I have been able to explore my artistic voice and what I want to be able to focus on in AP. I didn't know what I totally want to do until the portraiture shoot. While I was editing the images from that shoot I made some black and white and I loved them. I will definitely be doing a lot of black and white portraiture in AP next year. I also found that I love close up images and the contrast and close and far principles. The photos I took of people this year were good pictures but they didn't capture a whole lot about the person being photographed. I hope that in AP I'm able to put more emotion and depth into the portraits. 

     This year I learned about my strengths and weaknesses in photography. My strengths this year, in my opinion, were portraiture and the nature/ art in the park shoots. Those shoots were my strongest because I was able to incorporate the proper elements and principles in my pictures. My weaknesses were probably just using the technical elements all together. Some of my pictures lack some elements that could potentially make them better.