In-Depth Blog Post #3

During the last 2 weeks of learning my In-depth, portrait photography, I have been learning about shutter speed. Basically, shutter speed is about capturing motion. Depending on the photo, the shot could have one part blurred while the rest of the photo is still or the whole thing could be blurred, or lastly, you could freeze motion.

In the time I had since my last entry, I was able to have two meetings. During the first meeting, I was able to learn about what shutter speed is and how to work my camera to get the result that I want. Then during the time I had between the two meetings is when I got to test out my newly acquired knowledge. Down below are a few shots I took:

After I took these shots I was able to discuss my growth in the second meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Ross asked me a great question that can help in a project as in-depth. He said. “What do you think you could work on?” By him asking me this I was able to self reflect on my work. If you look above, you could probably see a common theme with the focus not being quite there. After I told him what I think I needed to improve, he was able to help me by giving me some pointers for the next time I try this.

One of the pointers he gave me was to use a martini glass when taking photos of water splashes because it makes the water splash more outwards creating a better splash in the photos. I wasn’t sure if I had any at home so I asked. “What if I used wine glasses?” he said it would be probably pretty similar to martini glasses but in his experience martini glasses were the best to use.

While working on shutter speed this past 2 weeks I have run not a couple of problems. The first being that we have switched our meetings to online. Sadly because of my schedule changing so often at school, I was not able to meet after school anymore in person. This was because the time we had discussed before was now clashing with one of my classes. This has made it a bit harder for learning photography because I am not able to use the photography room and it’s just harder in general when he wants to show me how to take shots and use my camera.

A second problem I have been facing is communication. Because of everything being online the communication with sending my photos has been a bit frustrating. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to find an easy way of sending my pictures to my mentor, and it is just through one drive.

I think in the past 2 weeks I have been able to learn a lot and go into a more creative piece of photography. Thanks to my mentor, I am already starting to get better photos! I’m so excited to see what comes next!

Until next time. 🙂