Reflection

Coming into this class, I could not have imagined that I would have grown so much academically and personally. Completing these assignments and labs have tested and pushed me creatively and for that I am very proud of myself and grateful for this class. At the beginning of the semester, I knew very little about photography, audiography, and videography. However, at the end of the semester I feel that I am leaving this class with new and useful knowledge and skills. I feel that the skill I have improved the most is editing using Adobe’s Premier Pro. I honestly did not know it was an editing tool before this class; now I can confidently edit video and audio on it. In the past using Photoshop and Illustrator, I would get frustrated and find it quite difficult to use. This time around, I took that frustration and turned it into a learning opportunity. I learned how to edit audio and add effects to my videos. For example, there is a clip in my cooking video where I am chopping onions and I learned how to take a boring chopping clip and jazz it up, by cutting the clip and adding a slow-mo zoom. This might seem like such a small thing, but it did help the outcome of my video look much more professional. I am excited to continue learning about editing and sharpen my skills on all Adobe software.  

My favourite part of the process was the very beginning of every assignment. Planning the storyboards and mood boards for every assignment was very fun and crucial for me, since I am a visual learner. It was nice to let my creativity run free during the process and seeing my ideas  all come together in the end, made me feel very accomplished. My least favourite part of the process was controlling the camera settings. Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO were all very new to me and the exposure triangle was especially challenging to control in my photo assignment. This is because I kept moving from outside to inside and was switching between different rooms, which all required different camera settings. In the other assignments as well,  the exposure triangle was the problem that kept coming back to me, yet I felt that it allowed me to also get better at controlling my camera. Even though to professionals some of my work might seem very amateur, I was thoroughly impressed with my work and shocked that I created the work that I did. I learned a lot about myself in this class as a creator and this class showed me that I am able to create work outside of basic pictures on an iPhone. I can actually work a camera, create work, and edit it. I still have a lot to improve on, but I am glad that I discovered new “skills”. I sometimes doubted myself creatively and I often got in my own head, but once I stopped overthinking and just had fun, my projects started to come together. 

The piece I am most proud of is my photo assignment because it felt very authentically me and was honestly the most fun to create. From creating a mood-board to editing the lighting in Capture One, this project allowed me to express myself the most, use my creativity, and I felt confident in my work. I want to get into a career in marketing, so the fact that I have produced marketing campaigns in this class, such as the audio lab and photo assignment, puts me ahead of other people going into marketing. I am certain that the skills I learned in this class will help me one day when I am in fashion marketing. Overall, I will forever be grateful for this class because it got me excited to come to school and I showed myself what I am truly capable of.