Hey Kimberly!
Welcome to the PhotographyIcon.com forum! You’ve made your first submission so job well done! You’re on your way to becoming a better photographer already.
My name is Duncan Rawlinson and I’ll be walking your through the course and critiquing your assignments.
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The first lesson reads as follows:
Lesson 1: Beast to Beauty
We want you to find something particularly boring in your home. It could be a doorknob, a remote control, a garbage can, a plain couch, tiles or anything else which you would rarely notice around your home. Something totally forgettable and uninteresting.
Now what we want you to do is to take 2 pictures of the object. Take one picture of it as you normally see it. Stand back and take the picture of the object with disregard for its relation to other things or any interesting elements within the object itself.
Now, I want you to get close to the object and see it with fresh eyes. How can you make this object interesting? What if you changed the lighting? What if you added something to it? What if you zoomed in? What if you blurred your camera to make it more abstract? What if you put it in close relation to something else to make it more interesting? These are all just ideas, but the possibilities are endless. Now Take a second picture and turn this ordinary object into something much more visually pleasing.
Now what we want you to do is upload these pictures to our online student workspace.
You’ve submitted two photographs.
Your first photo features a bland door. Now the object of this assignment was to find something mundane to photograph and this door fits the bill.
Now, your second photo (the important one) is exactly what the assignment called for. It’s far more interesting than the first beast shot so job well done!
You are on the edge of ‘cheating’ on this assignment because you probably knew the doorhandle looked interesting up closer 😆 But that’s not the point. The point is you’ve completed the exercise well.
So what’s the whole point of this exercise?
The whole point is to simply get you thinking AND seeing like a photographer does!
Photographers see the world differently than everyone else. They see it much more clearly, with more color, and at different angles. They have “the photographers eye” which is a real skill that takes time to develop.
So think about this when you go forward and shoot photos. See the world differently. Don’t be content to just see everything the same way as everyone else.
Of course another goal of this assignment is to get you to start playing around with photopraphy. What good is it if you become an amazing photographer but you don’t know how to have a sense of fun and play with your photography?!
Good job on your first assignment. I look forward to your next assignment.
If you could add your name to your signature under the user control panel it will help me track how you progress through the course.