Re: Re: Lesson 1

#19899
Duncan Rawlinson
Keymaster

Thanks for submitting your first photograph.

The assignment reads as follows:

Lesson 1: Assignment Assignment Title: 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.

It appears as though people are starting to imitate what others are doing with their first assignment. There is no rule saying you must shoot a close macro photograph for your first assignment but it seems everyone is doing this now 😉

You have submitted two photographs.

Your first image is a keychain holder.

These are usually quite mundane objects so you’ve go that one down.

Now the second image is a closeup of some keys. For your first attempt this is pretty good but I want you to rethink this assignment.

In this case you have a funny looking cow on the wall or some keys to shoot. I would shoot the funny looking cow. Either way, the closeup of the keys is certainly more interesting than just some keys on the wall.

The point of this assignment was to get you to start thinking like a photographer. Think about how you see the world. You can see the world like image 1 (boring) or see the world like image 2 (more interesting!).

Try to look at everything this way and try to bring your camera EVERYWHERE!

I hope you’re taking something from the lessons already. Don’t worry too much about getting the “right” answers on the assignments. Think more about why the assignment is setup that way and what you’re meant to learn on each one.

Good job on this one. I look forward to your submission for assignment 2!

Thanks!