beauty & beast

[Saud]

Hello
my name is Soud, i have been photographing for some time but due to my job i don’t have the time to attend classes and so i find your course and liked it. i have been shooting for press lately so i lost a bit of my touch in creativity and hope to get better with your course.

here is a picture is my drawers in my bedroom,

[attachment=1:13x2l59d]assignment 1-a.jpg[/attachment:13x2l59d]

and this is my angle
[attachment=0:13x2l59d]assignment 1-b.jpg[/attachment:13x2l59d]

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hello!

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 have submitted two photographs.

The first image you submitted features a rather nondescript (although nice) set of drawers.

These drawers are quite nice although they are certainly mundane. So job well done. You’ve managed to find something boring! 😉

What you’ve done in your second photo (your beauty) is exactly what was asked of you. Take something mundane and use a different approach to make it interesting.

In this case you chose to lower your perspective and use a very shallow depth of field to highlight the small knob or handle on the drawer.

This is exactly what the assignment called for so you’ve done well.

You may be wondering what’s the idea behind this exercise.

Well, the idea is to simply get you thinking like a photographer. Or rather, seeing like a photographer. Photographers see the world differently than most people. They see it much more clearly, with more color, and at different angles.

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. 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 submission.

[Author]

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