1) Before the year began, I was excited to begin taking photography, having not had the opportunity to take the class beforehand. I had taken may pictures with my mom's digital DSLR camera, but never film, so I knew a little about ISO, shutterspeed, and Aperture, but only a little.
2) Throughout the year, I feel like I have most needed to cultivate the skill of composition. When taking a photograph, it is much better to look in every corner to see that what you can see through the lens is exactly what you want your photograph to look like. In Aperture and Photoshop, you can crop images, but in the darkroom it was important to keep composition in mind when taking the photograph, so as not to warp the picture when cutting it or enlarging it.
3) The skill of composition and previous skill that I had coming into the class were helpful because I could use past knowledge to answer my own questions. Also, with my work on composition, I now try to take a photograph exactly at the size I want it, with the borders of what I see on the lens exactly as I would like to see it on the paper. In other words, I am trying not to take advantage of cropping as much.
4) I have realized that I need to improve my digital editing skills. Some of the procedures needed to edit a photograph in Aperture or Photoshop are necessary tools in making a picture better, and if I learned a little more about each program I could improve on this quite a bit.
5) To improve these skills, I have practiced using Photoshop to better assimilate myself to the process of editing digital photographs. Just playing around and see what I can do makes a difference, but also using the powerpoints we were given to accomplish the more complex procedures.
6) What I am most excited about photography right now is the fact that I have the ability to take a camera anywhere I want, take pictures, and edit them to be perfect, using just a camera, and a computer. I like that fact that I have learned what it takes to crop, solarize, vignette, or in any way edit a photograph.
