I Rambo-ed those photographs

I do not have a ton of experience with photography. I have always had medium grade digital cameras, and for the past four years I have possessed an underwater digital camera. It doesn’t take great photos but we travel to beach areas frequently and it serves its purpose by not dying when we drop it in the water. I take a lot of photos on my phone. My phone actually has a better camera than my digital camera. It takes really high quality photos, so I take a ton!

Most of my photographs are images of my dogs looking adorable or creepy. I’m shameful to admit that, like the article states, I “use my camera like a rapid fire machine gun.” I just use that tactic in hopes that one or two will turn out with good quality. I’ve never really thought of taking a photograph in a way that captures a feeling. I mostly take photos of beautiful scenery, my puppies, or of myself doing ridiculous things. I guess the only time I take photographs with the intent of a certain feeling being portrayed would be on snap chat.

For those of you who don’t know what snapchat is, it is an app that allows you to take photos (mostly selfies) and you can either draw on the photo or write a sentence. People (myself included) often use snapchat to hold conversations. It is a funnier way to communicate. The point of snapchat is that people can see the faces correlated to what ever sentence you are typing. Sometimes, texts can be taken the wrong way so by using an app that allows you to send a face along with your sentence you can really allow the other conversationalist to really capture your feelings or expressions.

After reviewing the assigned articles, I have learned a few new tactics I can use to make my photographs better. First, I need to stop using my camera like a “machine gun.” I’m going to start slowing down and making sure I get the photograph I want on the first or second try. I can also try new “unique” viewpoints and camera angles. It will make my photographs stand out more than others. One of the other suggestions on another article was to capture the light and pay attention to how the light affects your photograph. This is one thing that I have always been very aware of. So that is one thing I don’t have to work on…at least I hope.

What most of the articles have in common is suggesting that photographs become more meaningful when a story is depicted within them. The problem I possess is that I have always been able to put captions with my photographs, such as on instagram or Facebook, or even on this blog. I’ve never had to post a photograph without being able to caption it. I don’t know if any of my photographs would make an impact or relay any type of story without my captions I usually accompany them with. That is definitely something I could work on!