Meera's Final

Sorry for the late post. Overall, I enjoyed this class a lot! I always had a huge interest in photography. Last semester, I had actually taken the position to be a photographer for our school newspaper. That was my first time actually working with SLR digital cameras, so I had a a chance to play around with the aperture and ISO settings as I was photographing. However, this semester, I really wanted a formal introduction to the camera and so I took this class. It was extremely fun and interesting to learn about the dynamics of how to take pictures with specific settings. It was sometimes a challenge in the beginning to set the right aperture and shutter speed depending on the setting of the photo I wanted to take. However, I feel like I quickly developed the skills of automatically knowing which settings to use. I specifically love using the low aperture setting so that one object in the foreground is in focus and the background is blurry. I also love taking photographs of people in their everyday lives. Capturing a moment when a father is playing with his son or a performance group is doing a group cheer is always special. One thing Serafino noticed about my pictures was that I tend to take vertical pictures with diagonal lines, which I thought was extremely interesting, considering I don't purposely plan to take my pictures that way. I really loved that I had a chance to develop my own style in photography. Now, when I'm walking on the streets, there's not a moment where I don't think the thought, "Hmm...that scene is photo worthy." Thanks so much Serafino for teaching us and inspiring me to discover and delve into a new hobby that I love and enjoy! Here are a couple of my pictures! 

Prints

Dear Students, I left yesterday all the prints in the dark room at Fiorentini. You can pick them up

Flavio's final

 Dear professor.

Since I've not been able to come to the meeting since I had a very important exam and I couldn't finish it earlier I've post some of my favorites pictures here.  These are some of the picture that I've used in my video. It was a great experience to post edit this pictures. In the one of the washington monument I needed to work on the lent's curvature. And as you see after a bit of editing it result a very nice pictures. During this year I've been working on my creativity and especially in post production especially on using photoshop- I used to work with lightroom which is easier than photoshop- but thanks to you and also with the help of Taylor I succeeded on realizing a very good video. The most important thing that I've found out in this class was the collaboration between students. Confronting my artistic style to other classmates style's was really helpful to improve my technique. It has been a great experience work with all of you.

I've chosen this pictures because these are my favorites on the video project.

Regarding the technique I've been using the maximum aperture with a the quicker shutter speed for all the pictures except for the second one that has been made with a very close aperture and a very low shutter speed and Iso speed. 

I hope you liked my project and the way I worked.

It was a pleasure Work in this class.

Regards

Flavio

Kirila Cvetkovska

Here are some of the pictures I took during this semester. I enjoyed the class and the whole process of learning about traditional photography. My pictures mostly include everyday stuff which people usually don't pay attention to. I like taking pictures of details, but not necessarily place them in the center of the photo- I like to catch details spread all over the photo and also cropped to some extent. In addition, I enjoy black and white photography, which I think adds some kind of a mystical effect to the photo, that in turn can't be achieved with color photography. I would love to continue with the film photoraphy and take pictures of much more details and unusual things.

Thank you Serafino.

Kirila

 

Allison Klein

Serafino,
I did not see your post about the final meeting until last night and unfortunately I am unable to come since I have to make up an exam during that time. However, I will post my final post here. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I have taken many drawing courses at school but this was my first photography class. I came into this class not knowing anything about photography and felt that I have learned so much. I absolutely love the way a picture is developed; I was always curious how exactly it worked. I did not expect it to be all about capturing light on the paper and the fact that it all involves LIGHT, how the light hits the paper and how long its on the paper, is somewhat magical to me. Any little difference you make, whether with the filter or time, can result in an almost entirely different photo. Through this course my appreciation for photography has grown immensely and I really do plan on taking what I've learned back with me to the United States.

My favorite pictures I've taken this semester were in Paris and Rome. When I knew I was taking this course I knew I had to get a beautiful black and white picture of the Eiffel Tower, and I did. Unfortunately, the one thing I was not able to do in this course was scan my pictures onto the computer.

This picture was taken on my digital camera and wish I could have taken on my traditional but could not because I could not zoom in on the traditional.

This is also was taken on my digital camera but I was also able to capture it on my traditional. It came out perfectly and is one of my favorites.

Another picture I took that I really enjoyed was captured at the perfect time. While in front of the pantheon I tried to take a picture of the older man playing with what is assumed to be his granddaughter in the fountain. As he is looking into the fountain and holding the little girl she turns her head with her pacifier in her mouth right towards my camera and smiles. Thats when I snapped the photo.

Thank you so much for everything Serafino! I learned so much this semester and had so much fun! I always looked forward to coming to your class! Have a great summer and again thank you!

-Allison

Summary of My Pictures

I really enjoyed this class. As an art major we are required to take courses outside our medium, so I chose photography since I had always been interested in it. It was really fun to take an artistic eye into a different form of art and see the results. I tended to take pictures that played with the focus (how open the aperature was), and tried to capture the simple things in life that are beautiful. Most of my pictures were of nature or had a very natural feel to them. Near the end of the semester I tried to overcome my camera-shyness and begin to snap shots of people. Photography is something that I have become passionate about, and am planning on finding ways to incorporate this new medium for me into my sculptures and ceramic art. I am definitely buying a traditional film camera when I get home so that I can work with my pictures and come up with ways to create a successful transition to mixed media.

My favorite part of the photography process was definitely printing the pictures. I loved trying lots of different things with the same picture, and would stay in the dark room for hours just working on a single picture. I think that this was my favorite part of the process because it was so hands-on. Every tiny change you made to the light, focus, or cropping of the negative created an entirely different feel to the picture. I also love the personal feel and depth that is in pictures that are personally printed (as opposed to printed in a store). The mistakes that are made are what MAKE the picture. The tiny scratches, fading of light, or any other mess-ups tend to bring the photograph more meaning, and are almost more relatable to the viewer than those that are printed with no flaws. The sole black and white colors also contribute to this feel of authenticity, because we see the deeper meaning behind the picture since there are no fancy colors getting in the way. With only lightness and darkness, we are able to push past the external and get to the emotions that are buried deep within the figure or objects in the picture.

Thank you so much for an incredible semester! I am so excited to take home everything that I have learned in your class and see what I can channel that knowledge in to. I'll have to keep you updated on my new works that I come up with! Thanks for everything.

(not all of my pictures are scanned in, and most of them wouldn't upload for some reason, but here is one!)

Kelsey

Monica/Nicole/Taylor's Blog

Serafino,

As I previously stated in a comment, I have my biggest final today and am going to be unable to come to your posted final. I had thought that our final was on Friday (as that's what the school list says), but now that it has been moved to Thursday I am going to be unable to attend. I will post my Final here on the blog. Thank you.


This Film course was very influential to me. Although I have spent the last three years taking photos digitally I have never before taken a film course. There was a lot to learn when it came to cameras, developing, and printing. I really appreciated the way that the class was set up to help us learn. We were able to all lean at our own pace. We were also all allowed to do what we needed to do when we needed to do it. If we needed to develop for a day we were allowed to develop, if we needed to make prints we were allowed to do that as well. It was a very productive way of having class and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot and now have a new found appreciation for Film Photography. I have every intention of buying a film camera and some film when I get back to the states. Through this course I was able to appreciate the beauty of capturing an image in black and white. We learned that through photography we are able to capture so much passion and emotion in just a single image. I think Film photography does that very well.

At the end of my course I had to showcase my work. Both my works in Digital photography and Film photography were transfered to either prints or digital images. It was very interesting to work with this form of post production process. I thoroughly enjoyed getting this chance to showcase my work.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class. Both the students and professor were fun, passionate, and all-around good people. There was so much energy and excitement in class, I truly loved it all. I really appreciate all that I learned and I can't wait to take my knew knowledge out into the real world and see what I can do!

Thank you so much for everything!

Taylor Hotter
(Nicole)

Here is a picture I took with my digital camera. I chose to post this one because it reminded me of the first picture by Cornell Capa I chose to post in January. The Cornell Capa photo was of a child who had just dove into a bucket of water. That picture was taken at the exact moment to catch the splashing of water, just before it disturbed a reflection on the floor. I really take the most pleasure in capturing moments like these. Pictures that you can look back on, and that bring back memories of that exact moment in time. I dont think I am strong enough to have done that with my black and white photos. This semester I photographed mostly objects. For example, below is the first picture I printed this semester. I like this picture because the contrast is quite strong, and the shadow is so strong as well it almost looks like a second object. 

-Anna