Project 3 photography

 While doing this project I ran into a few bumps on the road. I originally wanted to take pictures at the track meet I was at and show the non conformity or people sitting on their phones instead of out being social with their team or other teams. Although when I got back to edit photos I realized my SD card did not save any of it. So instead  I decided to focus on portrait photos, using my friend Zoey as my subject. I’ve never edited photos before, so I wanted to challenge myself and see if portraits are something I could be interested in. Through this process, I explored how lighting, angles, and composition affect mood and storytelling in an image. Editing in Photoshop was a learning experience—I experimented with contrast, color grading, and subtle retouching to enhance each photo without making them feel unnatural.

McLuhan states, “The amateur’s enthusiasm and daring are our main source of visual innovation. The professional is inclined to see the camera as a means of perfect reproduction rather than as an instrument of discovery and inquiry.” The reason i picked this quote is because, as a beginner, I approached this project with curiosity rather than perfectionism. I wasn’t focused on taking flawless pictures but instead on discovering how photography and editing could shape expression and to experiment. McLuhan’s idea that learning should be about exploration, not rigid instruction: “Education must shift from instruction, from imposing of stencils, to discovery—to probing and exploration and to the recognition of the language of forms.” goes along well with what i did for this project.

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