My photography has gone almost full circle since the beginning of the semester. While I have known for years that I want photography to be a lifelong interest and, hopefully, profession of mine, I never had much of a direction with my photography and only took pictures of things if they appealed to me or if I thought I could make them look interesting. Now, I most definitely have found my “voice”, a distinctive quality that I want to incorporate in my photos from now on.
Before this course, I very rarely carried my camera around with me at all times. I found it cumbersome and I was used to getting assignments that I could set up a time to bring my camera out for. However, the very “open-ended” quality of the assignments in this class has forced me to constantly have a camera on me and approach everything as a photo opportunity. This has led me to photograph a wider range of subjects, and greatly stretch my creativity. I take greater care in my images and what they mean; I decide for myself what I want to communicate to the audience rather than letting them decide.
In terms of subject matter, I have always been interested in photographing people, and would still really like to focus on portraiture or fashion in the future. However, I now find my work with people to be much more dynamic, showing movement or some sort of action even if the subject is still. In addition, I have found I am very interested in the isolation of body parts, especially hands and feet, and often incorporate only them in my photos. Besides that, I have just taken an overall more creative approach to my photography, representing objects and ideas as I never would have thought before.
