Photography Tips Reflection

Learning about these methods made me realize that taking pictures is more than just pointing a camera and clicking. The tips about knowing the equipment you are using and what its capabilities are were pretty straight forward to me. You cannot get the best quality photos without knowing exactly what every setting your camera does and how it affects the picture. The tips that were not obvious to me were the ones about the actual content of the picture. Things like lines, lighting, colors, and objects in a picture can change how a photo is interpreted. Photos can have a deeper meaning than what is on the surface when they are thoughtfully planned out.

Concepts from the Readings

The main concept from the readings that stuck out to me the most was actually the quote by Ansel Adams in the reading. “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” This was funny to read right after reading all of the tips or “rules” to make photography better. However, it makes sense after thinking about it. The tips are to better understand the fundamentals of taking meaningful pictures. Once the fundamentals are mastered, you can branch out and start to break those fundamental rules to in specific ways to make a picture tell the story that the photographer wants.

Visual Storytelling

The video on Visual Literacy by the Toledo Museum of Art started by describing images and text being the same because everything we see are images. Being able to read images like text and understand the small details and components that make up the big picture is the main idea of visual literacy. The storytelling aspect that photos can have comes from the level of visual literacy that the photographer has. Someone who just snaps pictures usually is not telling a story with that picture. However, someone who is visually literate can use that knowledge of how to read and interpret what is in their shot and how to use it to create a story.