2011: A Year in Review
For the past few years, I’d been doing a “Favorite photos from 20-whatever.” I’d put them in a set on flickr and post the link in a few different places to say, “This is how I’ve grown as a photographer and these are the photos that are significant to me.”
This year, though, I have a feeling quite a few of my favorite photos are from the photography class I took this fall. And those photos, unfortunately, aren’t scanned into my computer. Plus, it’s been awhile since I’ve used Flickr, so that’s a little pointless.
It’s seems a little strange to me, looking back at my year in photos. Maybe it’s because I’m still in school, but it always seems easier to track my progress along a September to August calendar versus a January to December calendar. I look back at my year in photos and some of them seem like they were taken so long ago simply because they were taken in the spring semester or the summer. School always seems to go by so quickly, but previous semesters always seem decades away.
Even so, I think it’s safe to say I’ve grown as both a person and a photographer. For instance, near the beginning of the year, I started experimenting with curves and that has probably been the biggest change to how I edit. And this semester, I found a tutorial on editing skin and once I experiment more with it, I have a feeling my process will change in a big way.
Also, the darkroom changes everything. When I took a couple photography classes in high school, we used shutter-priority cameras and I’ve been incredibly comfortable with that ever since. This fall, I used a fully manual camera. In fact, I used a Pentax K1000, which can probably be considered the mother of my current camera, a Pentax K100D.
Using film always seems to reassure myself as a photographer. It causes me to think more about my photos and the lighting and everything that goes into what makes a photo good. That, in turn, translates into my digital photos. Film always seems so much more complicated because, well, it kind of is. So to feel like it’s something I’m good at, that makes digital seem simple, like it’s something I can get the hang and it’s something I can be good at, too.
When it comes to photography in 2012, I hope I can continue experimenting with film. I won’t have access to a darkroom anymore, but there are always places who will develop my film for me. I’ve got a couple old rolls of color film, plus I will have a couple black and white rolls left. I also hope to go on photo adventures around campus, the arboretum, and of course, St. Joe. And maybe a couple photo adventures in Minneapolis over the summer? It’s stuff I always talk about doing, and yet it never happens. This is the year I want to make stuff happen.
And that, my friends, has been a year in review.
