Progress to date….

How do I feel about my progress to date on the course? Well it’s been very different; sometimes a case of 2 steps forward and 1 step back; other days 1 step forward and 2 back….! But I think that’s as much to do with realising how much more there is to learn and where I feel I’m currently at as anything…..

Some areas of the course I have found really enjoyed. For instance discussing photographers that I might once have skipped over; or not truly realised how they were “seeing” an image in front of them – then trying to mimic or learn from that myself even if I don’t always agree with what they were trying to do. The multimedia side of things I’m really excited about. As I put my Camino story together using multimedia as tool – mixing audio and images to create a “story” in it’s own right – it was all new to me; but I felt really happy with what was my first ever output given where I’d been technically 7 days prior….

Going forward? I really want to work much harder on the image capture on two fronts: i) technically I feel there are basic skills that I’m not completely up on; I’ve got a fancy-dancy new flash gun that I used at the weekend and there are some images that worked tremendously but others failed completely – I need to be more in control of my camera and it’s add-ons in advance of an event rather than after the fact….. there are aspects of taking pictures that I’m just not completely confident about…..I’m too often feeling behind the curve on my knowledge no matter how much I learn! Secondly the composition. That’s moving in the right direction and I’m thinking much harder about what goes into forming the images and how they will appear when viewed after the event – that said there’s still a long way to go. I can pick holes in the images after the event; but I need to be doing it more as I’m taking the pictures and positioning myself better sooner rather than hours or days later……it doesn’t help then.

In terms of presentation – I want to work much more on the multimedia presentation. And that will also probably require some different thought in the images I take to reflect a total story I’ll need to work much more on teccy computer skills. If I’m going down this path then I need to think more about how images, audio and video all fit together as a total story, each individually strong, but collectively they have to back one another up as part of a total story.

Overall though I’m loving the course – it’s pushed me much further than I could ever have achieved individually…..but occasionally I look at how much I don’t know and groan inside! But there’s only way to go though……!