Photo Skills
Week 0: Introduction
Assignment 1: Diptych "Typically Haags"
My diptych was meant to compare the two main areas of The Hague I travelled through as well as the two types of people I noticed. One image depicts the touristy, beach area of The Hague, and the other shows the locals in the urban city area.
Week 1: Exposure
Assignment: Shutter Speed
The first photo captures the motion of the speedy metro and the still young man looking down at his phone. This reflects how distracted people can be on their phones and also how casual this event is for this individual. He is used to the metro quickly arriving, and it's not worth looking up from his phone for.
The second photo shows the idea your internal thoughts and individual perspective of life. This boy was speeding through the park but I focused on only his face and his headphones to show that he was in his own world listening to his music. The slower shutter speed makes the viewer ignore life around him and look at just his thoughts. His internal perspective is so much different than the external view of him on the bike.
The third photo is a man relaxing on a park bench as the majority of people do in the park while the bike traffic speeds past him on the bike path. This visualizes the two realities of people in the park. The longer shutter speed demonstrates the difference in lifestyle between the calm nature of some people and the need to get to another destination for others. I like that it makes me think about how everyone is living a completely different life with different priorities all in the same moment.
Week 2: Focal Length
Assignment: Depth of Field
I love playing with shallow depth of field, especially while taking portraits. The connection between the subject and the viewer through eye contact is so much stronger when the focus is drawn into their eyes. I like to try and tell what they are thinking and feeling in the moment, and you can usually see bits of their personality from this as well. Other than portraits, shallow depth of field can lead a viewer's eye directly to the main subject and past the foreground like in the photo of the police. There are elements around the mirror that give a bit of context to who and where they are, but since it isn't all in focus it doesn't become overwhelming in the frame.
Deep depth of field can be beneficial when you want to show everything within a frame. For this photo at the international kite festival in The Hague, I wanted to show both the man in the foreground and the kites in the sky in full focus. This isn't 100% in focus as it is only f8, but it was a deeper depth of field than I normally use around f2.
Week 3: Light
Assignment: Dark and Bright
The first three images are examples of silhouettes where the background is exposed for and the foreground and subject are dark. The last two images are examples of bringing up the exposure to see the main subject when backlit, which makes the background overexposed.
Week 4: Portrait
Assignment: Portraits and Lighting
 Butterfly lighting |  Rembrandt lighting |  Loop lighting |
|---|---|---|
 Broad lighting |
These each show a different type of portrait lighting: butterfly, Rembrandt, loop, and broad. Butterfly lighting is when the light comes from above and in front of the subject and creates a shadow directly underneath the nose. Loop lighting is similar, but the light comes from a slight angle so the shadow appears slightly off center under the nose. Rembrandt lighting is when the light hits the face from an angle where a triangle shape appears on the cheek farthest from the light. Broad light comes from an angle and hits the side of the face closest to the camera rather than the side facing away from the camera.