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Reflection on Final Assignment:

I enjoy doing this assignment, because I am the person, who really like different types of foods. I love taking adventure of different types of restaurants from different countries.

A good photographer should know how to tell people stories through their photos. This time I am using food to tell different stories of different countries. Foods can strongly reflects a country’s habits, culture and even geography environment. This assignment is subjective for me because these foods are chosen from me and they are my favorite foods from different countries

French Toast stands for France even though its first time appear in Roman. France is one of the most romantic countries in the world and this dessert is one of my favorite dessert. I am always amazed by its fantastic presentation.

Ramen and sushi are both traditional Japanese foods, but I go with ramen, because I am a heavy ramen lover. It looks cute and it tastes not too heavy. This is the style of Japan.

For Chinese foods, I go with rice with a spicy dish, because I am from Hunan. My hometown is famous for spicy foods. We love rice a lot and my father says “If a meal is without rice, I feel I literally have nothing” But our foods are greasy sometimes and we put too much sauce into it, which makes people gain a lot of fat.

For Korean food, I choose mushroom tofu soup with rice. Korean food seems forever with a type of red spicy sauce, but their foods are not greasy.

For Mexico food, I choose flautas de pollo. This is crispy chicken tacos. I like Mexico food a lot and their tomato sauce is really good.

For American foods, I go with cheesesteak burger. I did not have cheesesteak burger before. We usually just have chicken burger. I feel burger is one of my favorite traditional American food. They also have tomato and lettuce inside.

After doing this assignment, I find out that for asian people, we usually have soup with foods we do not like foods are too or too much fried.

For doing this project, I choose to take photos vertically, so I have to stand on chairs most time. If I want to do food shooting in the future, I would try to go to studio to shoot, because light is biggest problem of taking these foods photos.

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Reflection on Assignment#3:

To be honest, this is the most difficult assignment for me so far, but I still like some pictures turning out. I spent a lot of time to try to finish this assignment, but I often struggled and got stuck. 

How to control the amount of light and what color of light to fit for your setting is very important. In my Opinion, the hardest part for this assignment is how to make your setting and find the best angle. You should have a picture in your brain firstly and then post items. However, in the real situation, it get hard to match your real setting and the picture in your brain, because there is always a gap between them. I guess this is why I feel the assignment is difficult for me.

I have to admit that I really limited my thoughts on this topics based on the examples showing on class when I saw classmates’ pictures. I never think about shooting in their ways. The only thing I think about is to post items in a strange way and play with lights. I would be able to shoot in a micro way and this is also abstract and fit for the topics.

I am happy to get this assignment done. Even though I found out I am not the type of people, who is able to work in studio, I still appreciate this experience to shoot in the lab. This let me know more about photography. We should never give us boundaries on taking photos, because good photos sometimes come in uneven ways.

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Reflection and Thoughts of New Assignment

Reflection from Assignment#2 Portraits:

- Trust in The Magic of Nature-Style Shooting:

It is very interesting to shoot uneven pictures. I feel so surprised to get the scary man picture, because I was only focusing taking pictures for my friend. This is a very precious moment, which exactly shows the nature of photography. When looking back on my photos I shoot, natural photos stand out most of time. I do not deny the importance on how to make your objects posture. What I want to emphasize here is to take photos in a natural and relaxing environment.

- Trust in The Importance of the interactions between objects and environment: 

l practiced a lot for this assignment. I asked six people to be my models in this assignment because I know it would not turn good at the beginning stage. Gradually, as I shoot more people, I realize that we cannot ignore the relationship between your models and environments if you want to get good portraits photos. They should match in aspects like colors, your model’s expression with the atmosphere. There are people who are telling stories in their specific time and environment.

Thoughts of Assignment#3: 

- “Challenge both you and the viewer to rethink ideas commonly connected to photography”: 

I like this sentence a lot in the assignment#3. To be honest, it seems abstract at first for me, because I never have any opportunity to take photos in this way. In my opinion, this is a second creation from photographer ourselves. We used to shoot in way it actually is, but this time, we will be able to choose to express our own moods and subjects by playing with subjects and light in an abstract way. 

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What were your success and failures?

My success this week can keeping shooting different styles of photos for different people. It is very interesting to shoot in different environment, which means different lights, atmosphere and situations. I feel I am creative this week and kind of getting the point for shooting portraits. In my opinion, portraits should be natural. A good portrait is telling people a story or moods. People are in their own world and situation.

What are the issues and ideas that are motivating your work this week?

I feel very great to shoot good photos for my friends. I enjoy recording the moments, which is special and cannot get back. When I get good photos for my friends, sometimes it even enables me to know different aspects of my friends. I guess this is the magic of photography.

What artists are you looking at? How do these relate to the work you are making?

I am looking at the photographer called sarahmangione in insgram.(here is her insgram link: https://www.instagram.com/sarahmangione/) Her style is very closed to people. This week, I used 50 mm most time and feel when I get closed to shoot people, it allows me to get more emotional and strong feelings from my object.

What are your responses and conclusions regarding the previous class critique of your work? Was it or was it not helpful? ( on weeks applicable) Photoshop is amazing!!!! I used to use many apps in my phone to make the photos look better, but photoshop is much more professional. This enhance my feeling that photos can be added many points by good editing.

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Portraits

For this week, I really enjoy shooting people. It is interesting to get connections with people through camera. You can feel the every moment emotions of this person, which is fantastic. This enables me to feel deeper the true meaning of portraits shooting.

The successful part can be that I am able to know how to posture my models. Before knowing where we will go to shoot, I checked some typical postures online. Therefore, I can guide my models and have better goals to get some shoots.

Also, I feel good photos are always telling people stories. I enjoyed the  Eli Reed’s style. His backgrounds are not complicated, but his style shows much strong mood from people. Sometimes, it is not easy to find a good and professional models for us students. We should know how to motivate our models and let them be involved in a comfortable atmosphere. This is because people look better when they feel natural.

These are some of my shoots this week. What I really want to improve is to shoot more naturally and sometimes just capture some moments. I will practice more to get my goal.

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- What were your success and failures?

My success this week is that I found one of my best friends here to shoot for assignment #2. She is such an amazing model and is completely different from other people from my view. Even we do not have the assignments, I still want to shoot her! As a saying goes, a coin has two sides. I really want to take good photos for her, which exactly makes me feel under pressure. I am good at finding angles, but I am not familiar with letting my model have different postures. I have to practice more for it, because this is different from Assignment#1.

- What are the issues and ideas that are motivating your work this week?

As I mentioned above, I guess my friend really motivated me a lot. She is such a good person and always encourages me when I was shooting for her. She also has many interesting shooting ideas, which gives me many inspirations.

- What artists are you looking at? How do these relate to the work you are making?

I am looking at the photographer called Paul D'Amato, which is recommended by professor. I am deeply impressed by his style because I never think about taking pictures in such strong way. He is so professional in using color contrast, which reflects emotions from every photo. 

- What are your responses and conclusions regarding the previous class critique of your work? Was it or was it not helpful? ( on weeks applicable)

I think it is very helpful and practical. When we went over photos together, I learnt a lot from other classmates. When I take photos next time, I feel I am more creative and can get the points faster than before, because I can quickly frame my work and find the angle, which is exactly right for the moment.

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Assignment#1 Reflection

What were your success and failures?

My success this week can be keeping shooting from different angles, which allows me get various styles from the same place. Also, I learnt using Lightroom to edit photos, which enables me to do second recreations on my photos.

What are the issues and ideas that are motivating your work this week? The ideas, which motivates most, are recording every present moment. It is fantastic that we create photos in different styles, which can also help us remember the exact emotion on the specific time. Every photo is different, because your angles and the light keep changing all the time.

What artists are you looking at? How do these relate to the work you are making? I am looking at the photographer called USRDCK in insgram.(here is his insgram link: https://www.instagram.com/usrdck/?hl=en) His style is almost in black and white, which I can find out is strong minimalism style. Most of his photos are different types of buildings. I feel it hard to figure out a good angel for buildings and sometimes we have to include some other staff like trees and cars. But we can only see beautiful and whole lines of buildings, which are all amazing.

What are your responses and conclusions regarding the previous class critique of your work? Was it or was it not helpful? ( on weeks applicable) It is very helpful for me, because based on our response, we can look back on our whole week of photos and do some reflections. We are able to do better next new week.