Lesson 2

During our second photography class, we started to learn about the differences between the eye and the lens in terms of perception, and why a photograph may not capture what you see with your eye, and vice versa.

For the practical part, we were taking portraits. The lecturer recommended that we shoot in monochrome in order to begin to understand light a bit better. Everything looks better in monochrome!

He showed us a simple technique for taking portraits, which is to shoot a person sitting from above. The trick is to get them to turn to face the camera and smile on the count of three, in order to "capture the energy of the smile". It's quite effective actually. I like this shot I got of Gillian, my lens buddy, who doesn't like to have her picture taken but was pleased with this photo.

The lecturer used me as a guinea pig when first demonstrating the technique, but gave out to me for smiling the whole time instead of just after turning. I had to tell him that smiling is generally my default setting!