In the following post I explain the details of the course and what my experience was like. Professor diBenedetto is a 10/10 professor ! Great course!

BLOG – The blog posts were a step to become a more professional photographer and it showed me how to write about my work. It also benefits my exposure by just sharing a link to my blog. This is a game changer and it made this course amazing! All of the blog assignments were extremely fun to do and helped with many different aspects. Although COVID prevented us to fully experience the assignments, they were all still very enjoyable and a great learning experience.

LIGHTROOM CC – Even though I already knew how to use Lightroom, Professor diBenedetto helped me be more organized with my files when importing and editing. This was a huge plus for any future work.

PROJECTS – COVID got in the way for most projects so we could not fully experience those projects but every project was exciting to do. The only real problem I had was the proposal paper. This is nothing against the Professor but the directions for the proposal paper were over complicated and confused many of my peers and I. The reason why it was because the directions explained how to do an APA science experiment style paper. However the “How to Write a Proposal Paper” link helped me a lot!

LECTURES & CLASS– Before zoom classes Professor diBenedetto presented the lectures greatly by showing us how to use a camera and the basic functions. While some lectures were long and sometimes get repetitive, it was all great information. She would also make sure everyone was on the same page and wait for that student who didn’t fully understand, to understand the content.

CRITIQUES – Professor diBenedetto was straight forward when criticizing our work which benefited us to fix our problems. I love how she says whatever is on her mind no matter how harsh it is. The real world is tough and she is preparing us for that.

FINAL BOOK – The final project is such a great project for any artist. It shows off the work beautifully and professionally. This is another way to get a step closer to a more professional photographer. I will definitely be creating new books in the future – wonderful resource.

ZOOM CLASSES – Professor diBenedetto responded well to COVID and made the transition to online classes smoothly. She quickly solved the problem by using Instagram to present our work. This course was a great experience but I know for a fact if it weren’t for COVID this class would be 10x better than it was. Thank you Professor for a great learning experience and I will for sure take your other class in the future! You opened my mind to explore myself as an artist and helped me realigned my goals.

These shots were taken on May 9th, 2020 in Lake Arrowhead Mountains. The subject in these photos is the one only Tyler Terry. MOPA Museum had a photo series called “Out of the Shadows: Contemporary Chinese Photography”. The photos were creative and the shots I took here are huge inspiration from that series. The reason why most of the photos are edited in B&W is because the series photos were also in B&W. The sun hat was inspired from one of the photos were a women was wearing an Asian rice hat covering her face looking off to the distance. There was another photo of picture of clouds which inspired me to take pictures of clouds. One that stood out to me was a picture of a big glacier or mountain. This inspired me to go take pictures of my view literally 2 mountains away from my house. Thank you MOPA for the inspiration.

On May 6th, 2020 I took the following shots with my iPhone 8 plus and used a Chick Fil A sandwich with a lamp. Building the lighting was easy but using it for the shots were hard. The subjects are my family and they were very confused on what I was trying to accomplish. This was a fun little project and very challenging since I used my iPhone.

All blog assignments were beneficial in learning different ways of photography which advanced my skills in using a camera and gave me more confidence when shooting. I enjoyed every assignment but two assignments that I really enjoyed doing were “Ways of Seeing” and “Photo Story”. The “Ways of Seeing” taught me every single composition of photography and I did not know much about photography composition, so this really benefited me. The “Photo Story” was extremely fun to do and I enjoyed so much because I love videography, which capture the same angles as the photo story assignment. However the editing part was a hassle and a big frustration, but I learned from my mistakes. I really enjoyed the “Studio Lighting” assignment, especially since we did not have studio, so it was very challenging but achieved how I like it.

One assignment that I enjoyed but also disliked was the “Diptych” and “Triptych” assignment. I feel like I disliked this assignment was because the editing. Also my idea was not very great but I never knew what were Diptychs and Triptych and now I know.

These photos were taken on May 4th, 2020 at my house in Lake Arrowhead. The subjects are my nephew Bentley and our house dog named Leo. This is my first time ever trying to shoot Pictorialism and it was very difficult to do so. Pictorialism is for the shots to point out the beauty of the subject but also a unique style of editing. Such as out of focus, shaky, or even high/ low exposure.

These photos remind me of growth, growth within the body and life. Just like from the Letters of a Young Artist, Growth is important within life, its how we progress our work. Even though this style of photography is not my style, it helps me grow in areas where I am not really familiar with.

These photos were taken on April 26th, 2020 at my girlfriends house because the lighting was very nice at the time. The shadows castes in great angles to contrast dark and light on their faces which really helped out. The subjects were Nina and Micah. Nina is my girlfriend and Micah is Nina’s roommate.

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These photos were taken on April 19th, 2020 of my roommate Carlos Negrete. For this photo shoot I needed to work with artificial lighting and a studio would be perfect for this however due to the corona virus I was limited with my lamp. This is my first time playing with lighting and it was a blast! It was tough at first but after a while I started to get the hang of how to angle the lighting in my favor. These shots were taken in my apartment with a blank wall and a bright LED white light. I decided to go black and white in these picture to give off a more dramatic look. Great practice for future photo shoots!

On April 4th, 2020 I decided to go outside near Cal State San Marcos and capture the silence streets due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus. The reason why I went to this area is because of all the lights. Nina (the subject) and I went really late at night to avoid any possible interaction. We both felt very uncomfortable shoot so we tried to be very quick and avoid touching anything. Its very rare to experience very lonely streets where there is a lot of light. There were no cars or people on the streets but just the sound of the crosswalk beeping. Very unsettling.

1. A camera is a device that stops time by recording images and saved into memory card.
2. Aperture: is your f-stop, helps with depth of field, also how large the lens opens up to light. Shutter: Shutter speed is to capture live action shots and is measured in seconds. Manual: able to control the camera settings
3. Rule of 3rd, framing, patterns, texture, spot color, depth of field, leading lines, silhouette
4. ISO, aperture, and shutter speed
5. 6 tools: Crop tool, sport removal, adjustment layer, red eye, graduate filter, radial filter
6. Histogram helps you shows the level of the right exposure of your photos.
7. File name: last name_day/month/year_seq. number_file format
8. Street Photography: In the film we watched, it showed different photographers who loved shooting their cities and people. Street photography is the act of shooting real time in the street. No staging or posing, just real time of real life movement in the streets.
9. Photo story: Establishing shot, medium shot, close up shot, extreme close up shot, and overall shot .
10. Natural light is what it sounds like, such as light from the sun, or the moon. Artificial light is light being used with plug in lights, such as studio lights.