This semester of Visual Literacy has introduced me to a whole new field of study and creativity. At the beginning of the class, I came in with no previous experience in photography, video, or web design. The most practice I had with any of the topics was simply taking pictures with my family's digital camera during vacations or holidays.
Throughout the class, I occasionally had difficulty conveying exactly what I had envisioned for each project, for various reasons. For the photo gallery, the personification of HUMOR was very difficult. I had envisioned various scenes of people laughing, but it became clear very early on that it would be extremely difficult to catch moments of pure laughter in everyday life with a camera. When working on the video, the group really like the plot of our movie and had many great ideas to include. Unfortunately, we ran into paperwork problems when we were told that we required a permit to film in the library. This did not allow us to film all of the scenes that we had wanted. For my website, I was able to convey the image that I had wanted. There were fewer restrictions when it came to this project, and I was better able to depict my idea.
I think that my biggest success was improving in each section and project. I believe that each project built on what I had learned from previous sections. The ideas and techniques learned in lecture and homework manifested itself in the application process of each physical project.
The project that I believe still needs the most improvement is the photo gallery. As described earlier, capturing humor is difficult. Everyone has his or her own sense of humor, so taking a photo something that the photographer is humorous may not be humorous to the audience. With this under consideration, the picture of people laughing conveys humor because the audience can imagine for themselves what the scene is and believe that it is humorous. Unfortunately it was very difficult to find someone laughing and take a picture of them in that instant. I continued trying to find laughter over Thanksgiving break at a family get-together with a little more success than at school, but the results were still few.
I believe that I should receive an “A” on this final portfolio. I have put hours of work into each of these projects and have built something that I am really proud of. The process for each project was draining because I felt behind many of the other people in class who had already had some sort of experience in at least one of the fields. I always put forth my best effort in each project and each section, and most importantly I believed that I improved with each project. In addition, I used the feedback given by each professor on each project to add to the final product before this final presentation. I put forth a lot of effort and time on my final portfolio, and I believe that shows in the final product.
