I have finished Part 1 and as I move on to the next section of the coursework, I wanted to just recollect the previous section briefly. The world as we knew it has changed forever in these past couple of months and as difficult as this has been, there have definitely been blessings in disguise – my most favourite being how nature has healed a bit if not completely. Within the first five days of the lockdown, the area where I live started to change – the colour of the sky changed, the construction and other human induced noises died down and the sounds of nature could be heard in my city possibly after decades. This led to my reinterpretation of the first assignment, leading to the central themes of the hopeful sounds of bird songs as my theme.
The first section dealt with the basics of the camera and the frame and was a very crucial part in developing our understanding of the subject. The power of the camera was imparted to us by a simple exercise the instrument. It was interesting to read the development of photography as a medium through the last couple of centuries and how it has become one of the most powerful tools of today’s time. The introduction of elements like the point and lines enhanced our understanding of them and their importance within a frame. The frame exercise was crucial in our understanding of what to include and what to reject. The Gestalt theory and the functioning of our mind was an eye opener in understanding important fundamental points when we compose a frame and how to master it.
The shifting to auto-mode in the camera for the first part of the coursework was a little tough for me to do as I kept forgetting to put everything on auto mode but I quite enjoyed the learning process or rather the “unlearning” process. The liberation of the auto mode made me go back years when I first started to shoot in auto mode and the joys of eventual discovery of other modes, where the results that you wanted could be controlled by you instead of the camera.
The importance of research and the opening of the mind to the invaluable resources that we have been introduced to during this course is perhaps the most valuable learning point in this entire process. Even though research was an integral part of FiP, I believe that now I have a bit more maturity in understanding other photographer’s perspectives. Its a great learning process and am enjoying looking at other photographer’s works as well as fellow students’ blogs, who are a great source of inspiration themselves. The quarantine ideas from all over the world are opening the mind up to various possibilities and so are the zoom sessions with various tutors of the OCA that have been a great support system during these trying times, simplifying the learning process greatly. The introduction to the Padlet is a great step too and hopefully I will be more proactive in its usage.
At the end of Part One, I am excited to move on to the next part and look forward to more learnings. The only limitation that am facing at the moment is that sometimes it all gets too overwhelming to absorb and I find days too short but taking Andrea’s suggestion, am going to look at important and relevant portions while researching for this part and hopefully will learn to manage my time better. Also happy to explore Aperture priority mode in the next part of the coursework.
www.archnasinghexpressions.com 