The last week of senior projects was filled with more shoots and editing. I did shoots with four people, and had a lot of fun finding creative ways to orchestrate the subjects in the pictures. My favorite shoots from this week were the shoots with Katie Truong and Bailey Ellis because I not only got some amazing shots with them, but they were also super easy to work with. The most fun part of each of their shoots was trying to make them laugh. Sometimes I would just say “laugh really hard” which surprisingly worked pretty well, but other times I would say things like “sniff your shoulder” which would make them turn to their shoulder and start laughing.
Editing and processing the pictures from each shoot took the most amount of time, but I was always satisfied with the end product. I edited around 16 to 20 pictures from each shoot and made two separate google drive folders to share with the person I took pictures of: an edited pictures folder and an unedited pictures folder. After editing, I made sure to update my photography instagram with the new pictures.
Over the course of this project, I learned a lot from my mentor and was able to reach the goals I set for myself. I learned how to appropriately shift my camera settings based on the natural lighting, how to edit pictures to look more vibrant yet still natural, and how to orchestrate the subjects of the photos in creative ways. I also learned a lot more about how to create and manage a successful photography business. This project gave me a lot of room to try out new things that I wouldn’t have been able to do in a project that involved a harsher schedule. If I had an issue or a question, I was always able to ask my mentor and sort it out before I moved on to my next photoshoot.
I would definitely recommend this project to the rising seniors because I never felt like it was a chore. If I was ever bored on the weekends, I would spend my time editing even if I had fulfilled my hour requirements for that week. Because this project had so much flexibility, I was able to discover new strengths and weaknesses on my own everyday. I am very happy that I chose photography as my senior project, and I’m definitely going to continue doing shoots with people over the summer.
Here are some pictures I took this week:
