For my photography project, I had a really hard time trying to figure out a theme. I knew some people were doing everyday objects, but I wanted to do something more to do with a photography concept. I had taken a photography class in high school where we actually had to develop photos yourself in the dark room and use actual film. We learned about a lot of different techniques to taking photos like rule of thirds, angles and light. One thing that I really enjoyed taking picture of though was leading lines; I really liked how the line lead to something and usually half the line was blurry and the other half was not. Leading lines are used to draw the viewer’s eye through a photograph. They are intentional or unintentional, natural lines created in the space of the photograph and are used to create a visual narrative in the composition. Leading lines are also used to draw your eye to a focal point in the shot that you would like to highlight like a person or an object. Sometimes the leading lines are not as obvious and it may just be a subtle line that the photographer wants the viewer to look for themselves. But many leading line pictures are very obvious because the viewer naturally follows the lines of the photograph to see what is at the end of the lines, if there is even anything to look at. I also decided to make the pictures in black and white because I think that the pictures look more elegant. I like using black and what because there is not as many distractions with the colors and there seems to be more versatile; it looks good with any picture.
When it came to actually taking my photos, there are so many different things that you could take picture of that has leading lines it was hard to focus on just one thing per picture. Everywhere you look, inside your house or walking outside, there is some sort of line leading somewhere. Sometimes though the lines that you see are very subtle, not really being as strong as you would imagine, but they are still leading lines. I tried to pick more obvious ones just to prove my point of leading lines.
I only used a couple of photoshop techniques just because I did not want to have too much of a distraction from the picture itself. I made sure the pictures had a good composition, so I made some of the pictures a little darker and others I made a little lighter before I put them in the black and white form. Even though its simple, one of my favorite photos is the one with the Southern Cross University sign in it. The lines of the bush remind me of my time here at uni, before and after. The bush before the sign is a metaphor for all the time I spend researching the school, getting all of my paperwork and talking about studying abroad, it was a long process. Then the actual sign is my time at the school, very short but it was so memorable. And finally the last bush line is my time after, you cannot really tell where it ends and the memories will last forever.
Another picture that I really liked was the one with the vineyards. I went to the Granite Belt with my tourism class and we got to go to the Queensland College of Wine Tourism, or QCWT. It was one of the most beautiful places I have been to and it was a lot of fun. I wanted to capture the lines of the two vineyards with the bucket in the middle. Back home I live right by Napa Valley, California, which is known as wine country so ive grown up driving by vineyards. I just love the way that the lines are so straight and linear, and it looks even better in black and white.
Overall, I had a lot of fun taking this class and doing all of the projects. Ive taken a few different types of classes where ive had to take photos before, like photography, multimedia and yearbook, but I learned so many new skills in this class that I had not really learned or understood before. It was also really interesting going to the lectures and seeing all the different types of photography people have done throughout the decades. I have a fancy digital camera back at home and was never really sure how to use it, but now I know some of the tricks for using it because of this class. I am going to go home and starting playing around with all of the settings and see if I can take some amazing pictures. Again, I am glad that I took this class and I am very satisfied with all of the material I have learned. Thanks!
Below are some photos that gave me inspiration for shooting my project!:
