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*Amy Sutherland- an honours linguistic student, a baker and
one of my confidants*
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I wake up at 6am, bounce out of bed and eagerly skip to
class these days. Yes, the sun is now rising earlier and I have sun streaking
through my three bedroom windows, but I wake up so excited rather, to go to
class and learn more about photography! I can officially say, that if I don’t
take up another course to deepen my basic photographic knowledge, then I am
quite happy to adopt it as a hobby along with baking, soduku, eating the said
baked goodies, running to journalism department, reading a page of a book and
so the ‘exhilarating’ list continues.
This week has seen me running around Grahamstown with my
on-loan camera, taking shots of anything that our Intensive lecturer, Harold
told us to. Wednesday was all about portrait shots. I have realised that I get
so excited in his classes, trying to sponge up everything he says and then somehow
forgetting to take notes. Just to give you an example of how bad my memory is,
you can ask my closest friends about how I cannot for the life of me remember
my ID number, it took me a good couple of months to learn my cellphone number
and then there is the terrible, atrocious, horrible (they would fill in more
adjectives if I gave them the chance to) fact that I can’t remember anybody’s
birthday *face palm moment*. But, in my defence, I am trying and I have written
down their birthdays in my diary, so there, if they read this post, I am trying
dear Shire-lings.
Anyway, domestic situation aside, yes, portrait shots! From
what I (think I) remember, Harold told us to take pictures of people, five we
know and five we don’t. Vary the shots- environmental shots (people in their
environments/working places) and close ups. The most important thing to do
(according to Nadia’s memory) was to get them to acknowledge you as the
photographer- that there is an agreement between you and the person. Harold
spoke to us about using the eyes as an opportunity to understand and gain
access to another level of that person. Find out the person’s name as that is
the first step towards how a normal picture and portrait will differ. By the
time the lecture was over I was like Lewis Hamilton, ready to GO GO GO!
Out of the Journalism department and pounding the street was
a different story though. It was a sweat-dripping scorcher of a day, and I
found the sunlight to be quite harsh in some of my photos making the people I
photographed squint, or frown, but there were some fairly decent shots. I also
got my first rejection from a sangoma in training, she didn’t take to my
bright, doe eyed wannabe photographer grin. Below are some of the photos that I
really like and I got some good crit back from Harold. His advice thus far is
in relation to my editing using photoshop (which is another story and a titanic
one at that). Here are my pics! Please feel free to comment:
*Bron Mantel- a deep thinker, one of the people I care about
and respect the most and a photographer herself*
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| *Mr Thomas- one of the most beautiful faces I have had the
privilege of shooting since holding onto my trusty on-loan camera : ) * |
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| *Thobani- a soccer enthusiast and
the next big presenter/journalist (love him to bits)* |
One of the things that I have enjoyed about this exercise is
that I get to know people while I take photos, especially these portrait shots.
People tend to get nervous with a camera in their face and I found that by just
talking to them, asking them about their day, what makes them happy, what makes
them sad or what their favourite food is can really make a difference. You get
a grin that reaches the eyes, a hand that strokes a lip and then just like
magic the memory almost falls out their eyes as they describe their mother’s cooking
or that the holiday was needed after a heavy term. That’s when I try and get
them to glance at me and try capture that. I’m still working on it, but as a rookie I am trying to learn
as much as I can and just enjoy the experience of it all. And that, as my grampa
Mr. Leonard Moore (or Lenny/Gramps to me) always says, makes all the
difference.
Nadia
