Grace Waddell

      My experience is somewhat limited as I have only had the opportunity to take two photo classes. However, this semester has taught me different shooting techniques and I am now familiar with night shots, multiple exposures and more. I usually choose to do portraits because I feel that the most intriguing pictures are ones that reveal some kind of human emotion. As a photographer, my goal is to highlight emotion that is more than superficial, whether it's loneliness, anger or joy. I usually shoot simple compositions that focus on the subject and only rarely do I work to incorporate the background into the portrait.

       Most of my challenges have been creative ones. Since I enjoy shooting portraits, my struggle lies in finding various, interesting ways to capture people. Technically, I struggled with multiple exposure shots, at first. Trying to get the right lighting so the layered images weren't too dark, and making sure that all images were focused, were my two biggest challenges. As an artist I have grown quite a bit this semester, especially creatively. I learned how to capture emotional portraits, and worked hard to produce creative multiple exposures. I even learned how to incorporate a landscape into a multiple exposure portrait. In the future, I would like to continue working on and improving my skills. Though I won't have many chances to work with film in the the future, I would really like to continue working digitally.