Digital Photography

     Today was my first day of session two classes, and therefore today was my first day of Digital Photography. Stoked! I have always loved taking pictures, and I just recently got a beautiful DSLR camera. I was most excited coming over here to take DP and now it is time. Yay! My professor is David Weiss. He is amazing. He grew up in the states. Both his parents were "science people" as he called them and therefore he thought he had to be. He made it through one year of med school when he decided, actually no. I'm not a science guy, I'd rather do visual media. LOL, would have payed to see the look on his parents face when he broke that news to them. Anyways, he dropped out and pursued a degree in visual arts from NYU. Since them he has done extremely well for himself and is quite a well-know photographer. Here is his website: http://davidandreweiss.com/. Right now he is working on Sportraits, which are pics of athletes. Anyways, he is a really neat guy and I'm super stoked to take his class. We will be learning a bit about the history of photography, a bit about mechanics and how to work a camera, a lot about landscape and portrait photography and how to capture the shot you want, and a lot about photoshop and the work/ art behind photography.    
      We learned about some important photographers, one of them being Henri Cartier-Bresson, who coined the term "defining moment." Our professor tried to de-mystify a lot of the myths about photography. For example, what we don't know about the pic of the little boy is that the boy walked back and forward toward Cartier 30-some times before Cartier got the shot he wanted! Photography, as an art form, takes a lot of work and manipulation. At first I was bummed as my professor de-mystified the ideals of photography. Rather than viewing the manipulation and trails as unauthentic (as my brain first did when we began discussion), I began to appreciate the effort and see the technique and art behind the photos. I guess it just depends on how you view it/art in general.

This is one of Henri Cartier-Bresson's most famous photos

Another of his important photographs!