Seriously beginning to hate controlled, box lighting.

Not for what it actually creates, it can be gorgeous, it’s just finnicky. I spent an earlier week trying to plug away at it and the reason it wasn’t working was more or less “sucks to suck, Harper.”

So it was definitely cathartic watching Brian also struggle with these as it meant I wasn’t stupid and it does, in fact, just sometimes not work.

The actual photographs were nice though. I am curious to try experimenting with reflective light more, because seeing light reflect and bounce back towards the subject produced more light than I was expecting. Also would like to get more controlled lighting (particularly softbox lighting) experience, as I think it created some really gorgeous photos and it’s probably something I’m a bit more inexperienced in.

Was also interesting seeing how people stylised headshots. I definitely had an aesthetic in mind when approaching taking photos, but honestly didn’t really consider how one might approach it differently until other people started doing theirs. This seems obvious, and maybe I am just running out of steam creatively this semester (I definitely am), but was nice to sort of think even the simplest of photos can have such variety in creative choices.

I also enjoyed seeing how everyone else was going, and providing feedback to one another. Really enjoyed my chat with Mia in particular as her focus on music photography happened to be something I knew someone back home does professionally, and was able to give each other some inspiration (or at least she gave me some). In the last few weeks of semester, those kinds of suggestions are a lot more valuable than perhaps we give credit for, because it definitely gave me a bit more of a thought on how stylistically I can do some things, and just generally speaking getting engaged with the assignment to a point of wanting to share and see how others are doing.