What's going on!

Hello everyone! My name is Stephanie Wiebe and I am currently a student here at Prairieview. It is such a blast coming to school everyday! I know what your thinking..."Who in their right mind says going to school is a blast?" Well you clearly have never been to photography school. From crazy field trips to haunted boats, creative writing, and learning to take beautiful pictures whats not to enjoy? Something about me is I picked up a camera around 2 years ago. I decided "Hey if I ever to meet Justin Bieber I better be able to take a killer picture of him!" Okay that's not exactly how it happened but pretty close. I wanted to take pictures that captured beauty and froze time. I am now everyday getting better and better but not on my own but with the teaching and guidance I am getting from my amazing instructors! I am being taught how to tap into my creativity, how to make properly exposed pictures, to do post camera manipulation, all angles of the industry and so much more! So if you every thought you were not good enough to go to school here or that maybe you should practice photography a little more...forget that and just apply! Trust me you will be surprised with yourself and surprised with the level of knowledge you will receive everyday.

(Double Exposure with 35mm film)

Lately we have been learning more and more about the technical aspect about things. Learning how to pick apart pictures using the proper descriptions, figuring out which way the light was falling from the image and how large or how small the light source is. We really have also started dodging and burning in the dark room which I would explain to you but I would probably just confuse you. It is very interesting! Last week we had a group critique which is when we all get together in the large classroom as one large group, grab some popcorn and submit 3 photo's that we would like to have critiqued by our teachers and fellow classmates! The first time was so nerve wracking! I think it was because it was at the beginning of the year and my pictures were not at a calibre that I wanted them to be at. Now with the most recent critique I felt way more confident even with only 7 weeks of photography schooling. I felt like my photo's were at least 95% better than they were and now I knew that it was not just a fluke picture it was knowledge that I knew and therefore used to create a great picture! Now by no means do I think I am anywhere near where I want to be quality wise and creativity wise with my photo's but I am on my way! Everyday everyone here gets at least a little bit better. I am so excited for the end of the year where we all get to look around at each others work and appreciate what everyone went through to get to the place they are then.

I am so amazed at the amount of information everyone can retain here on a weekly basis. I guess its because with each new concept we learn about we receive an assignment to put it into practice. We recently got an assignment in our creative imaging class which had us recreate styles of photography such as pictoralism, straight and surrealism. It was so interesting to see everyones attempt at the styles. Every week we also get a board assignment which is basically a word which you are to interpret into a photograph. You then make a 8x10 print and post it in the school for everyone to see. That is always so interesting because you get to see everyones interpretation of the same word! Sometimes it is really challenging to put your mental picture of the word into a photograph but sometimes a challenge is good for you, it gets your gears turning!

(Pictoralism)

(Straight)

(Surrealism)

This program is really amazing and the classes are so much fun! I recently asked a former student which class they liked the best and they surprise me with an answer that I thought was great! They said " I looked forward to all of my classes with equal enthusiasm always ready to soak up new information." I agree completely.

Stephanie Wiebe

PV Diploma Student

2011-12