My Amazing Year of Photography

Nolan, Chelsea, Jasmine

We were told at the beginning of the school year how incredibly fast our 10 month program would go by but I don’t really think any of us believed it, especially me. It has been no secret that this hasn’t exactly been my first post secondary schooling experience (it’s my 3^rd to be precise) so trying to “get it right this time” weighed heavy on me. I was afraid that the challenges ahead of me were going to psych me out so bad that I would drop out of the program and pretend like it never happened. I am terrified of failure. But I decided to risk my financial situation, my sanity and possibly my dignity by throwing myself into this purely for one reason and that was for the feeling that I got from taking photos.  I  it and I always had since the first time I picked up a camera.

Side of a boat at the Marine Museum. Selkirk, Manitoba

Oars at Marine Museum. Selkirk, Manitoba

The first 3 months were definitely the hardest for me. I came into this experience knowing that not only was I not a great photographer but I really didn’t know what I was doing at all. September to November were very technically intensive and for someone who had bought their first SLR/DSLR camera (a.k.a. a “fancy” camera) 2 days before school started I had A LOT to learn. Everything on our school supply list was foreign to me. I debated over whether I should buy the Canon 60D or the 7D and as I was listening to the pros and cons from the guy at the camera store I realized I didn’t even know what any of it meant. So I went with the 60D because it was cheaper and let us not forget that I had to start my photographic inventory from scratch and had a lot more to buy that day.

One of my first assignments in Septemeber. Take an object and photograph it 100 different ways!

The first shooting assignment we had in Creative Imaging was to take an object and shoot it 100 different ways. I chose a hand fan that had my name written on it in Japanese that I got from Folklorama one year. Up until this point I had never shot anything more than 5 ways and now I had to do it 100 ways.  As if that didn’t stress me out enough when it came time to upload it to my computer and send it via a Picasa album is when the real “fun” started. The only editing program I had at the time was the one that came in the box of my camera which I soon found out was basically useless to me. I didn’t know how to do something as basic as copyright the images and rename then which is now a very small percentage of my computer skills.  As you can tell by now, I was at the most basic level possible when I started at Prairieview.

The first time I ever took a star trail photo. This was about a 10 minute exposure. Gainsborough, Saskatchewan

The inside of a barn, taken during the holiday break in Gainsborough, Saskatchewan.

I love frost in the winter! This was taken near the Forks.

Fast forward to hours upon hours of in class notes, teachings and shooting assignments and I finally started to feel like I could legitimately call myself a photographer by December. I had started to put up photos on Facebook for the first time and was proud to show off what I had accomplished thus far. However, at that point I started to hear more and more about classmates taking on paying jobs and I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. I was confident but realistic and knew that I just needed more practice and time until I was ready to take on the world!

My friend hanna who is an awesome model always gives me inspiration for great photos!

This is a medium format twin lens camera that I used to take the above photo of Hanna.

This is my classmate Andrea using a twin lens camera.

 Now that the end of the program is fast approaching I feel like I have accomplished so much this year with my photographic abilities and I’m proud to call myself a professional photographer and not just a student.  School taught me so much of what I know about photography but at a certain point creativity and instincts took over and brought me to where I am now. I can’t wait to see where I am in a year from now!

Desiree Shillingford
PV Diploma Student 
2011-12