A New Year for Photography

As it's the start of a new year, it means there are more opportunities for new experiences. I decided to join the photo class for another semester and I am well excited for what the year will bring me. For the first assignment, the advanced students, the group I am in, had the opportunity to use a waist-lever camera for the first assignment and the assignment was portraits. This was already a good start for the year and the semester because it was a new camera that I had to handle and it was a unique encounter that I can add to my life events.

The waist-lever camera is a type of viewfinder that can be used on twin lens and single lens reflex. In the reflex camera, the light from the lens is projected onto a focusing screen. The waist-level finder makes this screen viewable from above, where the image is seen upright but reversed left-to-right.

Working with the waist-level camera wasn't an easy task as stated above that the viewfinder was the inverse going from left to right which gave me a headache as I tried to take the photos. The first three photos taken by that camera showed that the background seemed tilted, however the subject looks straight and not all weird which I though was really interesting. I also loved how the camera can easily focus on the subject I wish for it to and less complicated than the (normal cameras). From this assignment, I also learned that when taking portraits of a subject, it's better to take multiple pictures of them as they are continuing with their lives as if you were a stalker. It may be awkward for me to constantly take pictures of the person the whole time, but it's how you can capture the different emotions and reactions the person gives and hopefully shows the diversity characters that people are.
I am really looking forward to try out new cameras while learning how they work and explore or expand my skills in photography.