Photo Shoots Are Good Expierience

    A unique, educational, and enjoyable experience is something that I think the STAC program strives to achieve. Learning something useful in your future field while enjoying yourself is the best way to learn. That being said, the recent photo shoot I participated in was a successful one because I learned a lot about shooting and had fun doing it. For starters, I've never done a full light set up, background, and such. For this shoot, we were brought to the space and given no instruction. My partners and I were left to figure out how to set up the backdrop, flash, lights, and compose the scene all on our own. Good skills to know, and definitely necessary for someone who wants a BFA in photography.
    The ability to compose an image is what separates a photographer from a person who owns a DSLR camera. It is probably one of the most important things to master if you want a career as a photographer of any kind. The fact that we were given absolute freedom to make the shoot look good was probably the most valuable part of the experience because we learned how to compose a scene. I was lucky to be able to work with a kind of lens that I've never worked with before, because it helped me to learn to adapt to whatever materials are presented to me. It was challenging at first because the thing probably weighed more than I do, but it produced some great shots. Being the head photographer on the shoot felt good, because I was calling the shots, something I normally don’t do.
    Being in STAC gives me an advantage because I’m beginning my studio experience earlier than most high school students would be. A goal of the STAC program is to expose students to any discipline they're interested in and apply the skills they learn to "real world" jobs and experiences. Basically, we're not just learning how to take pictures, we're learning how to make money by taking pictures.