Well as the title says, you can’t win them all. That’s a lesson I kinda learned when I did an assignment for cinematography this past week. We were told to take 5-7 photos of either lost and found or mistaken identity and to pick some interesting angles or compositions. This did not go as I would have hoped for various reasons. I didn’t really have a set story but loosely these photos are a guy get lost in the library and finds his group member.
Honestly, I only like 2 out of the 5 photos in this set (the shot of the stairs and bookshelf) and might be the first time in a while I’ve turned in a homework assignment that I was genuinely unhappy with the results. Given that I am now involved in a field that’s visual I was concerned that no one would like the photos. That didn’t happen and the professor definitely seemed interested in what we learned from the activity as opposed to how nice they looked.
When I shot these I didn’t really have a vision in mind other than I wanted to shoot in the library, which has been inspiring me a lot lately. But just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you should shoot on the fly and I learned that the hard way. I am now instituting a rule that I am not allowed to shoot anything unless I have a shot list and a defined idea. I spent like an hour shooting these photos that I ultimately wasn’t happy with.
Another thing that I realized during this exercise is that while I have an eye for compositions within a frame, I REALLY need to work on my camera angles/movement. Like that first photo of Elsie was supposed to be a low angle shot but just because I was kneeling on the floor doesn’t mean it’s a low angle lol. This is why it’s good to have a good DP like I did when I did Film Rush, who can compliment my eye.