Greetings earthlings. Welcome to my first official blog post (minus the introductory one)! For this blog post I will be discussing one of the skills I have acquired during my undergraduate years at IUP. Having taken multiple classes within this major, I have gained a wide range of knowledge in multiple sectors of this field. The first one I will be talking about is photography.
With photography, there are many different things that are to be accomplished when you have specific messages to convey to your audience. The first may issue at hand may be, what is the actual message you want your viewers to see. Obviously you have certain things to photograph that evoke different things, but YOU are the one in charge of how you will share your photos with the world around you. Another factor is that there is not simply just one way to share a message with photography, and you must decide which method best suits your audience. For example, if you are trying to get a message across to teens, a popular media platform could possibly be “Instagram” because a lot of younger kids use it and it may be effective in warping the minds of individuals exposed to your message in the photograph.
Photography can be a fun way to express ideas to people, but it is not an easy thing to do. You want to show your message with the most effective photograph, however you have to worry about what may or may not offend somebody, what ways you maybe need to use your camera to focus on specific objects within the photograph, and many other strategic methods involved in shooting the picture and getting it across to your audience.
Depending on your topic, there are many ways to solve your problems when being a photographer as a whole. Start by taking what you need to do with your assignment, and planning ahead from there. For example, if you were looking for a way to photograph IUP for a new students pamphlet, what would you show, and what wouldn’t you show? Why are some things more important than others? What will entice people to go to IUP, and what could potentially make someone not want to attend? There are ways to “sugar coat” things to make them seem spectacular when in reality they are simply mediocre, but lets think of ways that we can show the truth but still please the target audience. What would make someone say, “I want to go to IUP over this school because of __________”? This is the type of thing you would be looking for with this assignment, and you could start by making a list of things you might like about IUP that someone else would enjoy if they attended the University. Planning ahead is a huge part of any project, and with photography, if you know what is gonna attract people, plan to shoot that and keep moving forward from there!
For most problems, there is more than one solution. I try to think of at least three solutions to any issue I face, and pick the most effective one so I can ensure that I am efficient in achieving my goal. With photography, I have learned that there is no wrong way to photograph something, however, there are some ways that are more effective than others and may be more visually appealing to look at. In short, you can figure out your issue with three simple steps: know your audience, know your subject, and be creative. Knowledge is endless and an amazing quality to have. The more you know about your project, the more you are able to spread awareness.
Hopefully some of you reading this have either experienced some of the things I have mentioned today, or have been impacted by my experiences to better prepare you if you come into any situations like this. Learning many different things within Communications Media has been a very great thing in my life and I hope to continue learning new things because the possibilities are endless. I leave you with one final question from this post: what is one way you could photograph world hunger in an effective way that would cause any viewer to feel some type of emotion? Just think about what you would do, and feel free to comment below so I can see all of your creative ideas!
And that’s the cup o’ Joe for today, until next time, friends!
-Joe