Yannik F. – Learning Photography

Hello everyone, my name is Yannik Finkelstein and over the course of my Senior Project, I have put together a portfolio of images I took while learning the technical elements of photography. My goal throughout senior project was to further grow my knowledge on photography and to find out what it takes to create a “good” image. Through Nigel Dansons masterclass on landscape photography and many hours of field experience I was able to learn how to capture the images I had always envisioned in my head. Part of achieving my goal was fine tuning my skills on how to operate and make use of all the settings on my camera. Once I became confident with my skills to adapt my camera settings to my environment, I dove into the technical elements of taking photos. Learning my equipment gave me the freedom to capture the images I wanted with ease, and to make every shoot a successful one. One of the most important pieces of information that pushed my photography skills was the seven basic elements of photography; line, shape, form, texture, pattern, color and space. I studied each element online individually, and at first they didn’t really make any sense to me. When I went out for a shoot the next day I started to see where each element made their presence when taking a photo. After putting the pieces together, I saw the importance of these seven elements of photography and started to become more confident in my approach when capturing an image. Over the course of senior project the most important thing I learned was how important experience is for growth. Although I learned a lot reading tutorials, taking virtual lessons and watching videos, the only way I was truly able to understand them was after I went out for a shoot. I made lots of valuable mistakes over senior project which gave me the opportunity to learn from them and grow as a photographer.

Click here to view the higher quality images that couldn’t make it to the book.