Portrait of a Place Afterthoughts

From my portrait of a place assignment, I learned that it takes more than long pan shots to tell a story. I wanted to convey the emptiness of the house but didn’t do so adequately and more or less made a video that a realtor could use for a virtual open house. Seeing the other work that my peers created I saw how to better convey a portrait of both a place and a person. Music or even ambient sound is an integral part of the final product even though dialogue isn’t allowed. Sound was vital to the portrait assignment though the focus was on the visual aspect. I learned from my peers, ways to better tell the story than the way I had. I could have utilized sound more and brought in outside objects to better convey my connection to the house and better tell the story visually.

JVC vs SONY

When I usually prepare to do an assignment I generally pick the camera I’m most comfortable with, and that’s the JVC. I’ve used the SONY cameras once in Professor Schwartz’s class and we had problems with them and he decided we’d only use the JVCs. I use the JVCs in my internship now, so it’s more of a comfort and convenience issue when I choose which camera to use. I prefer shooting to flash cards over tape because of ease of data transfer when I get in the lab. I’ve had problems with the tape decks in 130, but transferring data with the flash cards is much easier. The similarities are that both cameras have the capability to shoot in HD, but the biggest difference to me is their method of recording.

Portrait of a Place