7th March 2014 (Week 5)
Seow Jie Yi (0318873)
Introduction to Photography
Exercise 3: Trip Assignment

Shutter speed: 1/400

Aperture: f3.5

ISO: 1600

My name is Seow Jie Yi and I am currently a student of Foundation in Design in Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus. My whole course of students went on an excursion to a batik complex in Terengganu by the name of Noor Arfa Batik Complex, which is the number one producer of batik in Malaysia. The objective if this excursion was to allow students to learn the traditional way of batik making and also to allow students to experience the drastic change of the culture, food and environment.

This photo that I have chosen was taken in Noor Arfa Batik Complex in Terengganu. It was taken after my group mates and I were finished with our 2 meters long batik. I tried to angle the edges of the metal table with the corners of my lens and this is the best out of all the other tries including taking photos of the batik in different angles. Moreover, I think that this photo that I took turned out quite well as it was angled just the way I desired.

I took about 400 photos during the excursion and I chose this photo to represent my experience in Terengganu because whenever I look at this photo, it gives the a memorable feeling to it. This photo was taken right after we finished the batik and it was the first batik that we made as a group. It gives me a satisfaction feeling as this photo shows the hard work and great cooperation that we had as a group in order to create such a great artwork.

The aperture is 3.5 with the shutter speed of 1/400 and an ISO of 1600. I took a few photos of the same angle but with different settings. Some of it turned out darker than the reality and some were not angled right. After a few tries, I finally had the hang of it and took this photo. The colors that we used for the batik were darker such as dark blue and black for the majority part of the batik. Therefore, I had to use a higher number for the ISO in order to get a balanced black and white photo.

We were separated into groups by the batik instructor on the second day of the excursion and I was assigned into a group with Jien Li, Regina, Mazhar and Jia Lun. Everyone did their part in making the batik and it took us half a day to finish it but the hard work paid off eventually as the outcome was great. The second I put down the brush that I was painting with for hours as we were done with the batik, I rushed towards the table where my camera was and started taking photos of our batik from many different angles. I wanted to make sure this event will remain in my memory as one of my treasured experiences in life and I know that I will regret it for the rest of my life if I did not take photos of the artwork.

In my opinion, whenever I look at this photo, I get the feeling of a great satisfaction rushing through me. I thought to myself that part of the reason as to why I was so satisfied and excited was because it was one of my first batik but it was the first ever batik made in a group. Another part of it was because I know that without the great cooperation that my group offered, the outcome of our batik may vastly differ. Therefore, every time I look at the photo, it brings back the good memories that I had while I was on the excursion especially when I was making this batik with my group mates. 

SCREENSHOT