Blog 24: Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question and best answer?

My essential question is "what is the most current development in scientific photography." My best answer to my essential question is scientific photography has helped to identify quasars, existence of dark energy, and determine the age of the universe through cameras that identify different forms of light that is not visible in the visible spectrum of light.

 

2. What process did you take to answer your EQ?(3:30m)

The beginning part of my project was very different to the current findings of my senior project so my process went from very vague to more scientific than I had anticipated but I could not stop reading about. There are a lot more areas in science that are involved with photography's ham I thought, but I found that I was researching more and more about three regions of the science world; space, underwater, and the micro world. Since my EQ was dealing with "the most current development," I started not only to research the photos but the technology used to capture the photos. During my research about space photography, I really opened my eyes to how significant the technology was and how this equipment is able to see types of light that are not visible to the naked eye on the visible spectrum of light. When I was learning more about the technology used for space exploration I I was realizing that I needed to learn more about the technology of microphotography and underwater photography, which led me to researching more about technology and how it works for each varied form of photography. I felt that more information was reliable about space photography which made it my best answer, however, I feel that light played a key role in a three of my answers because without light, whether visible or not, light is what makes photo.

 

3. What problems did you face and how did you resolve them?(45-1min)

My major problems came from me being indecisive about narrowing my topic. I wanted to do so much after I kept reading more and more about my topic because I loved all areas of it and I did not want to narrow it. Eventually I had to, so my middle ground was choosing scientific photography and learning about a form of unusual photography. I had no idea where to even begin my search for someone in that field so my mentor opened the door to a more common form of photography. For me, I satisfied both extreme ends of photography; I got to learn hands on with standard photography and read all about scientific photography tools.

 

4. What are your two most important sources and why?(30-45min)

One of my most important sources was the Hubblesite.com. it was my go to when I was wanted to know about Chandra and Hubble and everything about them and it was a credible source. Another helpful source for learning about underwater photography was Divephotoguide.com which helped me explain the importance of underwater photography for research purposes.  

 

5. What is your product and why?

Overall, my research and hands on work with my mentor has helped me to apply the basics of photography to a larger scale like underwater photography. Working my mentor has even led me to small photography jobs of my own. I have gained work skills like how to handle customers, which is something they don’t teach you right away, I have also become more confident when shooting and on the job. I don’t just feel like a tag along like I did before because I’m taking on jobs of my own where I have to be in charge of the shoot.

Family photos before the grandparents left back home