Final Portfolio | The 01 Profile

By Diego Teixeira Setton

From left to right, Helena and Alice, two of my brazilians friends, pose for a picture on the Chicago Subway.

Maron Guimaraes taking advantage of the weather to practice by himself on a Saturday afternoon.

Students Mathias Constantinou, Enzo Tagliati, Bruno Langeani and Maron Guimaraes getting ready before a saturday afternoon soccer session outside of practice.

A cat and his toaster looking through the window, maybe waiting for something.

A view to nothing, from the last window in the train.

From a train window, leading to somewhere.

A woman at her destination, waiting for assistance.

A man and a christmas tree, completely synchronized.

Ferdinando Vinti of the Morningside Ultras cheering and chanting during the GPAC tournament final last semester

A failed attempt at a self-portrait of the three of us, with Helena to the left, Alice to the right, and me a mostly out of frame in the background.

From left to right, Helena, Alice and Catarina, walking ahead of me in the Chicago Suburbs.

Bonus New York Pictures:

The pictures I selected are just the ones I like the most. I think that, besides being good pictures (in my opinion), they wouldn’t necessarily help land a job or anything like that, they’re not very journalistic to be honest. I also don’t enjoy looking at them as an asset that could make an argument on why I should be select for something, I enjoy them as pictures, I think they’re pretty, anything beyond that makes me lose interest.

One thing this course helped me a lot with and I didn’t quite utilize it here is image curation. Throughout the duration of the semester, the many different assignments that we had required me to constantly think about what pictures to use, and when it all culminated on the photo story and having to tell this story just through images, I was really enjoying it. Now even when I’m about to post something on Instagram I think, what order and which pictures should I use? How do I pair them with the single comment I can write? What would be enjoyable to look at and can I make people feel something?

This final portfolio kind of goes against that in my opinion, because there’s not much to just selecting your best pictures. You might try to tell a story, but they’re just so different and varied that it’s difficult to make it work, but that’s okay too.

The course also helped me a lot with understanding the ethics behind taking pictures, I don’t know if for better or for worse, but now I’m at least more sure about what to do when out and about taking photos. It showed me the value of photography as a journalistic medium and as Mass Communication major, it helped clarify when I should or shouldn’t take a picture, is it important to the message I’m trying to transmit or not.

Speaking of what is important or not, this course also required me to look at Morningside itself, what things should I be looking to take a picture on campus? What value does it brings to the class? I think this semester I was more involved with photography than ever, as it even resulted in my final Media Law paper talking about the legality and morals of street photography.

I also got better at using a digital camera believe it or not. I’ve been using a film camera a lot and it helps me to know I have limited shots, so when I take a picture, I really try to make sure I have something interesting so not to waste it. This is fine, but when I tried using a digital camera, it resulted in me not much knowing how to take advantage of the multiple pictures I had, they felt disposable sort to say.

Knowing how to take better photographs is a really important skill nowadays, especially with so many people having access to a camera. In mass communication specifically, it seems more and more being good at many different areas is a requirement, so getting to add photography as a something I can do as well will probably be worthwhile in the foreseeable future.

Basically, this course really helped me get a more concrete look at photography, and to slowly discover my own style, of what I take pictures of, how do I find a shoot, which pictures I select. In the begging, we were asked if we thought of ourselves as photographers, I answered no at time, mentioned I didn’t have enough experience. I still would answer no to that question to be honest, but I sure feel closer to a “yes” after taking the course, and I will keep applying what I learn when I go about taking pictures, that’s for sure.

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