Technology: From Using Zoom to Capturing the Pandemic on Camera

In less than a few weeks the entire world shifted to online work and learning. High schoolers have attended virtual school, graduation, prom, and other ceremonies that were held through virtual events. This has allowed people to celebrate in the comfort of their home as many communities are under a stay at home order. Live TV shows were hosted by celebrities from their living rooms. As a student I have learned to be flexible and embrace the world's new need for technology. I began using Zoom and Microsoft Teams to participate in classes and finally, after two years, discovered how to navigate Veracross. I discovered the creativity behind choosing different backgrounds for my Zoom meetings and I learned how to be more organized as a student in order to navigate a very different class schedule. 

 The world can view the new use of technology as a waste of time or not good enough to complete the job, but I look at technology as a new way to train our brains. This means that we can ultimately become smarter from this. Now you must say how can we become smarter? We are not even finishing close to the same amount of work as we would in an actual classroom or office? Well look at it this way, Zoom is training us how to hold conferences over the phone, which is an essential life skill to most jobs. It makes everyone responsible for their own schedule, no more reminders from friends or teachers in the hallways that class or meetings are starting soon. It has taught us patience when the screen freezes and you cannot hear your classmate's presentation or your colleague's ideas. It pushes us to finish work in a sometimes distracting environment, which may help for future workplaces such as a college campus. Now some people may say I’m looking at the ‘bright side of things’ and they would not be wrong. Technology has its problems, but at the same time it has its perks too. 

 Which brings me to how technology shaped this project. Just about a month ago I was sitting in my room thinking about what I would do for my senior independent project. My original idea would not work with the current situation and I was very upset about it. That was when my mom shed light on a new idea. She had seen the images about the pandemic on the news. She thought they were pretty interesting and presented the idea of doing something with photography and the current pandemic. After great thought and research on how to execute this project I decided to give it a try. I had already borrowed the school's Canon T5-i camera and 18-55mm lens and proceeded to use it for the project. I used my 128GB card so I knew I would have plenty of memory for as many photos as I wanted to take. I used Lightroom from Adobe to touch up the photos. I did not heavily edit this series of photos because I thought it would take away from the purpose of them. Like everyone else I also used Zoom and Microsoft Teams to communicate with my teachers on the project. Although at times the technology malfunctioned, for example, the battery ran out in the camera or my lens could not zoom far enough to capture an image, but at the end of the day, this project and the technology I had available to me enabled me to be creative and use my artistic ability to capture this unusual time.