Course Impact

This course has offered so many valuable lessons and opportunities it is hard to properly depict them. For starters being able to go into the animal center as a volunteer has opened my eyes so much to things society has blinded me to. I now have a realistic view of what really goes on behind the scene at the animal center and how heart breaking it is to watch so many animals come in but very exciting to see so many get adopted.

While reading the 2012 Public Animal Shelter Report it really shocked me to find out that Wake County Animal Center took in 7,151 dogs last year and 6919 cats. Before I became an active volunteer at the animal center I had no idea that the number of animals was anywhere close to these numbers! The Wake County Animal Center spends approximately $165.24 per animal as compared to Robeson County that is only able to spend approximately $68.53 per animal. Another thing that I am grateful for is having the opportunity to give so many of these animals attention (cuddle/petting time in their cages) as well as taking a photograph of them in attempt to help find them a home. In a previous class we looked at more of the center's reports and coincidentally there was a spike in adoption rate at the same time there was a spike in volunteer hours. Some days I wonder if my time in the animal center is even making an impact and then I remind myself that every little bit of help contributes to the bigger purpose. Thinking about my contribution also makes me think back to the other counties around us such as Robeson County that I mentioned. It makes me wonder how many volunteers they have and how many hours are being put into their shelter. Their euthanasia rates are far higher than the rates at Wake County. I feel confident if they could get more active volunteers to help at the shelter than their euthanasia rates might have a significant decline.

All of the data shown above came from the 2012 Public Animal Shelter Report http://www.ncagr.gov/vet/aws/Fix/documents/2012ShelterReport5-29-13PDFVersion.pdf


The next valuable thing that this course has offered is the actual skills required for digital photography and editing the photographs. I take hundreds of pictures a week on my iPhone and really enjoy paying attention to lighting, angles of pictures, and even some of the effects available to edit these photographs. However after going through this course my eyes have been opened to the fine details that actually go into taking a picture, editing them, and how to properly prepare them for the internet. One of the first things that we learned is how badly photographs are stripped when put on the internet and I am very excited that I now know how to prevent this from happening and have a great quality photograph. Although I am an Exercise Sports Science major, I have a strong passion for photography. This course has provided me with skills that I never thought I would have the opportunity to learn. An additional benefit to this course is the internet portion. Almost everything in society is technology based, so it is only appropriate that we should start to learn how to edit photographs for the web.

Before this class I was alright with taking pictures such as the one below of Sadie. However after this class I am now extremely proud that I am able to take and produce photographs such as the one of Davidson Jones from last week. The new pictures have better exposure and color levels. In the pre-class photograph the background is very dark and Sadie's white fur is too bright. I now understand the levels and I am able to adjust the levels to emphasize the dog (or main focus object in the photo) and decrease focus on the background as desired. 

Sadie 

Davidson Jones