2020年9-12月雅思口语part2&3答案解析：你拍过的照片

　　2020年9-12月雅思口语part2&3答案解析：你拍过的照片

　　Describe a photo taken by you.

　　You should say:

　　What it is like

　　Where you took it

　　When you took it

　　And explain how you felt about it

　　I have taken a lot of photos over the years, because I’m a big fan of photography. Years ago, before mobile phones had really good cameras, I used to have a film camera, then a digital SLR camera, both were amazing and I loved them. I used to take them everywhere and take photos of anything and everything. I enjoyed taking photos of friends, of family and photos at special occasions and events with work and with workmates. But also I have always enjoyed taking more artistic photos – which is what I’m into these days. I like to walk around the older areas of my city and take pictures of the older people, the traditional street-lives they live and capture aspects of those lives in my photographs. The photo I liked a lot was a picture of an old wooden chair outside a hutong, with a sunflower in a pot next to it. I also like to use different coloured and textured filters on my photos to make them more interesting and arty and inspiring. So, there are lots of photos that I’ve taken that I like, but the photo of that old chair in the hutongs that I mentioned earlier, with the sunflower in the pot next to it, is the one that I like the most. The sunlight was perfect in it, the way the shadows were, and how the chair and sunflower were symbols of life in those old streets, when people would often sit outside and chat to their neighbours, rather than be stuck inside tall apartment blocks. That photo symbolized a lot to me and the people I showed it to also thought it was a great composition – a very well-balanced photo, with a striking contrast between the brightness of the yellow flower and the dull grey of the hutong walls and the old brown wooden chair. So, I felt good about this photo, as simple as it sounds. I think it was probably the best photo I’ve taken and means a lot to me. I have framed it and put it on my wall, in fact.

　　Part3

　　1. What’s the difference between photos taken by camera or phone?

　　Today there might not be much recognizable difference, really, because phone cameras are becoming so good these days. However, I think that still proper cameras are more for professionals, and likely do a lot more, have more settings and much higher quality lenses. Real cameras also have larger lenses so you can get very close up shots in perfectly sharp focus, or distance shots, or wide-angle shots if you’re taking photos of groups of people at a wedding, or panoramic views of the countryside or a landscape. So, I think that a proper photographer would use a proper camera rather than a mobile phone to take professional photos. But, the world of photography has changed for everyday people like me – we can, indeed, take really good photos simply with our phones, and this is something that has really changed photography in the past ten years, that’s for sure. I never could have predicted when I was in high school, that today people would be snapping photos with their phones so easily and efficiently. It’s funny how technology has changed so quickly over the past decade or so. It’s amazing really.

　　2. On what occasions do people like to take photos?

　　Most people today take photos pretty much all of the time. Well, what I mean is, is that we are now in the age of selfies and snapping mobile phone photos of our everyday lives so much, and posting them on social media, that people tend to document their everyday lives a lot. People mostly take photos of themselves, nights or days out with their friends, the food they are eating for dinner, all sorts. In fact, I’ve come to find this all rather tedious to be honest; I don’t really need to see so many photographic updates of people’s lives and their dinners and stuff like this. I, personally, like to reserve taking photos for special occasions and holidays. I don’t feel the need or desire to take photos of my daily meals! I think this recent trend of documenting one’s daily life in photos and WeChat moments is quite egocentric and self-absorbed. I don’t think it’s that good for people to be so self-obsessed, and I think it’s quite pretentious, too. Maybe I’m just a cynical person with a slightly old-fashioned view, but I’m simply not a fan of these things. Neither am I really into social media that much – which seems to dominate people’s lives today – I sometimes wish things were like they were a generation or two ago when people relied on face to face interactions to share things, not text and photo updates on their social media accounts. So, in my opinion, nowadays, people take too many photos of too many daily things, all about their own lives, and I’m not a fan of this trend at all.

　　3. How do people keep photos?

　　People often keep their photos on social media accounts or online or stored on their phones or in the cloud memories of their phones. People, to be honest, often lose a lot of their photos when their phone breaks or when they change phones, so this can become a bit of a pointless exercise and a waste of time. It’s ironic that the more digital technology develops, and the more we can potentially store more and more photos, the more inclined or the more likely we are to actually lose a lot of the photos we take. Again, I think in the past we treasured and cherished things more when they were less accessible. Today we can keep photos for years, unless of course our storage goes wrong or our phones break. It’s a double-edged sword, modern technology, and often it can be limiting as much as it is liberating. Depends how you look at it.