Week 06 - 20-30 images, final project, and Midterm

Next week we will be looking at your first round of 20-30 images that should be working towards developing your final book project.

Next week in addition to your first critique, we will be taking a short Midterm Exam that will be reviewing camera functions, exposure, and the ideas covered in the Barrett readings. Please take a look at all the handouts we've discussed. The slideshows we've looked at might be helpful as well. It also might be helpful to re-read Barrett based on the discussion we had in class.

Next week:
Midterm Exam - review handouts on exposure, camera controls, and Barrett readings

20-30 Prints - bring 20-30 NEW images as 4x6 prints, review critique guidelines
- Wallgreens, CVS, Adorama are just a few of the affordable places to get prints made by uploading your jpegs online. Please allow ample time to get your images printed. Waiting until the last minute, mishaps with printing, and prints not being ready in time will not be an excuse for not having work each week. Plan ahead. 
- You will also be graded on your participation in critique of your peers work. Bring a notebook to jot down ideas and comments, and review the critique guidelines to give you some ideas for how to engage verbally with your classmates' work.

Final Book Project- Review the final book assignment prompt to get an idea for the eventual goal of your 20-30 images assignments. I will be bringing in some books next week for us to look at and suggest some places for you to go to look at other photography books for inspiration.

See you all next week!

Week 05 - Lighting

This week we learned about the principles of light:

1. direction - what direction is the light coming from and how does that transform the appearance of your subject
2. intensity - how strong/bright the light is
3. quality - hard light or soft light
4. color - cool, warm, or other

We had an in class demo of the principles of light using a couple continuous light sources and also discussed three point lighting (key, fill, back light)

 Hard Rembrandt light (no color adjustment) note the triangle under camera left eye

Hard Rembrandt light with adjusted white balance (color)

 Hard Rembrandt with bounce card fill

Soft Rembrandt light with diffusion (note softer edges of shadows)

Side/split lighting

Edge/hair light

Overhead light

Up-Lit

Front-lit

Rembrandt with front fill light

Rembrandt with less fill light intensity (lighting ratio)

Two side lights 

Two side lights with front fill bounce card

Remember, with lighting it is all about what you are trying to show or communicate about that subject. Choose the lighting quality, direction, intensity, and color that tells the story you want to tell about that subject.

For your assignment you will be taking several images changing lighting quality and direction.

Start thinking of what kinds of subjects you like to shoot based on what you've learned during our technical assignments and we will talk about starting your personal projects next week. 

Also start thinking of/doing research on your photographer for your oral presentations.

Week 04 - Color and Composition

After looking at the homework, we did a crafty composition exercise arranging squares on a blank canvas to create illustrations of different words.

  

Then we used that as a jumping off point to discuss the basic elements of photographic composition.

We also talked about the usage of color and white balance to shift the mood and tone of our images.

We did an overview of the oral presentation which will be due 11/11. The next step is to start looking at other photographer's work so you can choose a photographer to present on for your oral presentation which is due as a blog post on 10/28. The blog post to claim your photographer should include the photographer's name, 2-3 images of their work and a few sentences about why you chose them. Each student must choose a unique photographer - first one to claim that photographer via blog post gets to present on them.

Good resources for finding a photographer's work include:

• Going to see shows 
• See last week's blog post with suggestions for your exhibition review 
• You might like to do your presentation on a photographer whose work you see in person
• If you would like to do this be sure to claim your photographer sooner rather than later via blog post as multiple students may see the same show
• The library
• Marymount library (limited collection, but some photo books)
• New York Public Library, Mid Manhattan Branch has a great collection of photo books that you can walk through and browse the stacks 
• Looking at magazines or photo books in bookstores (Printed Matter, Kinokuniya, Dashwood Books, Rizzoli, MoMA bookstore, Strand, Housingworks Bookstore are all good sources of art and photography books)
• Online research is ok but if you find a photographer this way make sure you there is enough information out there about this photographer that you can give a comprehensive presentation including historical information about the photographer's life and contextual information about specific photographs

HOMEWORK

• Assignment 4 - Composition, due next session (10/07) as blog post and image files due to your Google Drive folder
• Assignment 5 - Exhibition Review is also due next session (10/07)
• Start thinking about which photographer you'd like to present on for your oral presentation