Fashion Photo Contest

http://pdnthelook.com/
entries http://pdnthelook.com/entries.shtml

Works-in-Progress Crit

Please answer the following questions in your group.

1. What makes my project interesting, evocative, unique, etc? What makes it work?

2. How can I improve the images in order to make the formal elements align with the conceptual elements?

3. Is there something in the project that is working that I did not intend? If so, how might I push the project in a new, more interesting direction?

4. How can I make the images more cohesive?

5. Is my project too direct or literal? How can I make it more ambiguous, interesting, thought-provoking, multi-layered? Is my project too obscure and esoteric? How can I keep it interesting while adding something familiar?

6. Does my project need more conceptual depth? How can I add more layers?

Potluck

Add a comment to this post describing a food or drink that you would like to bring to the final class potluck!

For Class Tuesday June 27

Please have your final images for Assignment 5 posted to your blog at the beginning of class. We will start the critique around 11:35.

Following the Assignment 5 critique, we will have 30 minutes of worktime to prepare images for a works-in-progress critique for Assignment 6. Please bring images for this critique.

We will also complete SIRS forms.

In-Class Image Assignment 17

Create a double self portrait that includes 1) yourself photographed using the strobes in the classroom, 2) your second identity, 3) two 3D models, 4) a place/space/background. Post your final image on your blog.

For Class Tuesday June 20

Please bring yourself, a second identity, your camera, and your tripod.

CORRECTION to Assignment 5 Handout

You do not need to print or mount any images for Assignment 5. These images will be turned in on in your blog instead.

Blog Prompt Week 6 (#25)

Brainstorms! (In an effort to expand, improve, add complexity, and push your final projects further, please pick 10 of the following to discuss.)

1. Ideas sometimes grow out of irritation. What is a negative thought you are having about your project? What is the opposite of this negative thought? How could you implement a change in your project so that this negative thought will subside?
2. What is the “opposite” of your final project? How can you rework your project to include the “opposite”?
3. What is a consistent theme/visual element in your project? What would be the opposite of this? How can you implement that into your project?
4. Type twenty words or phrases that relate to your project.
5. At the deepest core, describe why you like this project. Dig deep!
6. Expand your project. If time, money, materials, etc would not affect you, how would you expand your project?
7. Contract your project. What would it boil down to if squeezed and contracted to its simplest form?
8. Look at one of your images. Redesign it entirely.
9. Divide your project into three components. Rearrange and reassemble them in your mind.
10. List your assumptions about your project. Reverse these.
11. What would your project look like 100 years ago? What would your project look like 100 years in the future?
12. Remove something from your project. How does it change?
13. Persuade the reader that your project works well and is the most amazing project you have ever completed.
14. Persuade the reader that your project stinks. Then, persuade the reader that you will make changes so that it no longer stinks.
15. Think of one of your most memorable dreams. How could you add elements from this dreams to your project?
16. How would you convert your project into a narrative? How would you remove any narrative from your project?
17. How would you connect your images physically and conceptually? How would you make them disconnected physically and conceptually?
18. What would happen if you demolished your project and reconstructed it physically or conceptually?
19. Name an artist/photographer/designer/videographer who would love your project. Why?
20. Name an artist/photographer/designer/videographer who would hate your project. Why?
21. How would you make your project more edgy, saccharine, provocative, empty, revealing, concealing, funny, sad, mysterious, blunt, honest, disingenuous, fast, slow, playful, austere, hateful, lovable, bold, subtle, long, short, big, small, connected, disconnected?

Final Project "Guidelines"

Here are some "guidelines" for your final project.

1. Your project should reveal your unique view of the world. It should be a set of images that you are passionate about so that you are invested in the process and outcome. How is this project “yours” and only “yours”? Why would no one else in the world be able to make this project?
2. Your project should be meaningful, with conceptual depth and complexity. Ask yourself whether it needs more “layers” of complexity, both visually and conceptually.
3. Your project should exhibit your technical competency.
4. Your project should push beyond the boundaries of what you have done so far this semester. Instead of merely replicating techniques or ideas of others, your project should bring your own creative perspective to the table.
5. Think big! Edit later. Start like an adventurer and dreamer.
6. Your project should be cohesive so that the images relate to one another in some important, meaningful way.

Semi-Contemporary Photographer: Constructed Reality

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R05 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

Historical Photographer: Constructed Reality

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R05 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

Blog Prompts Week 5 (#22-24)

#22 Watch the video in the link below. Write a few sentences in response to this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDYDxWSjVJw


Also, see these links.
http://www.canstockphoto.com/images-photos/cgi.html
http://www.digitalimagemagazine.com/blog/featured/if-it-seems-too-good-to-be-trueits-cgi/
http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/view/176/32/


#23

1. In what ways do you “construct” your identity? In what ways do you “perform” in your daily life?

2. Describe some ways in which your personal culture and social environments are “constructed”.

3. Describe some ways in which your physical environment/space is “constructed”.

4. In your daily life, what would you consider to be “real” and what would you consider to be “constructed/fabricated”?

5. Describe a narrative tableaux that you might create to be captured by a photograph. A narrative tableaux can be defined as “Several human actors play out scenes from everyday life, history, myth or the fantasy of the direction artist” ( Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler , 34).

6. Describe an idea for a photograph that includes a miniature stage or still life. A description of such an image is “The tableaux reconstructs events as in the narrative tableaux, but in miniaturized format, using dolls and other toy objects” (Kohler, 34).

#24 Describe your plans for your self-proposed final project (if the plan is the same as before, paste it here again and give a bit more detail). During the final critique for Assignment #5, you will discuss/present these ideas to the class.

Thinking Ahead for the End of the Semester

Please remember to keep all of your final images from all assignments, including the Recreations, to turn in on the last day of class. You will turn them in as flattened TIFF files on a CD or DVD. This will be your digital portfolio.

Please begin to think about what you want to do for your final project. This project should include about 5-10 images that work together in a series.

Retouching for Popular Media

http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/retouch/index.html

how much is too much???

Semi-Contemporary Photographer: Popular Media

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R04 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

Historical Photography Research: Popular Media

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R04 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

Mounting

http://reframingphotography.com/content/mounting-matting-and-framing

For Wednesday June 8

1. Complete part 2 of the contact sheet for Assignment 3. Bring the images on camera and we will make contact sheets in class.

2. Please print out Exam Review Questions Set 3.

Blog Prompts Week 4 (#19-21)

#19. Can you think of anything that:

1) should not be photographed? Why?
2) cannot be photographed? Why?
3) you do not want to photograph? Why?

#20 Describe at least one photograph that you could take for each of the following “place” prompts.

• An image of a synthetic “place” such as Disney World, Las Vegas, a Hollywood set, a diorama, etc.
• An image of a fantasy/fictitious environment concocted from your imagination.
• An image of a placeless space such as the Internet, cell phones, e-mail, e-bank, surveillance, etc.
• An image of a public space.
• An image of a private space.
• An in-between space that brings to mind one of the following ideas: nomadic lifestyles, displacement, rootlessness, out-of-placeness, boundaries, movement, expansion, etc.

#21

A. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of “news”-related photographs.

B. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of “snapshots”, including family photographs, cell-phone shots, photos posted to facebook,

C. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of advertisement photographs, including fashion photography, product photography, etc

D. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of film/movie and television stills.

E. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of yearbook photos, senior pictures, and team/club/sports group shots.

F. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of stock images. http://www.corbisimages.com/ http://www.gettyimages.com/

G. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of fashion photography.

H. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of paparazzi shots or celebrity photographs.

For Tuesday June 7

1. Please bring your camera & tripod.

2. Complete part 1 of the contact sheet for Assignment 3. Bring the images on camera and we will make contact sheets in class.

3. Complete part 2 of the written statements for Assignment 2.

In-Class Image Assignments 13-15

#13 Blindfolded: Seeing a space/place through photo-documentation. You will be blindfolded for 20 minutes. Take a photograph once at least every few seconds as you walk or move through space. Traverse with a partner. Your partner should speak as little as possible, unless you or your camera is headed for imminent danger. You might ask your partner to adjust shutter speed to get some images with blur due to movement and others that are sharp. Your partner should not give you verbal clues about where you are in physical space.

#14 HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photograph. Take two images of the same scene while your camera is secured to a tripod. The scene should be one with high dynamic range. High dynamic range refers to a framed scenario with very bright brights and very dark darks relative to one another. Think of a scene in which you cannot expose properly for two parts of the subject. For example, a frame that includes both the dark ground and bright sky or a frame that includes a darker inside space with a brighter window. One exposure should be made for the bright area and one for the dark area. This will probably result in under exposing and over exposing and your histogram will peak on one end and the other. The histogram should peak on the left when you are exposing for the sky or window and the histogram should peak on the right when you are exposing for the dark ground or inside space. We will use Photoshop to combine these images.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm

#15 Panorama photograph. Take at least three photographs of the same scene in which you rotate or move the camera to a new location for each shot. Keep your aperture and shutter speed values the same for each shot. Try to overlap your framing for each image by 30%. We will use photoshop to combine these images into a panorama.

David Hockney http://www.hockneypictures.com/photos/photos_collages_01.php

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/high/cubismphoto.htm

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-panoramas.htm

For Class Monday June 6

Please complete the following:

1) Recreation R03 of a memory. Please bring the file on your camera. We will process in class.

2) Historical Photographer Research presentation posted on blog (completed before class starts).

3) Contemporary Photographer Research presentation posted on blog (completed before class starts).

4) Bring your camera and tripod.

Class Thursday May 26

Today, please remember to do the following:

1) Finish written statement part 1 for Assignment 2 by tonight at midnight.

2) Complete blog entries by Sunday at midnight.

3) Take a screen shot of your file for printing Assignment 2 and place it in the two folders
In-class Imaging Assignments > In-class Imaging Exercises 9-10 Test Strips
Digital Imaging Exercises > Exercise 7: Printing.

Contemporary Photographer Research: Place

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R03 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

Historical Photography Research: Place

Pick one photographer from the file in the Recreation R03 folder on ANGEL. Add a comment to this blog entry with the name of the photographer's image you have selected to research & present.

For Thursday June 2

1. Bring prints for Assignment 2. Bring 4 portrait images + 2 test strips (1 with tonal adjustments and the other with sharpening adjustments).

2. Make sure to turn in 2 video notes. One set from May 31. A second set from June 1. There are drop boxes on ANGEL in the "In-class Image Assignments" folder.

3. Bring your camera and tripod.

4. Place a screen shot of your file with the two test strips and final images in the folder In-class Imaging Assignments > In-Class Image Assignments 9-10: Test Strips.

Blog Prompts Week 3 (#11-18)

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?

#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.”http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx

In addition, at the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape. Many of these works now only exist as video recordings and photographic documents.

Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Write these down. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?

#15____In-Camera Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.

#16, 17, & 18 Please respond to three of the following quotes.

“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals

“I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” Duane Michals

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer—and often the supreme disappointment.” ~Ansel Adams

“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold Newman

“Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” Berenice Abbott