Assignment 3: Visual agenda–work with a single color

Due:

Monday 1/31

Agenda: Create photographs of *one* particular color, outside, in natural light. Choose any color you like, but stick with it for the whole exercise. Please shoot RAW format, if possible. The images can be either found discoveries, or arranged for the camera (or a combination of both).

Guidelines:

  • Choose a single color and stick with it for the whole exercise
  • Go on a search for, or gather materials
  • Outside in natural light
  • Found or set-up/aranged
  • Plan to submit 10-20 (well-composed and nicely shot) photographs of your single color.
  • The whole series should be of one color
  • Do closeups of your color to eliminate distractions....photos should be all about that one color. 
Examples:





















Assignment 2: Isolate the Essence (Building emphasis)

Due: Monday 1/24

General versus Specific

The goal for this exercise is to practice seeing, in both a general and specific way. Photography is largely an art of selection. A photograph tends to be democratic...if its in the frame, it counts! Include too much and the viewer might not know what is important. What happens when you get very specific about what you share with your camera? A good practice is to isolate exactly what you wish to share...no more, no less. Build emphasis into the photograph through framing, or in-camera cropping.

Rules of the Game: 
  • Natural light (window or outside)
  • No flash (so please use plenty of natural light)
  • ISO 100-400
  • Shoot RAW
  • Auto Exposure and Auto Focus is okay for now
  • Shoot 50-100 images
  • No camera phones —use a proper camera
Directions:
  1. Look. Look for unusual or surprising subjects that strike your eye as interesting. It really doesn't matter what the subject is, but how it looks. The subject could be a scene or landscape, an object or a person. Be adventurous, recognizing something exciting, original and/or unusual. Weird or unusual can be good!
You will make two photographs of each subject: one general, one specific.
  1. General view. Make an initial "general view" picture of your subject. 
  2. Close-up, specific view. Get specific and isolate the essence. What exactly grabbed your attention in the first place? Be very discerning and specific. Was it a detail? A shadow? A color? A facial expression? Isolate this specific thing by moving in closer to your subject, so that one specific thing  primarily appears in your frame, and little else. Make a picture of that.
  3. Move on to your next subject and repeat the sequence.
Examples:

general view

specific interest

general view

specific interest

general view

specific interest

general view

specific interest


Week 1: Course Overview

Overview of Course Topics

Visual and conceptual strategies...
  • Refining design and color
  • Exploring conceptual opposites
  • Literal versus figurative
  • Realist versus haptic visual languages
  • Integrating text with image
  • Sequence and series
  • Appropriation and reference
  • Fictional reality
Exploration of historical and contemporary photographic artists...

Camera skills...

Introduction to makeshift studio lighting, outdoors...

Digital workflow...
  • Non destructive
  • Intermediate and advanced image processing techniques
  • Restoration and retouching
  • Masking and compositing
  • Scale and resolution concerns for printing multiple sizes
Output and presentation...
  • Print refinement
  • Print size (scale) exploration
  • presentation and finishing
Extended projects...

Student work from prior semesters:

Color and design studies:




Conceptual opposites:





Realist versus Haptic










Text and image



Sequence and series



Appropriation and reference






Fictional reality



Extended projects



























Final Portfolio

Due date:  Monday (5/2) (exam week) Images should be exported and submitted as highest quality jpegs @ 1200 pixels, longest side. Please sub...