Final Portfolio

Final portfolio:

Due: Wednesday, 4/25

This course will require a final portfolio, consisting of the following:

• 20-30 jpegs (1200 pixels, longest dimension)
• Submitted to server in an organized folder
• Files named properly (see below)
• Although you are submitting jpegs, please retain all RAW and photoshop files for your own, future use.

The portfolio should consist of your very strongest work from the assignments, projects and general shooting from the course. Be very selective in what you include. The portfolio should include:

• 3-5 images from various assignments
• 3-5 images from project 1
• All final images from project 2
• Before and after restoration/retouching (2 jpegs total)
• Project 3 image (plus variations, if desired)
• 3-5 project 4 images (optional)
• The remaining images (if any) from 

Each image should be labeled in such a way as to make it clear what category it is.

For example

george_assignment3_1.jpg

george_project2_1.jpg

george_project2_2.jpg

etc...

Extra Credit Project

Create a group of 5-7 images around a subject, theme, concept, idea or aesthetic of your choice.

Criteria:

• Final images should be selected from the efforts of at least three distinct shooting sessions, shot specifically for the project
• Images should be visually related, around the subject, theme, concept, idea or aesthetic
• Turn in 1200 pixel JPEGS processed from edited PSD files
• Listen to your inspiration. Do it not for the grade, but for your curiosity.
• You have the tools and the skills. Your intention can make it happen.

Due: 4/25

Incentives. This optional project can benefit your final course grade in one of the following ways:

• If the project is at the "C" level (or lower), it will raise your final grade by 1 percentage point
• If the project is at the "B" level, it will raise your final grade by 3 percentage points
• If the project is at the "A" level, it will raise your final grade by 5 percentage points

Retouching

Due 4/25

Choose one of the following, or both (an additional for extra credit).

• Restore old, damaged photograph
• Retouch portrait image (recently made image)

All images must be of sufficiently high resolution to support deep fixes. Choose images that could clearly benefit from restoration/retouching. Please consult with instructor, if unsure. Please use non-destructive techniques, as demonstrated in class. 

Final file should be sufficient resolution to be printed letter-size at 360 dpi.

Turn in:

1. Jpeg of original file/image (or original image included as a layer in your final PSD file)
2. PSD file with all supporting layers
3. Print

white screen shooting

Monday 3/26

Emma Junck
Rhianna Israni
Aleiah Briggs
Grant Tolson
Candace Von Hoffman
Brooke Carroll
Jordan Williams
Hanna Terry
Azad Patel
Caitlin Colditz

Wednesday 3/28

Lauren Bellamy
Madison Smith
Anna Lipson
Georgia Sheridan
Dana Tokarzewski

Alana Guarino
Kali Sturgis
Paige Torre
Anna Crain
Lane Pernell
Sam Hughes

Project 3: Fictional Reality

Due Dates:

• White Screen production shooting: Monday 3/26 and Wednesday 3/28
• Preliminary critique Monday 4/16
• Final critique:  Wednesday 4/25 

Turn in:

• Print on 13x19 paper (Hand in)
• Final PSD file, with all layers and masks, reduce to 1200 pixels, longest size (use image processor to do this) (On server)
• 1200 jpeg (On server)

©Loretta Lux

©Kelli Connell

Create something that is both possible and impossible, at the same time. Explore the line between fantasy and reality.

Create a character and place them in an environment or situation that might be strange, surreal, or simply, weird. How is the line between fantasy—reality blurred? Consider myths, fairy tales, other stories. Or make something up.

Move beyond the simple and silly to something that works on multiple levels. What questions are raised? Beyond that, anything goes. There is plenty of room for creative interpretation. 

Think big for this one... costumes? styling? props?

Integrate the subject with the unlikely background/situation. Unify lighting direction, scale, point of view, shooting angle, etc., so that it truly appears that the subject is occupying the unlikely place.

There are just a few technical ground rules for this project.

1. At least one of the main subjects should be shot with white screen techniques
2. The white screen subject should be masked and appropriately integrated into the new background, with scale, perspective, point of view, light quality and direction convincingly matched.
3. The finished image should "read" realistically and convincingly as a single, genuine photo
4. At least 18" x 24" @360 dpi. All component pieces should be at adequate resolution

Gregory Crewdson
Grace Weston

Kahn and Selesnick

Bill Finger

Sarah Anne Johnson

Loretta Lux

Wendy McMurdo

Kelli Connell

Cornelia Hediger

Gillian Wearing

Student Work:

Critique Groups

A

Anna Crain

Anna Lipson

Kali Sturgis

Hanna Terry

B

Caitlin Colditz

Alana Guarino

Georgia Sheridan

Paige Torre

C

Brooke Carroll

Rhianna Israni

Madison Smith

Grant Tolson

D

Sam Hughes

Candace Von Hoffman

Lane Pernell

Dana Tokarzewski

E

Lauren Bellamy

Azad Patel

Aleiah Briggs

Jordan Williams

Assignment 7: Showing Motion

very fast shutter

moderately slow shutter (1/30th)

Pan shot (very slow shutter)

overall blur (very slow shutter)

In each of the examples above, how are the images affected by shutter speed? How can creative use of shutter and/or camera movement create different impressions of time and movement?

Use shutter priority. This is "Tv" with Canon, "S" with Nikon. This is an automatic mode where the camera chooses an f-stop based on the shutter speed that you specify, based on available light. 

ISO can also factor in to this exercise. Some guidelines: To freeze a fast moving subject, shoot with ISO 400 or 800 (depending on light available). For long exposures (drag shutter) and panning shots, shoot with the lowest number ISO available, and perhaps shaded light.

Create interesting examples of the following:

• Freeze a fast moving object with a fast shutter speed, 1/500 second or faster. Use higher ISO, if light conditions require.
• Create the impression of blurred moving object passing across a stationary background with a slower shutter speed (drag shutter). Try 1/30. Make sure camera is as stable as possible, using lens stabilization, if you have it. Use lower ISO, if light conditions require.
• Track a moving subject across a background, with 1/2 to 1 second exposure, creating a PAN shot. For this shot, use a very low ISO, high f-stop, and shoot in deep shade. Use lowest ISO possible.

Suggestions: For all of the above...have all motion occur across the frame rather than coming directly toward or way from the camera. Also, get in close to the subject so that the sense of motion fills the frame.

How creative can you be with these examples? Originality will be rewarded!

Project 2: Sequence or Series

Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due:  3/7

Background
Cartier Bresson...example of  "The Decisive Moment"

As photographers, the frame is perhaps our most important tool. With the camera, we frame our subjects, including what we feel is important for the picture, and excluding what isn't. Essentially, we are editing from the visual world with our frame. A common goal in photography is to try and get it all in one frame—to create a singular image that conveys our full expression, sharp, clear, with a single point of view.

Further, we capture single points in time,  often orphaned from the longer story. They float, untethered without revealing what came before or after, or for that matter, what else was going on at that time.

There's value in all this—but it can also be limiting!

How can we extend the story of a photograph? What happened before our  decisive moment? What happened after? What did the other person see? What about the fly on the wall? Sometimes we need multiple images, multiple frames to convey the breadth and richness of our visual story.

For this project, explore one of the following, based on your interest:

1. Narrative Sequence
2. Conceptual Series

1. Narrative Sequence

How can photography be used to create a narrative sequence, to convey a story through time? Think about change and movement...what changes? What moves? What stays the same? How does this change tell a story?

Grandpa Goes to Heaven

Duane Michals (and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDY4d-HqWKk) used extended sequences of images to convey complex and (often amusing) narratives. Some of these visual story lines went in a straight lines, sometimes they made bizarre circles and spirals.

Chance Meeting, Duane Michals

Countless photographers have borrowed his approach to make narratives of their own.

E.Sariozkan

elodie fougère

The Personal Telling of StoryJennifer Shaw

New Orleans photographer Jennifer Shaw illustrates the trials her family faced during and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The images are told through the use of toys and figurines.
http://jennifershaw.net/hurricane-story/


Metaphoric narrative

The photographer Masaru Goto created a compelling narrative documenting the difficult subject of his mother's sickness, decline and eventual death. He draws a comparison between the life-cycle of cherry trees passing through the four seasons from the blossom stage through the shedding of leaves as extended metaphor for the phases of a human life, from full glory to eventual decline. The result is sad, but poetic and contemplative.

Narrative ideas to get started:

• Create a character and story...depict this visually, telling the story through a sequence of images. Shoot in a way that links the images together in a coherent way.

• Choose or stage a sequence of actions and consequences that are related...show us the before, during and after in a compelling way. Even better, throw in a twist or surprise.

• Illustrate a recent (or current) news event using a fictional or illustrative approach. Instead of photographing the actual events, recreate the event in a compelling or believable way through a sequence of images

• Take a photo every hour for a day...document what you are doing or seeing. Or what someone else is seeing or doing. What stays the same in every photo? What changes?

• Same place different time...photograph the same place, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant

• Same person different time...photograph the same person, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant.

2. Thematic Conceptual Series

Jeffrey Milstein creates a typology of aircraft.

Bernd and Hilla Becher are particularly associated with this mode of art (conceptual typology)

Jeff Brouws  Artists like these are concerned with cataloging and "collecting" with their camera. For instance, Brouws isn't interested in singular train cars, but the almost endless variations between numerous cars. Working with a mode called typology, he creates grids that simultaneously show similarity and contrast.

Idis Khan quite literally quotes Bernd and Hilla Becher's work with industrial architecture, but layers the multiple variations of structures within a single frame instead of a grid.

On more of a documentary, story-telling mode, Lucia Ganieva, creates rich biographical portraits of people relating their persona to their vocation, past, workplace, etc. using diptychs and triptychs. Notice how the frames work together to build meaning.


There is a long history in photography of objectification based on race, gender, stereotypes and notions of the "other". African Americans have been notably objectified in this way, unfortunately. Photographer Myra Greene turns the tables on this history with her clever and effective series: "My White Friends".

Andrew Moore captures how time and economic forces, seemingly beyond our control, can change a city. He depicts decaying structures related to the auto industry in Detroit, to tell a sad story of a city that was once a vibrant and thriving place. Each photograph carries an echo of the past, and is operates very tightly around the central idea. While each image is strong, the work should be considered the whole series, rather than the individual photos.

Denis Darzacq creates images of individuals in ordinary settings that appear to defy gravity. The project gains strength through repetition and variation within this theme.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HonzF8LbLE

Project Description

Choose one:

• Narrative Sequence
• Conceptual Series

Content and concept are important. Think it through.

• Output methods... what you will physically make?
• Letter size physical prints to comprise a sequence or series.
• How much to do? If you are doing a sequence or series, aim for 5-7 printed images. It may depend on your project—discuss with instructor. 
• Keep in mind that this is a multiple week project, so an ambitious level of shooting is expected, to contribute to a strong, final selection of images
• All of your individual photos that go into this project should be edited appropriately in photoshop. This includes the skills covered so far in class: WP/BP, global tone adjustments (brightness and contrast using curves and/or camera raw), color adjustments, local adjustments (dodge and burn, blending mode curves with masks), sharpening. All Raw conversions must be smart objects.
• Jpeg versions: jpeg, quality 10+, sRGB, no longer than 1500 pixels in one direction (use image processor to set this up)

Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due:  3/7

Reading

By Monday, 2/19: Chapters 3 and 4

Assignment 6: Point of view

Point of view is an important narrative device to orient the viewer toward the subject, or activity, depicted in the photograph. It places the viewer in the "scene" with varying degrees of distance, participation or complicity implied. 

The term "point-of-view" comes directly from literary theory, when it is used to describe the relationship between the narrator and the story line. For instance, when the narrator uses the words "I" and "we," they are usually recounting a story in which they were a participant. "I was reading my phone." This is called first-person. 

When they use "he", "she" or "it," they are using a third-person orientation, describing the story from a once-removed perspective. "She was reading her phone." Usually with third person, the information revealed in the story is still limited to what would reasonably be known by someone passing by.

In some cases, much more information is revealed. For example: "While the woman in a pink coat was reading her phone outside the Ferguson Center, a barista in Starbucks knocked over a pitcher of frothed milk. This might be called an omniscient point-of-view, where information is revealed from an privileged all-knowing (or "God's eye") perspective.

Point of view can be explored though many means:

• Distance to subject
• Angle to subject
• Focal length (wide versus zoom)
• Selective focus
• Depth-of-field
• Composition
• Eye contact
• Empathic perspectives (for example, place camera next to subject's head, pointing out, so we witness what the subject sees)

The important question to ask...through who's eyes are we seeing? The subject's? Another participant? A stranger walking by? An all-seeing, all-knowing narrator?

What are the points of view depicted in the examples below? How might this affect the "story" or implied narrative of the photographs?

Due: 2/21

Stage three different scenarios, with a single subject.

• 10-15 images per scenario
• Explore a wide range of view points within these images. Be deliberate... for each image, what point-of-view is being used? Try first, third and omniscient perspectives... see what you discover. 
• Bring files to class. 

Group Critique, Preliminary, Project 1

For critique today we will be working in groups. Group A will critique the individual members of Group B. Group B will critique the individual members of Group C, and so on. Group E will critique Group A members.

The critique group will write responses on a critique sheet for each artist they review. This critique sheet will be given to the artist after the critique, so please write legibly. 

Groups:

A Lauren Bellamy

Alana Guarino

Azad Patel

Hanna Terry Georgia Sheridan

B Aleiah Briggs

Sam Hughes

Lane Pernell

Dana Tokarzewski

C Brooke Carroll

Rhianna Israni

Grant Tolson Jordan Williams

D Caitlin Colditz

Emma Junck

Madison Smith

Paige Torre

E Anna Crain

Anna Lipson

Kali Sturgis

Candace Von Hoffman

Assignment 5: Depth of Field

Deep depth of field. Achieve with small aperture and/or wider angle lens.

Shallow depth of field. Achieve with wide aperture and/or longer (telephoto) lens.

Lens with adjustable aperture 

Typical range f-stops

In class:

Explore depth-of-field using Aperture Priority Mode. 

Nikon: use "A" mode

Canon: use "Av" mode
Other brands: ask instructor

The photographer chooses the aperture and the camera automatically adjusts shutter speed for optimal exposure.

Shoot in fairly bright conditions to ensure adequate exposure, or use higher ISO.

• Find a situation where there is a distinct foreground object and the background is far away.
• Set camera to manual focus.   Focus on the foreground object for all variations. 
• Use a medium-to-long focal length setting. Avoid wide angle. Instead zoom in and step back. 
• Shoot the image three times, varying the apertures. Create at least 3 3-image sets.

1. f4 or wider (f2.8, f1.4 okay)
2. f8
3. f16 or smaller (f22 okay)

Out of Class Shooting (for Monday 2/12) Bring files to class to review and/or share

Choose specific subjects and shoot them with varied depths of field, while maintaining the same composition/framing. Also maintain the same focus on the subject. This means 2-3 variations of the same "shot" but created with a range of apertures to vary the depth of field. Again, shoot on aperture priority.

In the examples below, we see the same subject, focus and framing, but with different depths of field. How does this affect the image? Which do you prefer? Why?

f4.0

f18

Assignment 4, Reading and Response: Chapter 2

For Monday: 2/5

Please read Chapter 2 and prepare the following:

• 1-page (double space) written reflection on 3-5 photographic design principles or visual elements, discussed but the author, and how you might find them useful in your own work
• Please specify the specific strategy by name, such as: "Scale and proportion" or "Symbolism," and please reference the page number from the book.
• Please create and plan to turn in 1-2 photographs of your own that compellingly exemplify each of your chosen design principles or visual elements. Shoot many images, but select your strongest to turn in.

Project 1: Strong images, strong content

©Duke

©Harris

© Craft

© Craft

©Pan

©Pan

©Pan

© Prestage

©Thornton

What is important to you in this world?

Develop a group of images around a concise subject, theme or idea. It will be helpful to be as specific as possible about your subject or idea.

• For instance, if photographing "people," perhaps choose a single person and create an extended group of images, or perhaps create images in a subcategory, such as "activists," "cheerleaders," "smokers," etc.
• If your interest is landscape, or places, consider choosing one place and exploring it thoroughly. Or alternatively, photograph as many variations of a certain category of place as you can find. For example, "back alleys of downtown Tuscaloosa," or "best hidden places on campus to take a nap."
• If you like things, consider setting up an arrangement or still-life of meaningful objects. It can be helpful to do this on a table next to a window or on a porch, where you will have plenty of natural light.
• If working conceptually, perhaps work with something rather open ended, such as "my daily routine," or "image is everything (or not)," or "my life in 5 years," etc.

A collection of haphazard images does not make for a strong project. Intention is important, as well as follow-through and a tight edit/image selection.

Work will be evaluated on:

• Clarity of idea/main subject/theme/concept
• Strength of images (framing, composition, etc.)
• Technical camera skills (sharp focus, solid exposures)
• Photoshop /image editing skills
• Whether project is adequately realized (follow-through)
• Print quality

Due Dates:

Prelim critique: 2/7 (Wednesday)

Final critique: 2/14 (Wednesday)

Please submit:

• 10 strongest images (jpeg, 1200 pixels per side, edits incorporated)
• 1 of the above also as a photoshop file, including all layers, smart object for RAW, global and local adjustments, sharpening, etc.
• 2 prints