Final Portfolio

Please submit the following for your final portfolio:

Due: 4/30 (5pm) at the latest. This is Wednesday of Exam Week. Earlier is fine. 

JPEG, DROP-BOX:
1600x1600 pixels, quality:12, sRGB

20 images total, pulled from the following. Examples from all listed below should be represented in your final selection

Various shooting exercises (composition, depth of field, motion, signs, etc.)
Project 1: Subject Matter
Project 2: Photo Extended
Project 3: Uncanny Encounter
Project 4: Open

When making choices, prioritize the strongest images. It is okay to have more images from one project/assignment than another. You may also include images that have not "fit" a specific assignment, provided they were shot for this course. But please make sure that projects and exercises are decently represented.

Optional, extra credit, for free large-format prints:

Files Due on Server: 4/24

2 files to generate 16x20 prints. Should be strongest images from portfolio. Files should be optimized for printing (correct size, resolution, color, brightness, enlargement techniques, sharpening). Please flatten print files! Grade will be based on quality of print files. There will be a folder on the server.

Open Project

Create a group of photographs that is coherent (the images are clearly part of a group) of a consistent theme or idea. The content, idea or concept is completely up to you, but should be ambitious. Another option is to repeat or extend a prior project (with new images) in a substantive way. Seek out instructor for clarification.

Preliminary critique: Thursday, 4/24
Final Image Due: Wednesday 4/30, 5pm on server

An Uncanny Encounter

Due Dates:

• White Screen production shoot: Tuesday 4/8
• Preliminary critique Thursday 4/17
• Final critique Thursday 4/24; Image file for printing due Tuesday 4/22

©Loretta Lux

©Kelli Connell

The Uncanny:

Something that is both familiar and foreign at the same time. The uncanny usually rings in a subtle, psychological way. Some common tropes of the uncanny include: doubles, living dolls, mannequins, wax works, ventriloquists, etc. How is the line between fantasy—reality blurred? How do old hauntings challenge the adult natural order?

For this project, create an image where a character of your own creation faces an uncanny encounter.

Within that theme, anything goes. There's lot's of latitude for creative interpretation. 

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

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

1. At least 16" x 20" @300 dpi. All component pieces should be at adequate resolution
2. At least one of the main subjects should be shot with white screen techniques
3. 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.
4. The finished image should present a "believably uncanny" reality. 
5. Turn in files and large format print

Loretta Lux

Wendy McMurdo

Kelli Connell

Cornelia Hediger

Gillian Wearing

Gregory Crewdson
Grace Weston

AES+F

Bill Finger

Patrick Nagatani

Sarah Anne Johnson

Student Work:

The Photo Extended

Project Description

Reading: Chapters 7, 8, 10

Prelim critique: 3/11
Printing schedule: A good idea to have files ready to print by 3/18

Final Critique: 3/20

For this project, create imagery in an extended format that engages a strong concept.

Possible formats may include digital books, sequences, series, grids, diptychs, triptychs, etc. Choose one format for the whole project to best explore your subject and what else you are trying to convey about the subject. Use examples presented above as well as ideas from the book, or even use the class exercise exploring congruency/incongruency to help you get started. This is a fun one—the more adventurous you can be with your subject matter, the more exciting it will be.

Turn in:

Now remember that when you are assembling your multiples (grids, diptychs or otherwise), save out flattened versions of your work files just to keep things manageable. But make sure you are not losing your layers; after flattening, always "Save As," rather than "Save"

• For series and sequence, a digital book can be a nice format. Digital books from blurb or Apple would represent your final prints

• For grids and multiple images, generate large prints from one file that includes all the supporting images. If you are doing a grid, this would mean one file depicting the grid. For diptychs, this would mean building one file that contains two images, like the class exercise. 

• Jpeg versions: jpeg, quality 10+, sRGB, no longer than 1500 pixels in one direction (use image processor to set this up)

• How much to do? If you are doing diptychs or triptychs, turn in at least 3 separate ones. If you are doing a large grid, one would be fine. It depends on your project—discuss with instructor. If you are doing a series, aim for 8-12 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.

Background

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 telling what came before or after, or for that matter, what else was going on at that time. 

There's value in all this—but sometimes we need more than one frame.

What happens if an artistic expression is not limited to a single frame? Sometimes we need multiple images, multiple frames to convey the breadth and richness of our visual story. What happens if we build a larger work of art from multiple photographs? 

Here are some possible models for this process:

Sequence

Duane Michals used extended sequence of images to convey complex and (often amusing) narratives. Some of these visual story lines went in a straight line, sometimes they made bizarre spirals.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDY4d-HqWKk

Thematic Conceptual Series

Bill Finger creates cinematic stories from photographs of constructed, miniature dioramas. Walkng the line between reality and fiction, these stories convey ideas about the process of memory, our trust in photography, and collective social fictions.

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

Multiples (diptych, triptych, etc.)

The synonym/antonym exercise is a good example of this kind of work.

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.

Uta Barth is a photographer of place. Instead of creating visual descriptions of places, like a traditional landscape photographer would do, she is more interested in evoking or suggesting how we experience places. Often working with multiple frames, she changes the scale, plane of focus (in some she focuses on the "space between" foreground and background), in an attempt to more closely mimic the process of human perception, as well as the passage of time.

Typology

Jeffrey Milstein creates a typology of aircraft.

Bernd and Hilla Becher are particularly associated with this mode of art

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.

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. Photographer Myra Greene turns the tables on this history with her clever and effective series: "My White Friends".

Grids

Sparky Campanella makes non-tradition portraits of people by mapping the textures of their skin and displaying them as large grids. What are the implications of this work—portraits that are literally "skin deep"?

Keith Johnson now works almost exclusively with grids, exploring the hidden language of forms found in the natural and human landscape.

Joiners, many-make-one, panoramas

Susan Bowen implies what we might see over the course of a long walk...the visual wanderings of our curious eye. She uses plastic cameras, only partially advancing the film between exposures to create one long, continuous flow of visual stimulation.

Robert Richfield has an interesting take on the panorama. Instead of stitching together a seamless expanse, he presents it with the frame divisions. How does this affect the meaning of his work and how we "read" it?

For examples of Contact Sheet Sequences, look at Thomas Kellner.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6RxES1iJxg

Essentially these are a form of what the book author terms joiners, or many-make-one, extended images that functions like fragmented panoramas both vertically and horizontally. David Hockney is well known for working this way. The following images, by Hockney, show some variations of this approach. How do they differ?

This last Hockney image begins to imply the passage of time—in particular, the time it takes to shift one's gaze, looking around a room, or having a conversation. Uta Barth, mentioned above, also references the time we take to experience and perceive reality, often working with diptychs that reveal a few minutes' difference in time.

Atta Kim compresses different moments of time within a singular frame, using extended exposures. Something similar can be accomplished with multiple exposures and layers.

Margaret Hiden is explores how family histories can be told through narratives that blend the past and present to form richer tapestry of telling. Here, images function much like memory... where our present is continually colored by the echos of the past.

Michael Taylor explores how light and time relate, creatine some very interesting abstracted imagery.

Directorial Mode

Kelly c. Tate and Kelli Connell are both artists that explore the dynamics of human relationships and interpersonal communication. In Tate's work, the artist plays the roles of the subjects depicted, while Connell uses a friend. The final images are staged digital composites that suggest narrative while engaging social questions. When images are staged for the camera, this is referred to as directorial mode... the photographer directs the scene like a director would do on a movie set. This of course all began with Cindy Sherman...

There are others. Check out those from the reading, this blog, and other sources:

Some Student Work:

Controlling Motion

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?

Using shutter priority. 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
• 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.
• Try a very long shutter speed to create overall blur.
• Track a moving subject across a background, with 1/2 to 1 second exposure, creating a PAN shot

Reading

Thursday 2/13

Read Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Prepare discussion points for the following:

Chapter 1: From the history of photography described by the author, please choose a historic "movement" or approach to the medium that personally resonates with you. Be able to explain how this is pertinent to you as a photographer. Where might you go with this inspiration?

Chapter 2: Read pages 18-30. Pick at least 2 question/answer combinations that you resonate with the most (in a positive way). Then pick 1-2 that you agree less with. Be prepared to discuss your reasoning in class.

Chapter 3: Generate 1-2 points about camera technology from the reading that you found intriguing, or have a question about.

The whole book: Pick one example from all the photographs in the book that particularly inspires you. Note the name of the photographer and the page(s) on which they appear.

Project 1

Project 1: Images of a theme, idea or single subject

Using your continually developing skills as a photographer, create a concise group of images closely related to a subject/theme/idea. The images should be well exposed, well composed, well selected, and properly processed in Photoshop. Plan to turn in a group of 8 images from the many that you shoot.

Due dates:

2/13(Thursday), preliminary critique

2/20 (Thursday), final critique

Plan to turn in:

• 8 files, processed (using image processor) to 1200 pixels by the longest side, jpeg quality 10 or higher
• 2 of the above images as LAYERED photoshop files, 1200 pixels by the longest side, to demonstrate photoshop skills 
• Please keep (archive) the full resolution, layered photoshop files for future use and printing.

Project 1: Meaningful Subject Matter

For your first project, please choose a specific subject or concept for the whole project. This can be anything ranging from portraits, sacred personal objects to landscape, to some sort of idea, such as "rampant consumerism" or "things that scare me"

Its up to you, but do settle on one subject that is compelling enough to sustain you—no changing ideas once you start!

For Tuesday 1/28, be prepared to discus your idea.

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.

In class:

Explore depth-of-field using Aperture Priority Mode. 

Nikon: use "A" mode

Canon: use "Av" mode

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. Create a photograph where there is a distinct foreground object and the background is fairly far away.  Focus on the foreground object, and maintain this focal placement. Shoot the image three times, varying the apertures. Create at least 3 3-image sets.

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

Shooting (for Tuesday 1/28)

Chose specific subjects and shoot them with widely varied depths of field, while maintaining the same composition/framing. 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 and the same framing, but with different depths of field. How does this affect the image? Which do you prefer? Why?

f4.0

f18

Assignment 2: "4x4"

Shoot for 1/21

This is a classic photography exercise, intended to encourage the creation of images that have some sort of relationship to each other. This relationship may be defined by mere proximity or it could be some sort of visual narrative or journey.

Imagine a 4 foot by 4 foot box on the ground, drawn with invisible chalk that only you can see. Place this box somewhere in the world...your backyard, the Target parking lot, a park, on campus, the woods, a cemetery...anywhere you are inclined to venture. It will be best if it is outside, so you have plenty of light, but a very bright interior might work. Stand in the middle of your box and create as many pictures as you can. Do not leave your box when photographing. Point the camera up, down, out, wherever. Notice what catches your eye and pursue it, visually. Zoom in, zoom out.  Try different framings—get radical! The more you look the more you will find.

Shoot RAW, if possible. ISO 400 recommended. Shoot shutter priority, with a shutter speed of at least 1/60th second. Make sure pictures are sharply focused.

In class 1/21

From the large group of photographs generated, create a visual narrative consisting of at least six images. The narrative should make sense in some way—create some kind of internal logic or justification.

Assignment 1: Zero in on subject

Assignment 1

Due: Tuesday 2/14, bring files to class

Rules of the Game: 

• Natural light (window or outside)
• No flash (so please use plenty of light)
• Shoot JPEG (Large File, Highest Quality) or RAW
• Auto Exposure and Auto Focus is okay for now
• Shoot 50-100 images
• No camera phones (for now)—use a proper camera

Pick one subject, say a specific person, place or thing. Shoot that one subject for the whole assignment. How many different ways can you shoot it? Vary angle, background, lighting, (very) close-up/middle/far, composition...anything you can think of to create as much variety as possible. Again, do not change subject...just change the way you see and photograph the subject.

Welcome

Please follow or join this page to keep up with information pertinent to the course, such as assignment descriptions, projects and due dates. Use it as a resource for information and inspiration. Please make comments or suggestions as you see fit.

Student Work, Recent Years

(Image: Culberson)

(Image: Dublin)

(Image: Thornton)

 (Image: Busby)

(Image: Culberson)

(Image: Kerr)

(Images: Taylor)

(Image: Rogers)

(Image: Loggins)

(Image: Marguerite Gray)

(Image: Anne Masline)

(Image: Hayden Sloan)

(Image: Heather Orlando)

(Image: Busby)