Anti-digital

Hey gang,

Look what you can do with me next year! Well, technically it'll be in 2011, because you'll get to play with these cool blue photos during spring of your junior year. This is shot with a 4x10 film camera and printed as a Cyanotype.

Final Blog Entry - Self Evaluation

Hey guys,

First of all I want to say again, a big thank-you for all of the hard work you have done for me this year. I really appreciate it. I have seen you all grow in ways beyond photography and the scope of this class, and I am happy and proud to have been around to see it.

I want you all to do a little looking back over the course of this year and pause for some self-evaluation. I want you to all write a few paragraphs about what you learned this year with me. I want you to NOT write about technology or cameras or Lightroom or blogging or printing. I want you to write about how your vision changed. How are you a different photographer today than you were at the beginning of the year. It might help to scroll back through your own blogs and look back at your early work.

I look forward to reading and sharing your responses with my colleagues.

Thanks again!

Thank-You!

Hey guys,

I have been going through ALL of your blogs, from last year and this year preparing a presentation about student work here at Waterford.

One thing I have realized over and over is that you guys have kicked some serious ass over the past two years. Your work is very strong, the concepts are brilliant at times and the execution is consistently excellent.

So, I just wanted to say 'thank you' for being receptive to the concepts and techniques I have shared with you. Also a big THANK YOU for being willing to push yourselves and try things that are hard. Yeah, the rest of the world thinks that this is 'just photo', but you guys know better. Your photos aren't just 'pictures'...they are something better. Much better.

I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Let's finish the time we have together off strongly. I know you have it in you to do some amazing work. I know it because I have just seen it.

Another Multi-Row Panorama

This is one shot with 13 images. I played a bit of a trick on the software putting this one together, but it worked pretty well.



Nada's Creche, 2009

Multi-Row Panoramas

So I have shot a few multi-row panoramas, two were shot yesterday. The one of my mom is kind of fun b/c it's an angle that I haven't seen done of her before. The one of the creche in Brigham City worked really well, it's 15 shots and about 3 rows of images.



Mom Singing Christmas Carols At The Steinway, 2009



Detail Of Creche At Brigham City Tabernacle, 2009

Final Project

Your Final Project will consist of a portfolio of 10 (ten) related images. They have to relate to each other in a consistent theme. They don't always have to tell a story, but could be related by angle, subject matter, tonality (high-key/low-key), light, texture, etc... The individual images should tell me a story, but if the final ten images don't tell a continuous story, they should relate to each other in a different way.

I want you to post all ten of the images to your blog, do some writing about your portfolio and things that you feel you succeeded at, things you think you could have done better and write about the imagery itself. Tell me why you shot what you did, and how you went about it.

I want you to print all ten of your images as well. The prints are DUE at the beginning of the second-to-last class period that we will meet. We will spend two full class periods discussing everyone's work. I want to have EVERYONE turn in ALL of their prints at the same time. The lab will be closed for printing and image manipulation at that time. You can continue to blog, but I will shut down the server and no further work on prints or images may be done.

You also will need to turn in your camera at that time and any other materials that belong to the school. The memory card and your box of paper is your property. Keep track of it, you will use them next year.

If you still don't have a final project idea you should be thinking very hard what you want to do it on. Feel free to e-mail me about some ideas you may be having.

Good luck, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

Winter Formal - Gallery

Ok kids, so I know that many of you are dying to see the pics from the dance...

HERE THEY ARE.

Panoramas - Don't forget to focus!

Here's one I shot last night at the Winter Formal. I focused on the far lights, didn't stop down very much (the exposure was six-seconds long as it was...), and realized when I looked at it later that I should have TAKEN MORE TIME to focus when I was shooting.



Waterford Winter Formal, 2009

Panoramas - some lessons

So I've been shooting these stitched panoramas for a long time...about nine years in fact. There are a few things I've learned. One of them is that it really is important to have a definite beginning, middle and an end. If they just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on...it's hard to look at them. Kind of like it was hard to read that last sentence. Give the viewer a chance to pause within the pano, read the story that is being told, linger a little bit in the frame, move through the frame and then find the end of the story.

Keep in mind my whole analogy of the panorama equaling a written story. Give me a strong beginning, let the story develop and give me a strong ending. These parts of the story work well in writing, and they work equally well in the panorama photograph. If there is no definite end to the story then maybe it's not such a good photograph. Remember, a panorama that doesn't have a visual ending is just another boring photograph that happens to be long and skinny.

Here is my 'Creche-a-Day' blog. It is made up mostly of panoramas. The ones that are stitched with the black border will be easy to spot. A few I cropped square and clean and they might be hard to tell if they're a pano or not. A few are just one-shot images, but most of them are not.

Take a look at the panos and find the ones that work. Find the ones that don't...there are many. The neat thing about this project is that I was basically forced to show everything I was doing. I had to show an image every day, even if it wasn't the best. A few of the images I really REALLY like a lot. Most of them are just interesting and a few of them just plain suck. It's easy to see looking back at them.

Here is the shot I did on Sunday. I think it was five shots...maybe six or seven if we count that double-exposure that got blended.



Creche In Reflecting Pond With Temple, 2009

If you haven't looked at the site that I suggested earlier, look at it again. This is a good example of a lot of panoramas shot of different subjects in different ways.

Wide Views Panorama Exhibit

There is also this cool website from The International Association of Panoramic Photographers.

You will want to shoot a wide variety of scenes for this assignment. You may even consider shooting something new every night after school. This is where the practice really pays off. The repetition will pay off...TRUST ME! Oh and remember that four prints are due on December 11th.

Please, PLEASE do not procrastinate this assignment. It's already getting late on this one.

Panoramas - Due Date

Both blocks are DUE on THURSDAY, December 17th.

Both blocks have to put FOUR panoramas on their blogs.

Two of the panoramas will be vertical.

Two of the panoramas will be horizontal.

Both blocks will print out TWO panoramas.

One of the panoramas will be vertical.

One of the panoramas will be horizontal.

IF THERE ARE ANY THAT ARE GOOD, I will print them out large and hang them in the hall.

Tree of Utah #2

On I-80 at mile-marker 36 is this little tree. I went out this morning at 5am to take this photograph. I got there about 30 minutes before the sun cleared the horizon. This image was made about 10 minutes before sunrise. This is the sweet light. I hope you have all seen it by now.



Tree Of Utah #2, Near Wendover, Utah, 2009

Kodachrome

Watch this. It is an interesting story about a type of film that is going extinct.

Click here.

JOBO ATL-3

Look what I got this week!

JOBO ATL-3 testing from Michael Slade on Vimeo.

You'll understand how cool this thing is once you start shooting color and large-format next year. For now, the Juniors and Seniors get to play with the new droid.

Photos From Mars

Take a look at these shots. They are amazing!

Link to article in the Boston Globe.

Today's Shot

Shooting With 11x14, Near Stansbury Island, Great Salt Lake, 2009

Panorama - A Worthy Subject

Here's opening night at the In-N-Out Burger in Draper.

There was some 'camera drift', but I'm OK with that.



Opening Night, In-N-Out Burger, Draper, Utah. 2009

So you think my assignments were hard?

Watch this!

Thanksgiving Challenge - Extra Credit

Pretend you are photographing a big assignment for Gourmet Magazine. Photograph the creation and finished product of your Thanksgiving Feast. Concentrate on LIGHT, getting focus SHARP, good tight composition, and last but not least, TELL ME A STORY. Shoot the people making the food, some portraits of the cook/chef would be nice.

This should be FUN for both you and the people that you are photographing. If you get in the way and are making things worse for everyone, consider backing off and shooting the wide shot. Also consider *HELPING* a little bit. It will go a long way to making those people who are actually *making* the dinner happy with you.

Also, a nice image of the table with all the food spread out, the family in their holiday finery preparing to chow-down would be fun.

Good luck and don't get too sick!

Mini-Final

Put your favorite six images on the blog.

Write something about each image. Why is it your favorite? What worked well? What would you change if you could?

This needs to be on your blog by the end of classes on Tuesday.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving vacation. Remember to give thanks.

Assignment #6 - Portraits

From Wikipedia (yeah, a terrible source, but I liked the definition...)

Portrait:

"A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer."



Three rules to this assignment.

Rule #1: NO MYSPACE PHOTOS - I think you all know what this means. You've seen 'em, you've taken 'em, I don't want 'em.

Rule #2: You need to shoot at least three separate people.

Rule #3: One of those three people MUST be yourself...but, you can't BE yourself...

Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.



Here is a link to the National Portrait Gallery. You will get a lot of good ideas here from paintings, sculpture and photography.

National Portrait Gallery

Here is one of my favorite portrait photographers...Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon Portrait Gallery

Hiroshi Watanabe's gallery has a few sections of portraits that are interesting.

August Sander was a German photographer who made portraits of farmers and working class people near Cologne prior to World War II. After the Nazi's gained power, Sander continued to shoot the people in his city, many of them shown in Nazi military uniforms. Sander's portraits provide possibly the widest cross-section of Germans during that time.

Here is a self-portrait of me as Abraham Lincoln.



Due on Tuesday, November 17th.

C Block: 10 on blog, 5 prints

Z Block: 8 on blog, 4 prints