Last note

As you should all be aware by now, all grades are due this Thursday. The news was unexpected, so this will be the last post, rather than what was to be your thematic images.

The district already shared with families and students the grading. Of note, everyone in Journalism will be passing the course.  However, the 4th quarter grades will be an incomplete (50-64),  passing (65 to 84) or passing with distinction (85 to 100). 

See you at graduation!

Any questions? Concerns?  Please contact me :)

Journalism week of June 1 to June 5th

Before the parade passes by  ....(anyone get that allusion?)

Dance like no one's watching

June is African American Music Appreciation Month, and what better way to celebrate than with some Aretha? Go ahead and shake that thang: Aretha Franklin

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And now:

At this time, you are responsible for the understanding and identifying the following:
1. composition: rule of thirds, phi grid and Fibonacci spiral
2. how a photographer employs lines, patterns, textures, depth of field (choice as to what is in focus)      and symmetry as a communication tool within a photograph.
3. how camera angles convey dialogue and the relationship that the photographer wishes to communicate with the view
4. identify the horizon line
5. techniques to photograph landscapes, buildings and people / animals.

 Now we are going to look at lighting.  Below you will find general tips on lighting with examples. Take your time and review the following material on light. You are responsible for understanding the impact of the origin (position) and width (broad as opposed to narrow) source of the light and its impact on a subject.

Lucas Ballock : "strawberries"

momento mori phototopgraphy 4:29

Assignment:

1) Watch the two short videos on types of photography

2)  Please respond to the following questions based upon the reading. 

3) After the reading, there are ten images. Select five and explain where the lighting comes from and how it impacts the photo.

Share by Friday midnight or Sunday midnight, if you receive extra time.  Thank you.  Questions? Concerns? Please, let's talk.  Questions:
1. What happens when light rays hit from several directions?
2. Why does the sun cast such a hard light, despite being over   93 million miles away?
3. How do clouds impact the diffusion of light?
4.  So you want to make the those earring  sparkle at the prom.        What do you do?
5. What happens when you move your light source twice as far from your subject?
6. Why might you prefer side lighting when photographing a landscape?
7. What is a back lit portrait, and where is its light source?
8.  What makes a picture have a 3-D look?


1. The broader the light source, the softer the light.
       
A broad light source lessens shadows, reduces contrast, suppresses texture.
This is because, with a broad source, light rays hit your subject from more directions, which tends to fill in shadows and give more even illumination to the scene.

Tip: When photographing people indoors by available light, move lamps closer to them or vice versa for more flattering light.

2. The closer the light source, the softer the light.

The farther the source, the harder the light. This stands to reason: Move a light closer, and you make it bigger—that is, broader—in relation to your subject. Move it farther away, and you make it relatively smaller, and therefore more narrow.

Think about the sun, which is something like 109 times the diameter of the earth—pretty broad! But, at 93 million miles away, it takes up a very small portion of the sky and hence casts very hard light when falling directly on a subject.

Tip: Materials such as translucent plastic or white fabric can be used to diffuse a harsh light source. You can place a diffuser in front of an artificial light, such as a strobe. Or, if you're in bright sun, use a light tent or white scrim to soften the light falling on your subject.

3. Diffusion scatters light, essentially making the light source broader and therefore softer.

When clouds drift in front of the sun, shadows get less distinct. Add fog, and the shadows disappear. Clouds, overcast skies, and fog act as diffusion—something that scatters the light in many directions. On overcast or foggy days, the entire sky, in effect, becomes a single very broad light source—nature’s softbox.

Bouncing light acts as diffusion

Tip: Crumple a big piece of aluminum foil, spread in out again, and wrap it around a piece of cardboard, shiny side out. It makes a good reflector that’s not quite as soft in effect as a matte white surface—great for adding sparkly highlights.

4. The farther the light source, the more it falls off— gets dimmer on your subject.

The rule says that light falls off as the square of the distance. That sounds complicated, but isn’t really. If you move a light twice as far from your subject, you end up with only one-quarter of the light on the subject.

In other words, light gets dim fast when you move it away— something to keep in mind if you’re moving your lights or your subject to change the quality of the light.

Also remember that bouncing light—even into a shiny reflector that keeps light directional— adds to the distance it travels.

Tip: If your subject is front lit by window light, keep the person close to the window to make the room’s back wall fall off in darkness. If you want some illumination on the wall, though, move the person back closer to it and away from the window.

5. .Front lighting de-emphasizes texture; lighting from the side, above, or below emphasizes it.

A portraitist may want to keep the light source close to the axis of the lens to suppress skin wrinkles, while a landscapist may want side lighting to emphasize the texture of rocks, sand, and foliage. Generally, the greater the angle at which the light is positioned to the subject, the more texture is revealed.

Tip: For spark in a back lit portrait or silhouette, try compositions that include the light source. 

6. Side Light

 Side light is light coming from the left or right of the subject. It was used by the masters of painting—Rembrandt used side light in his paintings to give the picture a three dimensional effect. When the light falls on one side of the subject, the other side is in shadow. The shadows are what give the picture a 3D look.

The monk walking past old wooden doors shows how shadow and light can create the contours that make the subject look three-dimensional.

Early mornings and late afternoons are great because the sunlight is more orange; the angle of the light is also more from the side, especially at sunrise and sunset. But also in the hours right after sunrise and the hours just before sunset, the light is not as harsh as in midday.

7. Back Lighting / Shadows create volume!

That’s how photographers describe three dimensionality, the sense of seeing an image as an object in space, not projected on a flat surface.

Again, lighting from the side, above, or below, by casting deeper and longer shadows, creates the sense of volume. Still-life, product, and landscape photographers use angular lighting for this reason.

Back lighting happens when the light source is behind the subject. This means that the light is directly in front of the camera, with the subject in between.

Tip: For spark in a back lit portrait or silhouette, try compositions that include the light source. 

In cases of really bright light behind the subject, like in this shot of colorful spools of thread in by a window, the patterns created by the light and shadow make for an interesting picture. 

Backlight can be used as highly diffused lighting.

Very few subjects are totally back

lit, that is, in pure silhouette, with no light at all falling from the front. A person with his back to a bright window will have light reflected from an opposite wall falling on him. Someone standing outside with her back to bright sunlight will have light falling on her from the open sky in front of her.

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From ten of the following images, select five and identify the origin(s) of the light and specifically how this impacts the message the photographer wishes to convey through the image.  Your descriptions will suffice in my identifying the photo.

                                                                       1

                                                                               2.

                                                                              3

                                                                            4.

5.

                                                                                   6.

7.

8. 

                                                      
                                                                            9.

10.

week of May 25 ekphrastic writing

Ekphrasis, which was created by the ancient Greeks, uses one art form to respond to another, so as to envision the thing described as if it were physically present. In some cases, the subject never really existed, making the ekphrastic description a demonstration of both the creative imagination and the skill of the writer.  

This week's work has two interconnected parts that focus on reading an image. 

Part 1: read the questions on "The Stranger in the Photo is me"; then read the essay and go back to answer the questions. Please note the format of the writing. (participation grade)

Part 2: (writing grade) You will need to find a photo of yourself that was taken at least five years ago. There may be other people in the photo. Make sure to include the photo with your assignment.

Using Murray's photo as an exemplar, take time to study facial expression, the body position and gestures. What is the context? Project yourself back to that moment. Where were in your life? What were your expectations- for the moment?  for the long run? Maybe your long run was only a month away. Compare this to where you are now. This is not a goal oriented essay, as in what would I like to be when I grow up. Ask yourself honestly, who you were then? To make it interesting, use vivid imagery and other figurative language devices such as metaphors or similes. Make the reader connect with this photo, much as Murray did. Careful with the tone. Murray offers no regrets, rather he creates a world into which the reader may step. This should be a minimum of 300 words. Grading:  language conventions / sense / beautifully and articulately expressed. Make this a masterpiece.   Again, don't forget to attach your photo

Please read this essay by Donald Murray and respond to the following questions based upon the reading. Your responses should be fully, fleshed-out, complete sentences that weave in textual evidence. They should demonstrate a level of sophistication that one associates with college level writing. 
Read the questions before the essay.

1. What textual and contextual elements indicate this column's particular audience?


2. Identify what you believe to be Murray's central argument.

3. How does Murray's comment on our "ability to stop time in the way" mesh with the inclusion of the photograph? How does the comment deepen our understanding of his argument?

4. Examine the photograph. How does the presence of the photograph itself contribute to Murray's effort to communicate? How, if at all, would the absence of the photograph change the essay's argument?

5. Speculate how would the absence of a caption alter your reading of or response to the essay?

6. Respond: how would replacing the existing caption with each of the following captions affect your reading?
a. "Paratrooper Donald M. Murray, 1944"
b. "The Stranger in England, 1944"
c. "A soldier in rakish disregard..."

The Stranger in the Photo Is Me by Donald M. Murray

I was never one to make a big deal over snapshots; I never spent long evenings with the family photograph album. Let’s get on with the living. To heck with yesterday, what are we going to do tomorrow? But with the accumulation of yesterdays and the possibility of shrinking tomorrows, I find myself returning, as I suspect many over 60s do, for a second glance and a third at family photos that
snatch a moment from time.

In looking at mine, I become aware that it is so recent in the stretch of man’s history that we have been able to stop time in this way and hold still for reflection. Vermeer is one of my favorite painters because of that sense of suspended time, with both clock and calendar held so wonderfully, so terribly
still.

The people in the snapshots are all strangers. My parents young, caught before I arrived or as they were when I saw them as towering grown-ups. They seemed so old then and so young now. And I am,to me, the strangest of all.

There is a photograph of me on a tricycle before the duplex on Grand View Avenue in Wollaston I hardly remember; in another I am dressed in a seersucker sailor suit when I was 5 and lived in a Cincinnati hotel. I cannot remember the suit but even now, studying the snapshot, I am drunk on the memory of its peculiar odor and time is erased.

In the snapshots I pass from chubby to skinny and, unfortunately, ended up a chub. Looking at the grown-ups in the snapshots I should have known. In other snapshots, I am cowboy, pilot, Indian chief; I loved to dress up to become what I was not, and suspect I still am a wearer of masks and costumes.

It would be socially appropriate to report on this day that I contemplate all those who are gone, but the truth is that my eyes are drawn back to pictures of my stranger self.And the picture that haunts me the most is one not in costume but in the uniform I proudly earned in World War II. I believe it was taken in England from the design of the barracks behind me. I have taken off the ugly steel-framed GI glasses, a touch of dishonesty for the girl who waited at home.
My overseas cap with its airborne insignia is tugged down over my right eye, my right shoulder in the jump jacket is lower because I have my left hand in my pocket in rakish disregard for the regulation that a soldier in that war could never, ever stick a hand in a pocket.

The pockets that are empty in the photograph will soon bulge with hand grenades, extra ammunition,food, and many of the gross of condoms we were issued before a combat jump. This GI item was more a matter of industrial merchandising than soldierly dreaming—or frontline reality.The soldier smiles as if he knew his innocence and is both eager for its loss and nostalgic for those few years of naiveté behind him.

I try once more to enter the photograph and become what I was that day when autumn sunlight dappled the barracks wall and I was so eager to experience the combat my father wanted so much for me. He had never made it to the trenches over there in his war. When that photograph was taken, my father still had dreams of merchandising glory, of a store with an awning that read Murray & Son. I had not yet become the person who had to nod yes at MGh when my father asked if he had cancer, to make the decision against extraordinary means after his last heart attack. When this photo was taken, he had not yet grown old, his collars large, his step hesitant, his shoes unshined.

Mother was still alive, and her mother who really raised me had not died as I was to learn in a letter I received at the front. The girl who wrote every day and for whom the photo was taken had not yet become my wife, and we had not yet been the first in our families to divorce two years later.I had not yet seen my first dead soldier, had not yet felt the earth beneath me become a trampoline as the shells of a rolling barrage marched across our position.

I had no idea my life would become as wonderful or as terrible as it has been; that I would remarry,have three daughters and outlive one. I could not have imagined that I actually would be able to become a writer and eat—even overeat. I simply cannot re-create my snapshot innocence.I had not had an easy or happy childhood, I had done well at work but not at school; I was not Mr. Pollyanna, but life has been worse and far better than I could have imagined.

Over 60 we are fascinated by the mystery of our life, why roads were taken and not taken, and our children encourage this as they develop a sense of family history. A daughter discovers a letter from the soldier in the photograph in England and another written less than a year later, on V-E day. She is surprised at how much I have aged. I am not.I would not wish for a child or grandchild of mine to undergo the blood test of war my father so hoped I would face as he had not. In photos taken not so many years later I have a streak of white hair. It is probably genetic but I imagine it is the shadow of a bullet that barely passed me by, and I find I cannot enter the snapshot of the smiling soldier who is still stranger to me, still innocent of the heroic harm man can deliver to man.

—The Boston Globe

week of Monday,May 18- Friday, May 22

Assignments for the week:

1)  Read "An Introduction to Photography in the Early 20th Century and respond to the questions.

2) three new terms (over-the-shoulder, low angle and high angle. Submitting 6 images, demonstrating your understanding.

3) Photographing people tips and practice.

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Last week we looked at some 19th century background work; now we are moving into the 20th century.

An Introduction to Photography in the Early 20th Century

Photography undergoes extraordinary changes in the early part of the twentieth century. This can be said of every other type of visual representation, however, but unique to photography is the transformed perception of the medium. In order to understand this change in perception and use—why photography appealed to artists by the early 1900s, and how it was incorporated into artistic practices by the 1920s—we need to start by looking back.

Eastman Kodak Advertisement for the Brownie Camera, c. 1900

In the later nineteenth century, photography spread in its popularity, and inventions like the Kodak #1 camera (1888) made it accessible to the upper-middle class consumer; the Kodak Brownie camera, which cost far less, reached the middle class by 1900.

In the sciences (and pseudo-sciences), photographs gained credibility as objective evidence because they could document people, places, and events. Photographers like Eadweard Muybridge created portfolios of photographs to measure human and animal locomotion. His celebrated images recorded incremental stages of movement too rapid for the human eye to observe, and his work fulfilled the camera’s promise to enhance, or even create new forms of scientific study.

Eadweard Muybridge,Thoroughbred bay mare "Annie G." galloping, Human and Animal Locomotion, plate 626, 1887

In the arts, the medium was valued for its replication of exact details, and for its reproduction of artworks for publication. But photographers struggled for artistic recognition throughout the century. It was not until in Paris’s Universal Exposition of 1859, twenty years after the invention of the medium, that photography and “art” (painting, engraving, and sculpture) were displayed next to one another for the first time; separate entrances to each exhibition space, however, preserved a physical and symbolic distinction between the two groups. After all, photographs are mechanically reproduced images: Kodak’s marketing strategy (“You press the button, we do the rest,”) points directly to the “effortlessness” of the medium.

Since art was deemed the product of imagination, skill, and craft, how could a photograph (made with an instrument and light-sensitive chemicals instead of brush and paint) ever be considered its equivalent? And if its purpose was to reproduce details precisely, and from nature, how could photographs be acceptable if negatives were “manipulated,” or if photographs were retouched? Because of these questions, amateur photographers formed casual groups and official societies to challenge such conceptions of the medium. They—along with elite art world figures like Alfred Stieglitz—promoted the late nineteenth-century style of “art photography,” and produced low-contrast, warm-toned images like The Terminal that highlighted the medium’s potential for originality.

Alfred Stieglitz, The Terminal, photogravure, 1892

Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning, 1912, oil, oilcloth and pasted paper on canvas with rope frame, 10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 35 cm.) (Musée Picasso, Paris)

So what transforms the perception of photography in the early twentieth century? Social and cultural change—on a massive, unprecedented scale.Like everyone else, artists were radically affected by industrialization, political revolution, trench warfare, airplanes, talking motion pictures, radios, automobiles, and much more—and they wanted to create art that was as radical and “new” as modern life itself.

If we consider the work of the Cubists and

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, 1919-1920, collage, mixed media,90 x 144cm (Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin)

Futurists, we often think of their works in terms of simultaneity and speed, destruction and reconstruction. Dadaists, too, challenged the boundaries of traditional art with performances, poetry, installations, and photomontage that use the materials of everyday culture instead of paint, ink, canvas, or bronze.

By the early 1920s, technology becomes a vehicle of progress and change, and instills hope in many after the devastations of World War I. For avant-garde (“ahead of the crowd”) artists, photography becomes incredibly appealing for its associations with technology, the everyday, and science—precisely the reasons it was denigrated a half-century earlier. The camera’s technology of mechanical reproduction made it the fastest, most modern, and arguably, the most relevant form of visual representation in the post-WWI era. Photography, then, seemed to offer more than a new method of image-making—it offered the chance to change paradigms of vision and representation.

August Sander, Disabled Man, 1926 (Left); Pastry Chef, 1928 (Center); Secretary at a Radio Station, Cologne, 1931 (Right)

With August Sander’s portraits such as Disabled Man, Pastry Chef, or Secretary at a Radio Station, Cologne, we see an artist attempting to document—systematically—modern types of people, as a means to understand changing notions of class, race, profession, ethnicity, and other constructs of identity. Sander transforms the practice of portraiture with these sensational, arresting images. These figures reveal as much about the German professions as they do about self-image.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, 1932

Cartier-Bresson’s leaping figure in Behind the Gare St. Lazare reflects the potential for photography to capture individual moments in time—to freeze them, hold them, and recreate them. Because of his approach, Cartier-Bresson is often considered a pioneer of photojournalism. This sense of spontaneity, of accuracy, and of the ephemeral corresponded to the racing tempo of modern culture (think of factories, cars, trains, and the rapid pace of people in growing urban centers).

Umbo (Otto Umbehr), The Roving Reporter, photomontage, 1926

Umbo’s photomontage The Roving Reporter shows how modern technologies transform our perception of the world—and our ability to communicate within it. His camera-eyed, colossal observer (a real-life journalist named Egon Erwin Kisch) demonstrates photography’s ability to alter and enhance the senses. In the early twentieth-century, this medium offered a potentially transformative vision for artists, who sought new ways to see, represent, and understand the rapidly changing world around them.

Essay by Dr. Juliana Kreinik

Questions relating to the above material.

1. What was the importance of the Kodak 1 camera of 1888 and the Brownie of 1900?

2. Why did photographs gain credibility?

3.What was the conflict between art and photography?

4. What were some of the social and political changes that affected artists and photographers?

5. How was portrait photography used to systematically used to document people?

6. Why is Henri Cartier-Bresson considered a "pioneer of photojournalism"?

7. Look at Umbo's Roving Reporter. In what ways, has the reporter linked to his environment?  Respond in full sentences and specifics from the image. 

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Assignment 2:  

At this point you should be familiar with the following: rule of thirds, phi grid, Fibonacci spiral, texture, symmetry, depth of field, lines and patterns.

Our new terms are over-the-shoulder shot, low angle and high angle shots.  

Read / Look carefully at the examples and take demonstrate your understanding with two of your own examples; that is 2 over-the-shoulder shots, two low angle shots and two high angle shots.

The over-the-shoulder shot

over the shoulder shot (also over shoulder OTS, or third-person shot) is a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person.

The low angle shot

 The low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. Sometimes, it is even directly below the subject's feet. Psychologically, the effect of the low-angle shot is that it makes the subject look strong and powerful.

The high angle shot

A high-angle shot is a  technique where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle and the point of focus often gets "swallowed up." High-angle shots can make the subject seem vulnerable or powerless when applied with the correct mood, setting, and effects.

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Assignment 3: Read and look carefully below at the some of the techniques used to take pictures of people. 

To demonstrate your understanding, take 6 pictures. Under each write a sentence or two that explains what photography tip you were employing and to whether you think the your goal was successful.

SOME HOW TOs

                 People and Portrait Photography Tips

People pictures fall into two categories: portraits and candid. Either can be made with or without your subject's awareness and cooperation.

However near or far your subject, however intimate or distant the gaze your camera casts, you always need to keep in mind the elements of composition and the technique that will best help you communicate what you are trying to say.

1. Get Closer

The most common mistake made by photographers is that they are not physically close enough to their subjects. In some cases this means that the center of interest—the subject—is just a speck, too small to have any impact. Even when it is big enough to be decipherable, it usually carries little meaning. Viewers can sense when a subject is small because it was supposed to be and when it's small because the photographer was too shy to get close.

2. Settings—The Other Subject

The settings in which you make pictures of people are important because they add to the viewer's understanding of your subject. The room in which a person lives or works, their house, the city street they walk, the place in which they seek relaxation—whatever it is, the setting provides information about people and tells us something about their lives. Seek balance between subject and environment. Include enough of the setting to aid your image, but not so much that the subject is lost in it.

3. Candids: Being Unobtrusive

   You may want to make photographs of people going about their business—vendors in a market, a crowd at a sports event, the line at a theater. You don't want them to appear aware of the camera. Many times people will see you, then ignore you because they have to concentrate on what they are doing. You want the viewers of the image to feel that they are getting an unguarded, fly-on-the-wall glimpse into the scene.

There are several ways to be unobtrusive. The first thing, of course, is to determine what you want to photograph. Perhaps you see a stall in a market that is particularly colorful, a park bench in a beautiful setting—whatever has attracted you. Find a place to sit or stand that gives you a good view of the scene, take up residence there, and wait for the elements to come together in a way that will make your image.

If you're using a long lens and are some distance from your subject, it will probably be a while before the people in the scene notice you. You should be able to compose your image and get your shot before this happens. When they do notice you, smile and wave. There's a difference between being unobtrusive and unfriendly. Another way to be unobtrusive is to be there long enough so that people stop paying attention to you. If you are sitting at a café order some coffee and wait. As other patrons become engrossed in conversations or the paper, calmly lift the camera to your eye and make your exposure. 

4. Shoot from their eye level or higher, and at an angle

 For the most flattering set-up, shoot at their same eye level or above. Taking pictures of someone straight on is both unflattering and uninteresting. Asking them to twist at the waist, shoulders, or neck and not face their body square-on, but rather follow their face’s direction will not only be much more forgiving to any subject. Every single human has one eye that is smaller than the other.