2/23/09

SPRING '09 WEEK #05


photo by THOMAS E. FRANKLIN / The Record
LOCATION LIGHTING. How was this photo lit and made to look like this?

TODAY'S AGENDA
1. Photos of the week, MSNBC
2. Let's look, ASSIGNMENT #4, Composition
3. History of Photojournalism: The F.S.A., Dorothea Lange, & the Migrant Mother
4. Lesson; Covering a live assignment
5. Lesson; LIGHT part I
6. ASSIGNMENT #5; Lighting
7. ASSIGNMENT #6; Covering a Live Event
8. Photo essay; "Final Salute," -by Todd Heisler, Rocky Mt. News

MISC
EXAM:March 31st. Mark it down now, no make-up exams will be given.
REMINDER: Attendance for this class is required, two absences max, as per college policy.
REMINDER: Please slug and caption your photos correctly, do not be careless
-it's costing many of you valuable grade points.
REMINDER: Class starts at 9:45, work needs to be done before class starts.

2/22/09

SPRING '09 ASSIGMENT #03; Live Event

ASSIGNMENT #06
(Due Monday MARCH 9 –two weeks)
Live Event (Multiple Pictures)

Cover a Live Event / Multiple Pictures
Select a scheduled public event and photograph all aspects of the event in the form of a photo essay. Be sure to shoot various scenes, including overalls and details, and illustrate what the event is about. Get photos of all the important people and subject matter.
Select a carefully chosen event to shoot, thus you have two weeks to plan.

Suggestions; news event, parade, protest, performance, etc.

Do not shoot a sporting event, a press conference, fair, etc.. Check newspaper, campus fliers, and magazine listings for a schedule of events in your area.

Select an event that will be visual, not something static like someone standing at a podium talking. Think of some of the work reviewed in class. Your event selection is key, give it some thought and planning.

Be prepared to use your flash if necessary. Keep in mind some of the elements of good composition, avoiding; cluttered and distracting backgrounds, objects appearing behind heads, dead space, etc. Fill the frame, making interesting photographs that have impact. Composition, positioning, background, and lens selection should all be taken into consideration.
Photos as a collection should illustrate what the event is about.

1.PUT ALL YOUR PHOTOS IN YOUR PUBLIC FOLDER
2. Select (5-8) different images must be submitted. Be sure to include:
-people in at least (3) photos.
-(1) over-all, scene setter.
-(1) detail or close up. Can be of a person. Make it relevant.
Do not select repetitive photos.

-CAPTION: be sure to get subject’s names and brief description of what they are doing,; who, what, when, where, why. Missing names will hurt your grade.

*Students must complete:

1. Select (5-8) best photos, including; an overall & detail. Do not select repetitive photos.
2. SLUG PHOTO AS FOLLOWS:
Last name_live event1.jpg Last name_ live event2.jpg
EXAMPLE: franklin_ live event1.jpg
franklin_ live event2.jpg
3. Place images in the “drop folder.”

READING:

Guide to Photojournalism
By Brian Horton
Read pages 54-77
“News: Sensitivity, Thinking, Instinct and Curiosity”
Read pages 131-152
“Lessons; Horst Faas, J.Pat Carter, Alan Diaz”

SPRING '09 ASSIGNMENT #05; LIGHTING

ASSIGNMENT #05
(Due 3/2/09)
Light (2 parts)

PART 1
Lighting MUST be the key element in these photos. DO NOT USE A FLASH!

SUBJECT: “Put your camera in a different place,” using one of the lighting techniques described below.

1. Photo with strong sense of ARTIFICIAL light:
Make well-composed and expressive photo using one of the lighting techniques discussed in class. Photo should have exceptionally strong quality of light. Lighting technique should be very obvious.
This need not be a documentary-style photo, but do not manipulate the image in Photoshop.
-Do NOT USE A CAMERA FLASH!!!!!!!!!
Lighting must be natural; sun, or cloudy day. Can be indoors or outdoors.
Keep in mind some of the elements of good composition, avoiding; cluttered and distracting backgrounds, objects appearing behind heads, dead space, etc. Fill the frame, making interesting photos that have impact.
Composition, perspective, background, and lens selection should all be taken into consideration. Consider the various lighting techniques discussed in class; directional light, soft light, window light, back light, etc.


2. Photo with strong sense of NATURAL light:
Make well-composed and expressive photo using one of the lighting techniques discussed in class. Photo should have exceptionally strong quality of light. Lighting technique should be very obvious. This need not be a documentary-style photo, but do not manipulate the image in Photoshop.
-Do NOT USE A CAMERA FLASH!!!!!!!!!
Lighting must be from an artificial light, such as a lamp or bulb. Can be indoors or outdoors, day or night.
Keep in mind some of the elements of good composition, avoiding; cluttered and distracting backgrounds, objects appearing behind heads, dead space, etc. Fill the frame, making interesting photos that have impact.
Composition, perspective, background, and lens selection should all be taken into consideration. Consider the various lighting techniques discussed in class; directional light, soft light, window light, back light, etc.

Review examples showed in class and Power Point Presentation.


*Students must complete:
1. Select best photo from each part, submit (2) photos.
2. SLUG PHOTO AS FOLLOWS:
Last name_natural.jpg, Last name_artificial.jpg
EXAMPLE: franklin_natural.jpg
franklin_artificial.jpg


PART 2
History of Photojournalism; Jacob Riis & Lewis Hine

PART 3

READING:
National Geographic Field Guide
By Peter k. Burian & Robert Caputo
Read pages 76-111

Guide to Photojournalism
By Brian Horton
Read pages 79-101“Features and Portraits; Seeing the World Around Us.”

Visual Journalism
By Christopher R. Harris & Paul Martin Lester
Read pages 63-86“Technical Considerations.”

2/16/09

SPRING '09 WEEK #04



By now, we should be well aware of the technical considerations that determine a photograph, such as aperture, shutter speed, lens selection, and camera types. You should also be familiar with the categories of the "Visual language."

So, in looking at Jerome Delay's iconic image from Iraq,
what can your determine?

Photo shows
hundreds of Iraqis storming the Abu Ghraib jail Oct. 20, 2002 following the announcement by President Saddam Hussein that most of Iraq's prisoners would be freed. Tens of thousands of prisoners were greeted by their relatives and friends upon their release.

Misc.

Could it be...that some submitted photos are not slugged correctly or contain proper captions....

Be sure to review the Powerpoint Presentations, they contain material not always covered in class, due to time restriction.

Agenda for today's class.


1.Photos of the week; MSNBC
2. Who was Matthew Brady?
3. Let's look, ASSIGNMENT #3, Selective Focus.
4.
Lesson; Composition
5. ASSIGNMENT #4, Composition
6. ASSIGNMENT, Photojournalist Paper
7. Photo essay; “"Bound to El Norte: Immigrant Stowaways on the Freight Trains of Mexico," by Don Bartletti


ASSIGNMENT #04; Composition

ASSIGNMENT #05
(Due 02/23/09)
Composition (2) parts

PART1
READING:
Guide to Photojournalism
By Brian Horton
Read pages 79-101“Features and Portraits; Seeing the World Around Us.”


PART 2
HISTORY OF PHOTOJOURNALISM
(1) FSA Photographer’s
(2) Dorothea Lange
see Photographer’s Bio’s

PART 3
Composition (2) photos:
PART 1: Make a compositionally graphic photograph using “Rule of Thirds.
PART 2: Make a compositionally graphic photograph using one of these compositional techniques: Framing, Leading Lines, Juxtaposition, or Silhouette.
****CAPTION MUST STATE WHICH TECHNIQUE YOU ARE USING!
Remember, a Graphic Photograph is visual, emphasizes the relationship between the lines, shapes and forms produces an aesthetically pleasing visual presentation.
It is NOT about the subject content as much as the visual content.
Graphic elements are more important than the story-telling content with this assignment.
Photo should have exceptionally strong composition, and be visually pleasing.
This should be a photo that is as much about the “visual elements,” as it is about the content and subject.
Take a look at the world around us, and make a visually interesting photograph.
This should not be a portrait.
Review examples showed in class and Power Point Presentation.
This should be a photo about Graphic Elements above all else.
THE GRAPHIC ELEMENTS SHOULD BE OBVIOUS, AND EMPHASIZED!


*Students must complete:
1. Select (1) best photo.
2. Follow “Basic Photoshop”, use outline provided if needed.
3. Type complete caption in FILE INFO field in Photoshop, see instructions.
4.SLUG PHOTO AS FOLLOWS:
Last name_ composition1.jpg, Last name_ composition2.jp
5. Place image in the “drop folder”
(remember to save a copy for yourself to you folder)

PHOTOJOURNALIST PAPER

Photojournalist Paper
Due 3/23/09

Each student will be required to select and contact a working photojournalist of choice, accompany them on an assignment, conduct an interview and write a paper on the experience.
The project will require research and preparation, and the ability to contact and meet with the photojournalist. Every effort should be made to try and accompany the photojournalist on an assignment. This will require planning and coordination.

***WEDDING & COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE NOT PERMITTED. WORKING PHOTOJOURNALISTS & NEWS PHOTOGRAPHERS ONLY!

SELECT SOMEONE WITH REAL EXERIENCE –at least 5 years.

The goal of this presentation is for students to learn something about the field of photojournalism, which is undergoing cataclysmic changes, from a working professional who can offer insight. In addition to the list of questions below, students should prepare their own set of questions. Research on photographer’s background should be completed BEFORE interview session.
Be inquisitive. Get their advice. Get a sense of the photographer’s attitude, style, and perspective. This is a unique opportunity to get some real career insight, even in photojournalism is not in your future. There is much that can be learned from professionals in related fields. Make the most of the opportunity.

1. The written paper should be minimum 2000 words (2-3 pages, no more), and written in the student’s own words... DO NOT PLAGIARIZE.
The written report must be a WORD document.
-12pt font, single-space, and submitted to the DROP FOLDER.
2. Shoot your own photo of the photojournalist, hopefully in action.
-Copy and paste 1-2 photos of photographers work into WORD document.
-Copy and paste 1-2 of your photos into WORD document.

3. The paper MUST follow this outline:
I.BACKGROUND
-Why was photographer selected?
-What is the photographer’s background?
-How did they get interested and started?
-Etc.
II. PHOTOGRAPHY WORK
-What type of work or projects is the photographer known for?
-List examples, and gives description.
-Copy and paste at least 2 photos into WORD document.
-Who do they work for now, in the past?
-Describe their job/assignments.
Etc.
III. JOB
-Describe their job/assignments.
-What aspects of their jobs are most satisfying? Least satisfying?
- What aspects of their jobs are most difficult?
-What advice do they have for young journalists?cont>
-What are the most important skills to have to be a successful photojournalist?
-What changes in the business have they experienced?
-What does the future hold for photojournalists?

PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHERS:
-Chris Pedota
-Carmine Galasso
-Tyson Trish
-Bob Karp
-Tony Kurdzuk


DO’s AND DON’Ts:
-Do not wait until the last minute to contact the photographer. DO IT NOW!
-Do not expect the photographer to get back to you immediately, if at all.
-Be persistent and assertive, and don’t wait for returned calls. Be proactive.
-Do research BEFORE contacting them. Impress them with what you already know about them. This will most likely lead to a better interview, and will show respect for their time.
-Ask for help in making initial contact.
-Make every opportunity to accompany them on an assignment.

Where to find a photojournalist?
-Get in the habit of looking for credits under published photos.
-your local newspaper
-Visit photojournalism web sites:
www.njppa.org (New Jersey Press Photogs Association)
www.nppa.org (National Press Photogs Association)
www.digitaljournalist.org Dirck Halstead (very important site!)
www.sportshooter.com (not just sports)
http://www.aphotoaday.org/ (a photo a day web site & blog)

-The Star-Ledger
-The Record
-The Asbury Park Press
-The Herald News
-The NY Times

-Review the PPP’s.
-Ask me.

2/15/09

FSA PHOTOGRAPHERS

FSA PHOTOGRAPHERS
1930's Depression Era

The Farm Security Administration (F.S.A) produced some of the most memorable and iconic images of the 20th century. Between 1935 and 1942, the F.S.A headed by Roy E. Stryker, employed an exceptional team of photographers including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon and Carl Mydans.

"Though it began as a government entity called the Resettlement Administration, what we now know as the Farm Security Administration was launched as part of the Department of Agriculture 70 years ago, in 1937. Under the leadership of Roy Stryker, the FSA's team of photographers created an indelible portrait of rural America during the Great Depression, an archive that includes one of the most well known images ever, Dorothea Lange's 1936 photo "Migrant Mother." -PopPhoto.com

In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Resettlement Administration (R.A) as part of his 'New Deal' strategy to cope with the Great Depression. The R.A project was set up to bring financial aid to thousands of rural communities affected by the 'Dust Bowl' and competition from mechanical agricultural practices. In 1937 the R.A was incorporated into the Department of Agriculture and became the Farm Security Administration.

Over a period of seven years, thousands of images were taken by this remarkable team of photographers, chosen by Stryker for their humanist concerns. These photographers, being at the same time journalists, social commentators and artists, worked with a clear political and social purpose. The methods they employed: the careful arrangement of subject matter; the portrayal of sitters as 'victims'; and the adherence to predetermined points of view, were intended to marshal public sympathy. They deliberately utilized the persuasive power of photography to shape public opinion and affect social change. This calculated approach to image making raised important questions about the relationship between 'truth' and photography.
Ultimately, this enduring pictorial record reflects the hardship and heroism of the Great Depression, and the lives and beliefs of the image makers their subjects and their audience. This remarkable photographic project, which includes some of the best known photographic images: Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother, Walker Evans' portraits of the Burroughs family and Arthur Rothstein's Fleeing a Dust Storm, is a landmark in the history of documentary photographic practice.

Jack Delano (1914 - )
Delano's interest in photography began when, as a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he began photographing in Pennsylvania and New York City. His work won him a traveling scholarship to study in Europe. When he returned, he earned money as a commercial photographer. In 1939, he submitted a proposal to the Federal Arts Program to photograph the coal miners in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. FSA director Roy Stryker liked the project that resulted, but he was not able to hire Delano until Arthur Rothstein left the agency in 1940. Stryker said of him, "Jack was the artist, and being an artist would say, 'What one picture could I take that would say Vermont?'"

Delano photographed extensively in the South and New England, where he covered Portuguese fishermen and the beginnings of the war build-up at the Pratt-Whitney airplane factory. A 1941 assignment took him to Puerto Rico. After the war he became director of the Puerto Rican government's radio and television network. He continued to photograph, receiving a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 1981. He also composed symphonic music and wrote and designed books for children.

Walker Evans (1903 - 1975)
Evans, who had the title of senior information specialist, is universally regarded as the premier photographic artist among the FSA staff. In the 1920s, he led the expatriate's life in Paris, where he was influenced by the photography of Eugene Atget and the novels of Gustave Flaubert. His tenure with the agency was short and his relationship with Stryker, stormy. Evans wanted autonomy and artistic control. In later years, he insisted he had never embraced the FSA's social objectives, considering them incompatible with making art. Stryker wanted more production and the courtesy of being informed of where Evans was and what he was doing. Although Stryker called Evans his "problem child," he also "recognized the exceptional quality" of his photographs and was proud to have them in the collection.

Evans took a leave from the agency in the summer of 1936 to photograph sharecropper families in Hale County, Alabama. This work, published in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, was the high point of his FSA tenure. The next year Stryker fired Evans, citing budgetary problems. After freelancing, he was hired in 1943 by Time magazine and in 1945 by Fortune. He had numerous exhibitions of his photography in museums and galleries including several at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. From 1965 to his death in 1975 he taught photography at Yale University. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1973.

Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965)
While also enjoying a reputation as an artist, Lange is most renowned for the humanistic qualities of her photographs. She began her career assisting portrait photographers but went on to study with Arnold Genthe and Clarence White, two important photographers from the early decades of the century. Lange started on an around-the-world trip, but ran out of money and settled in San Francisco in 1918. She set up shop as a studio portraitist, but in the early 1930s began to photograph the strikes and bread lines caused by the Great Depression. The University of California sociologist Paul Taylor hired her to photograph illustrations for his reports on the plight of migrant workers. Later, they married and continued to collaborate on projects, including the book American Exodus. Rexford Tugwell saw Lange's work and called it to the attention of Stryker, who hired her in July 1935. In March 1936, on her way home from an extended photographing campaign in Arizona and New Mexico, she stopped at a camp for pea pickers in Nipoma, California, and made six exposures of Florence Thompson and her children. One of them, later entitled Migrant Mother, became the quintessential icon of the Great Depression and one of the most frequently published photographs of all time.
When the FSA project ended, Lange photographed for the Office of War Information, including an extended project on Japanese Americans who were interned in camps in California during World War II. She freelanced for Life and other magazines, producing photographic essays in a variety of countries such as Ireland, Venezuela, and Egypt. She collaborated with John Szarkowski, director of the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, on a retrospective exhibition of her work, which opened not long after her death in 1965.

Russell Lee (1903 - 1986)
Around 1929, Lee abandoned a successful career as a chemical engineer to study art at Woodstock in upstate New York. He first used the camera to make studies for his paintings, but soon discovered he liked telling photographic stories more than he did painting. His early work included projects on bootleg mining in Pennsylvania and on the Father Devine cult. When a staff photographer quit, Stryker hired Lee to freelance a story on a homestead housing project in New Jersey. Stryker liked the photographs so much he hired Lee full time. Lee, who stayed with the FSA from 1936 to its demise in 1943, was extremely prolific. He embraced Stryker's objective of documenting the American way of life, and his pictures show a wide range of economic and cultural activities. His most concentrated project was on the homesteading community of Pie Town, New Mexico, which he and his wife, Jean, decided to investigate "because the name of the place struck their fancy."

After doing aerial photography for the Army during World War II, Lee worked for Stryker again on the Standard Oil Company documentary project. He taught at the University of Missouri and the University of Texas at Austin.

Arthur Rothstein (1915 - 1985)
As a student at Columbia University, Rothstein founded a campus photography club and also did photographic work for Roy Stryker. He was the first staffer Stryker hired and was given the job of setting up the darkroom facilities and purchasing the necessary cameras and equipment. Within a year, however, he took one of the most famous and one of the most controversial photographs in the FSA's history. His 1936 photograph of a farmer and his two sons in Cimerron County made the Oklahoma panhandle the visual symbol of the dust storms that devastated farmers in several Plains states. On the same trip, he photographed several frames of a steer's skull in the badlands of South Dakota. A comparison of the images showed that he picked up the skull and moved it to a patch of cracked earth to make it more symbolic of the drought. Opponents in the press and Congress seized on this to attack the agency's credibility, calling the picture a fake. The incident caused minor embarrassment to President Roosevelt when The Fargo Forum broke the story as he was campaigning in the Dakotas.

In 1940, Rothstein became a staff photographer for Look, magazine. He photographed for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in China during World War II, then returned to Look, where he became director of photography. When the magazine stopped publication in 1971, he became picture editor of Parade magazine. He also taught for many years at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and was a judge for the Pulitzer Prizes in Photography.

Ben Shahn (1898 - 1969)
During the 1920s and early 1930s, Shahn earned a national reputation as a painter and graphic designer who used his art to promote social justice and political change. Among his most famous paintings was an indictment of the 1927 execution of two anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1935 he began working as an artist for the Resettlement Administration. His friend and former roommate Walker Evans recommended him to Stryker, who hired him as a staff photographer.

Shahn was never a great photographic technician, but his artistic eye and his deep humanism made his photographs powerful and visually interesting. In addition, he frequently used the camera as a sketchbook to record people and settings that he would turn into drawings and paintings. He did little photography after leaving the FSA in 1938, but The Photographic Eye of Ben Shahn, a collection of his work, was published by Harvard University Press in 1975.

"Unlike Walker Evans, Ben Shahn had no problem with propaganda on behalf of what he considered a worthy cause. "Look Roy," he reportedly told Stryker about a proposed series of photographs on the Dust Bowl, "you're not going to move anybody with eroded soil, but the effects this eroded soil has on a kid who looks starved, this is going to move people."" -oldstatehouse.com

John Vachon (1914 - 1975)
Vachon was a graduate student in English literature when Stryker hired him and gave him the lowly title of "assistant messenger," purportedly because he had no ambitions to become a photographer. After a year of looking at the staff's work, however, Vachon persuaded Stryker to let him document scenes in the District of Columbia that would make a contribution to the collection. After the Washington Post published some of his photographs, Stryker began to give him assignments. While on an extended campaign in the Plains states, Vachon "decided that he would photograph only what pleased or astonished him, and in the way he wanted to see it."
After serving in World War II, he joined the staff of Look. In 1974 his proposal to photograph North Dakota during the winter earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Marion Post Walcott (1910 - 1990)
Wolcott discovered photography when a friend gave her a Rolliflex while she was studying at the University of Vienna in the early 1930s. After teaching in upstate New York, she became a staff photographer for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Through a lecture at the Photo League, she became friends with the photographer Ralph Steiner, who introduced her to Stryker. He hired her in 1938, sending her to photograph West Virginia coal miners as her first assignment. Post Wolcott is known for the beauty of her landscapes and her pictures of African Americans. One of her most famous photographs shows an African American man climbing the outside staircase of a movie theater to the "Colored Only" entrance.

In 1941, not long after her wedding, she left the FSA and devoted herself to raising her children. She took relatively few photographs until 1976, when she resumed photographing and became interested in color.

© 1999 Indiana University Art Museum

DOROTHEA LANGE

Dorothea Lange
American, 1895-1965

As a member of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic unit under Roy Stryker, Dorothea Lange photographed migrant workers, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and other victims of the Depression in 22 states, primarily in the South and West, between 1935 and 1942. Her "Migrant Mother" (1936) is one of the classic images of the period.
Lange was born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey, of German descent. As a young girl she was stricken with polio, which left her with a lifelong limp which she believed heightened her sensitivity to the sufferings of others. She attended grade school in New York City's Lower East Side and the Training School for Teachers also in New York.
In 1914 Lange visited the Fifth Avenue portrait studio of Arnold Genthe; he gave her her first camera and encouraged her photographic work during the next year. In 1917-1918 Lange studied at Columbia University with the pictorial photographer Clarence White. Later in 1918 she became employed as a photofinisher in San Francisco, where she worked as a freelance photographer and operated her own studio from 1919 to 1940, at which time she established a studio in Berkeley, California. In 1932, after a decade as a studio portraitist, Lange began to photograph people in their social contexts on the streets of San Francisco. She was the subject of an Oakland, California, exhibition. In 1934 a critical article about Lange written by Willard Van Dyke appeared in Camera Craft.
With Paul Taylor (whom she later married) Lange began work for the California Rural Rehabilitation Administration in 1935. The example set by their efforts was partly responsible for the creation of the photographic unit of the Federal Resettlement Administration later that year. Lange photographed with the RA/FSA from 1935 to 1942. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941 for "photographic study of the American social scene," a project she was prevented from completing by the United States' entry into World War II Lange worked for the U.S. War Relocation Agency in San Francisco in 1942, and for the Office of War Information, San Francisco, from 1943 to 1945. Many of her photographs from this time were lost in transit.
Poor health forced Lange to remain inactive for several years until 1950-1951 when she conducted seminars and participated in photographic conferences. In 1954-1955 she was a staff photographer with Life magazine. She worked again as a freelance photographer from 1958 to 1965, accompanying her husband on U.S. aid assignments in Asia, South America, and the Middle East. She died of cancer in Marin County, California, in 1965, just before the opening of her major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Lange was placed on the Honor Roll of the American Society of Magazine Photographers in 1963. She was honored with solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Art (1960), the Museum of Modern Art (1966), the Oakland Art Museum (1960, 1966, 1971, and 1978), and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1973). Her work has been included in important group shows, including 6 Women Photographers, The Family of Man, and The Bitter Years: FSA Photographers 1935-1941 at the Museum of Modern Art; Photography in the Twentieth Century at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; and Women of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Her presentation The American Country Woman was the most popular exhibit ever distributed by the U.S. Information Agency. Lange's archive was donated to the Oakland Museum.

Text from The Encyclopedia of Photography (1984)

2/9/09

SPRING '09 WEEK #03

photo by THOMAS E. FRANKLIN

Good-morning.
Welcome to Week 3.
Wow, I was very impressed with the photos from Week 1, we saw some really nice self-portraits and photos of self-expression. Let's keep up the good work.



Housekeeping:
-when reviewing the Powerpoint presentation, copy the PPP file to your HD then open from there. (Opening a large file like that across the server will put a drain on server, and in some cases -crash)
-do NOT put folders in the DROP folder, just drag and drop the images solo. Thank you.
-be sure to CAPTION every submitted photo, otherwise 1pt will subtracted from each assignment.
-be sure to slug each photo correctly,
otherwise 1pt will subtracted from each assignment.
-check the Graded Assignments Folder.

Agenda for today's class.

1. Review DOP & Motion

2. Let's look, ASSIGNMENT #2, Depth-of-field & Motion.
3.
The Visual Language
4.
History of Photography Timeline
5. Photo Basics PART II; Cameras
6.
Photo Basics PART III; Lenses
7. ASSIGNMENT #3, Selective Focus

2/8/09

SPRING '09 ASSIGMENT #03

ASSIGNMENT #03
(Due 2/16/09)
Selective Focus

PART 1
READING:
Guide to Photojournalism
By Brian Horton
Read pages 1-27 “Introduction”

Visual Journalism
By Christopher Harris & Paul Martin Lester
Read pages 63-86, CHAPTER 4
Documentary Assignments & Manipulated Assignments

PART 2
CAPTIONING:
Read this: http://lexardigital.typepad.com/davidhonl/2006/02/captioning_your.html

PART 3
History of Photojournalism; Matthew Brady
or see Photographer’s Bio’s


PART 4
SELECTIVE FOCUS is a technique in which one portion of a photograph is in focus, while other elements are blurred out-of-focus. The photographer makes the choice. Remember, the viewer's eye is naturally drawn toward the part of the photo that is in sharp focus. This is achieved by careful focus and employing shallow depth of field through the use of a wide aperture. The subject is isolated from its surroundings, through focus and depth-of-field.

SHOOTING ASSIGNMENT:
Find any subject that is red, can be person or object.
Make two separate photos focused on just the red subject/object. Only the red subject should be in focus. The background and other object should not be in focus.
1. In the first photo, use your wide-angle lens (zoomed wide –wide angle).
2. In the second, use your telephoto (zoomed out all the way -telephoto).

Using depth-of-field and selective focus, try to isolate the subject from its surroundings to create a clean, sharp image. Be mindful of the technical issues we’ve discussed in class; such as DOF, movement. Review examples shown in class.

This is a creative and technical assignment. Make strong expressive photos!
Shoot different angles, work the subject.

*Students must complete:
1. Select (1) best photo one of each.
2. use Photoshop to edit images.
3. Be sure to include a caption.
4.SLUG PHOTO AS FOLLOWS:
EXAMPLES:
franklin_ sf_wide.JPG,
franklin_ sf_tele.JPG
5. Place images in the “drop folder”
(remember to save a copy for yourself to you folder)

2/1/09

SPRING '09 WEEK #02



1. MSNBC'S slideshow.
2. Any work-flow issues?
3. ASSIGNMENT #1, Self Portrait
4. What is Photojournalism?
5. What photos have had an impact on you?
6. Ethic's & Responsibility of a photojournalist.
7.Photo Basic's PART I.
8. ASSIGNMENT #2, Depth-of-field & Motion.

misc:
-please read & follow assignment instructions carefully!
-remember to check email regularly.
-be sure to LOG-OUT at end of class each week.
-be sure to caption & slug images correctly BEFORE placing in DROP folder.
-be sure assignment number and description is included in caption.
-bring camera, with charged batteries, to class each week.
-bring out-take images to class, store in your SLICE folder.
-if u miss an assignment you will lose points. be sure to submit ASAP.
-you are responsible for all material on the BLOG and in the powerpoint, even if we do not cover all the material in class

INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY


The Invention of Photography -Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Copyright (c) 2006

The necessary first breakthrough in photography was in a different, not eye-centered area—that of making permanent photographic images. Employing data from the researches of Johann Heinrich Schulze—who, in 1727, discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light—Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy , early in the 19th cent., created what we now call photograms. These were made by placing assorted objects on paper soaked in silver nitrate and exposing them to sunlight. Those areas of the paper covered by the objects remained white; the rest blackened after exposure to the light. Davy and Wedgwood found no way of arresting the chemical action at this stage, however, and their images lasted only a short time before darkening entirely.

Photography's basic principles, processes, and materials were discovered virtually simultaneously by a diverse group of individuals of different nationalities, working for the most part entirely independently of one another. The results of their experiments coalesced in the first half of the 19th cent., creating a tool for communication that was to become as powerful and significant as the printing press. Four men figure principally in the establishment of the rudiments of photographic science.

The French physicist, Joseph NicĂ©phore Niepce , made the first negative (on paper) in 1816 and the first known photograph (on metal; he called it a heliograph) in 1826. By the latter date he had directed his investigations away from paper surfaces and negatives (having invented, in the meantime, what is now called the photogravure process of mechanical reproduction) and toward sensitized metallic surfaces. In 1827 Niepce had also begun his association with Louis Jacques MandĂ© Daguerre , a French painter who had been experimenting along parallel lines. A partnership was formed and they collaborated until Niepce's death in 1833, after which Daguerre continued their work for the next six years. In 1839 he announced the invention of a method for making a direct positive image on a silver plate—the daguerreotype.
Daguerre's announcement was a source of dismay to the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot , who had been experimenting independently along related lines for years. Talbot had evolved a method for making a paper negative from which an infinite number of paper positives could be created. He had also worked out an effective although imperfect technique for permanently “fixing” his images. Concerned that he might lose the rights to his own invention, the calotype process, Talbot wrote to the French Academy of Sciences, asserting the priority of his own invention. He then lost no time in presenting his researches to England's Royal Society, of which he was a distinguished member.

All three pioneers, Niepce, Daguerre, and Talbot, along with Sir John Herschel —who in 1819 discovered the suitability of hyposulfite of soda, or “hypo,” as a fixing agent for sensitized paper images and who is generally credited with giving the new medium its name—deserve to share the title Inventor of Photography. Each made a vital and unique contribution to the invention of the photographic process. The process developed by Daguerre and Niepce was, in a grand gesture, purchased from them by the French government and given, free of patent restrictions, to the world. Talbot patented his own process and then published a description of it, entitled The Pencil of Nature (1844-46). This book, containing 24 original prints, was the first ever illustrated with photographs.