There's no Place like Home

Willow Tree at Home

This is a project for you to explore your familiar space and surroundings with the camera to document something about you and where you live. 

Explore your home and neighbourhood with your phone camera. You will be given a "prompt"; for each topic, you are to capture 3-5 images, post your images to your blog and write a brief explanation of your image and post your best to the your blog.

1. Capture something about your community - email the images to yourself, post to your blog, write a short description of your community and why you decided to capture it in this way, then upload best to the class share site. 
2. Then with a real camera explore lines around your school community. Consider simple lines, organic and geometric lines, wiggly and straight lines, lines that make a pattern. Also, see if the lines can lead to some thing important in the frame.
3. Framing with shapes
4. Colours, tones, and contrasts
5. Rule of thirds .

Try to think about the light when you photograph each image. Where is the light coming from? How is the quality of light in your image? Make sure that there is enough light. Natural light from outside or a window is WAY better than from an incandescent bulb.

You will be marked out of 4 for each required image saved to your blog. You will be marked on the completion of each image, but consider the topic/subject, and lighting exposure (so we can see the subject) for each image.

You will be assessed on each series of images and description saved to the blog. 

Studio Portrait Lighting

Light Source
One of the most important things of a good light source is its size. This determines what type of shadows you are going to have and also affects the type of reflection
Small light sources will produce a hard edged shadow, large light sources will produce a soft edged shadow.
Take as an example the most important light source in our life, the SUN. In a nice bright day with no clouds the sun will act as a small light source. On the other hand when it is a cloudy day the clouds will act as diffuser and the light source will not arrive from a direct single point but will be diffused through the clouds thus becoming a large light source and therefore producing soft edged shadows.

Lighting Angles
A person looking at an object sees each point of that object at a slightly different angle. If we sum up all these angles we would have a family of angles. The family of angles is very important thing to master as a photographer because it determines where we can place or where we cannot place our lights.

For this Studio Portrait Assignment, you are going to work with three basic lighting angles: Hatchet/Side Lighting, Rembrandt, and Glamour/Butterfly lighting. Below is an example of a

Find an example of each lighting style and add to your blog. Explain how the lighting set up is arranged to create this effect.

Rembrandt Lighting set-up:

Rembrandt

Glamour Lighting

Side Lighting 

Welcome to Photo 9/10 Elective

Happy back to school! I hope you had a super brilliant summer and are all charged up and ready to start a new year.

Welcome to the Photography 9/10 blog. This blog will be updated regularly to keep Photography students up to date of classroom activities, events, instructions, and assignments. Check it regularly.

Today's Assignment- A Successful Photograph:
Today we are going to explore what makes a successful photograph. I will assign a photo to you in groups of two. I want you to examine the image critically:

1. Give it a title based on the information in the image. 
2. Explore the visual information in the image. 
3. Identify the subject/topic and background details. 
4. Do you think it is a good/successful photograph? Explain why or why not?

Take notes, we will discuss as a class.

HOMEWORK
Bring a digital camera if you have one, and your local field trip permission form. We are going on an adventure next class... Don't forget, or you will not go. 😕

Photography 9/10 SUPPLY LIST
Camera- Digital DSLR or Point and Shoot or Manual SLR (optional).
SD Card

**Cameras are optional. Cameras are available for loan for during class or overnight. In class loans must be returned before the end of class. Overnight loans must be returned 1st thing next day- if you know you will be missing school the next day, please inform the teacher. You are responsible for replacing any lost or stolen equipment.

10 Photoshop Challenge

Find a Photoshop tutorial and one Lightroom tutorial that you are interested in trying. Something that you haven't done before. Work through each tutorial.

• Post the tutorial URL (web address) to your ning blog.


• Post your before and after image..


• Critique the tutorial: What did you learn? Did you learn something other than the basic premise of the tutorial? What level of challenge was it for you on a scale of 1-5? How was it useful? What frustrated you about it?

Here are a few places that you can start looking for tutorials:
https://phlearn.com/
https://photoshopcafe.com/Learn-Lightroom
http://www.vandelaydesign.com/lightroom-tutorials/
http://www.vandelaydesign.com/photo-editing-tutorials/
https://www.digitalrev.com/
https://speckyboy.com/adobe-lightroom-tutorials/

10 {{{{{{{Bracket Project}}}}}}}

Bracket Project AKA- Zone System

Zone Exposure

BW Film Assignment

Ansel Adams- 

Aspens, Northern New Mexico, 1958

Gelatin silver print

19 1/2 × 15 1/2 in

Zone System’s Key Concepts
The zone system divides a scene into 10 zones on the tonal scale (though there are variations of 9 and 11 zones). Every tonal range is assigned a zone. Every zone differs from the one before it by 1 stop, and from the one following it by 1 stop. So every zone change equals 1 stop difference. Zones are identified by roman numbers, with the middle tone (with 18% reflectance) being a zone V which is zone 5.
Photographers, usually are only concerned with zones III through VII (zones 3 through 7). The darkest part of a scene would fall into zone III, while the brightest part of a scene would fall into zone VII. Anything darker than zone III would render as pure black with no detail (under-exposed), while anything brighter than zone VII would render as pure white with no detail (over-exposed).

Learning Outcomes.
Learn about how to visualize and control the exposure of the images. Learn basic concept of zone system and exposure theory.

What to Do.
You are to photograph three or more scenes (landscape… go outside).

Step 1- Find an Ansel Adams photo, post it on your blog and identify the different tonal areas on the image.

Step 2- 
Use a grey card (middle grey, or zone V) to set your camera exposure to read middle grey. In order to achieve this, get close to the grey card, so you can only see the card, but careful not to block the light or shade the grey card. Then stand back to capture your desired composition. One challenge may be if you are photographing a vast landscape- something far away that has different lighting than where you are standing. Measure your exposure on the grey card where you are and then guess compensate your exposure if the light is radically different where you are shooting.

And/or use a Spot Meter to measure specific area to measure the light exactly.

Step 3-
Over Expose your film- Try the Ansel Adams method of shooting for the shadows and developing for the highlights. What this means is that you would slightly over expose your film by 1  to 2 stops. Set your ASA 1 to 2 stops lower than film is rated.


Step 4-
Shoot five shots for each lighting scenario. Shoot two shots with the exact grey card set-up: shoot one with the grey card in the photo, and one without. Then “bracket” your photo, two times over exposed and two times under exposure. For example, if your camera is set at is f8 and 1/125 for a perfect exposure, to bracket that, change your aperture to f5.6 shoot and then f4, then the two up for f11 and f16. Or you could have a similar result with the shutter if you do not want to affect your depth of field.

Step 5-
Develop your negatives. Under develop your film 1 or 2 stops (minutes) if you over exposed when shooting.

Step 6-
Print 1 perfect contact sheet and 1 perfect 8 x 10 print.

Contact Sheet-  5 marks each Total 25
Shows evidence of bracketing your exposure- 5 variations for each scenarios
Technically good quality negatives
Technically good quality prints (10 zones)
Thoughtful, eye catching compositions
Creative treatment of topic and variations

Zone Scale
0 Pure black
I Near black, with slight tonality but no texture
II Textured black; the darkest part of the image in which slight detail is recorded
III Average dark materials and low values showing adequate texture
IV Average dark foliage, dark stone, or landscape shadows
V Middle gray: clear north sky; dark skin, average weathered wood
VI Average Caucasian skin; light stone; shadows on snow in sunlit landscapes
VII Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII Lightest tone with texture: textured snow
IX Slight tone without texture; glaring snow

Photo 10 HDR

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs,

HDR Intro
Photoshop CS3 HDR Tutorial
HDR tutorial part 1

HDR tutorial page2

The HDR assignment:

1. Watch a few tutorials (you can find your own too).
2. Find some examples of cool HDR images for your blog.
3. Then take several sets (3 or more) of images of one topic with different exposures. Try three or more different compositions.
4. Download images, 
5. Post a contact sheet to your blog.
6. Merge 3+ images into one HDR photo using Photomatix and Photoshop.
7. Upload 3 or more of your HDR image to your blog.

  

9 Natural Light [Self] Portraits- BW Film

Take a series of photographs of yourself in natural light. Consider the background; it is as significant as the subject. Compose three different scenes considering backgrounds to reflect something about you. Take five photos in each scene. Also consider the expressions, costumes, props and light. 

Have a partner take the photos of you. Direct them how you want it to look. Be specific with your vision and instructions- for example. Format- hold the camera portrait (vertical) or horizontal (landscape). Distance- close up, head and shoulders, full frame. Angle- from below, from the hip, from above, birds eye view...

Photo by Danielle Campani

1. Look around for different backgrounds to represent something about you.
2. Load BW film into your camera.
3. Go outside with your camera and a partner. 
4. Look for good light available/natural. 
5. Take a series of self-portraits with at least 3 different backgrounds.
6. Try 5 or more different shots per background- try different angles, lighting, expressions ... The more pictures you take, the better chance for successful compositions. Have a selection of expressions and creative options to choose from.
7. Ask a partner to be on camera. Be as clear as possible with your idea so that you can clearly communicate to your photographer. 
8. Finish your roll of film share 1/2 of the roll with your partner.
9. Develop your film.
10. Make a contact sheet.
11. Print your best image 5 x 7 three times using three different filters.