Before next week’s class on 2/17/22:

1. Take some time to view the Digital Collage (Photocollage / Photomontage / Image Composites) Lecture .pdf. We’ll talk in more detail about these artists’ work next week, but for now, get a sense of the different types of work that are possible using various approaches to composite imaging.
2. Take a look at the Digital Collage Student Examples from last spring, which you might find informative or inspiring. Remember that composite imaging does not need to involve complex traditional “collage,” and can be as simple as creating diptychs/triptychs that create one seamless file from 2-3 images. Check out this body of diptychs that Marie made for the Intro to Digital Photo class in the Spring of ’20.
3. Begin gathering images that you think you may want to use for your digital collage work. This can include photographing tactile work you’ve made, shooting new images (remember that these are “ingredients”), adding previous images from your catalog into a collection, scanning images, or finding appropriated images on the web. Everyone should have either a folder for collage images or a Lightroom Collection dedicated to images that you might want to use for Photoshop compositing.

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OPTIONAL:

*Make an appointment (via email) to meet with Rebecca if you are feeling particularly shaky or uncertain about this process, or are having issues with your Lightroom catalog or other tech problems.

 

Following are a few contemporary, historical, and student examples of photography books, to view as you begin considering your own photo book project, as well as some questions to consider as you plan for your mini-book.

William Klein, Life is Good and Good for You in New York (1956, Photography Magazine)

• Klein LIGAGFYINY

Matthew Connors, Fire in Cairo (2015, SPBH Editions)

• SPBH Book Page, Fire in Cairo
• Flip-Video, Fire in Cairo
• ICP Feature video, Matthew Connors / Fire in Cairo

Jim Bertram, Symmetry (Spring 2020 Advanced Digital Photo Student, semester project)

• Symmetry Blurb Book (click thumbnail for flip preview)

Kris Graves, A Bleak Reality (2018, NotWrong No.1)

• A Bleak Reality on Kris Graves’ site
• A Bleak Reality Photoeye Bookstore page

Robert Frank, The Americans (1958)

• The Americans book-flip
• The Americans, National Gallery of Art

William Klein, Life is Good and Good for You in New York (1956)

• William Klein, Life is Good and Good for you in New York book-flip

Erik Kessels, Image Tsunami (2016, Editorial RM)

• Erik Kessels, Image Tsunami book-flip
• Image Tsunami book description

Irina Rozovsky, One To Nothing (2011, Kehrer Verlag)

• One to Nothing book-flip
• One to Nothing on Kehrer Verlag

Isabel Miranda, DTX (2019, Blurb)

• DTX Blurb Preview (Spring 2019)
• One-Way Mirror (Spring 2021)

Doug Johnson, Faces | Places (2022, in progress)

• Faces/Places .pdf draft

 

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Some Questions to Consider for Your Mini-Book

• What size/aspect ratio will you choose for your book? Take a look at Blurb’s options, as this will be one of the first decisions that you’ll need to make. A square book works well if you are displaying single images in both vertical and horizontal format, as it treats them equally.
• Will your book include text? If so, what will be the relationship between image and text?
• What will the layout of your book be? Will it follow a consistent pattern, or will there be several types of spreads in the book? Will it be crowded like William Klein’s book, or more airy, allowing for negative space / whitespace? Will it make use of double-page spreads? Single images with a blank page opposite it for breathing room?
• What will your cover look like? Will it contain an image? An image that wraps around the entire cover, front to back? Just a solid color and a title (or not), so that it remains mysterious until opened? What about the spine?

 

Steps to take to Start Your Mini-Book

• Create a Blurb account (consider using a non-MassArt email), and order a paper sample pack (*2022: currently out of stock).
• Create a dedicated Lightroom Collection for your book, and begin to gather your image files there.
• Start a Google doc or Word Processing doc with any text you plan to use for your book.
• If you plan to use text, check out Adobe Web Fonts.
• Watch the  Lightroom Book Tutorial.

 

 

 

MINI BOOK ASSIGNMENT

Your last assignment, before you move onto your self-directed final project, is to begin to explore the Photo Book as a form of creative output, using Lightroom’s Book Module. In LR, you can create a Print-on-Demand book to send directly to blurb.com. Everyone will make a mini book for this assignment and send it to Blurb, so that your classmates can flip through it digitally for our critique.

People who are pleased with what they make, or who go on to make a more developed book for their final project, may opt to purchase and print the physical book. This may be a short-term project only, or you can go onto develop it further; many students in past sections of this class have opted to focus on a book for their final, self-directed project.

 

Due by our 1-on-1 Sessions next week, starting 3/30:

1. View some Photo Book Examples here, including flip-videos, online .pdfs, etc., to give you a sense of the photo book as an art form and an approach to the photographic medium. (It saddens me that we won’t be sitting together at a large table passing physical books around, as we have done in past iterations of this class, but we will make due!)
2. Watch the  Lightroom Book Tutorial. Use these two resources to begin to get a sense of the process, and to consider what you might want to work on for your photo book project.
3. Create a free account on Blurb.com. *Consider using your personal email address if you are not a full-time MassArt student or employee.
4. Create a Lightroom Collection Set in your catalog called “BOOKS” and a new collection inside of that set, dedicated to your mini-book (if you have a title in mind already, use that; if not; just call it “Mini Book”). Add a selection of images to this collection, attempting to keep it to a reasonable number. Your book should contain a minimum of 10 images, including one that you may want to use for a cover.
5. You do not need to begin your book layout until our meeting, but consider deciding what size you want your book to be, as you’ll need to make that decision before you begin your layout.

 

Due by 12pm EST on Tuesday 4/6, the day of our Mini-Books Critique:

1. Create a mini Blurb book using Lightroom.
2. Send your book to Blurb, and make it publicly visible on the site.
3. Add the full URL of your book AS A COMMENT HERE ON THIS POST, by Tuesday April 6 at 12pm EST, so that your classmates can preview your book live online before our critique.

Watch the following program of screenings, in preparation for the Still to Moving Image assignment. Begin thinking about using lens-based media in a time-based way, and how it relates to elements of still photography that you’ve already been exploring: lighting, depth of field, motion, point of view, narrative, observation, sequencing, collage.

Consider making notes as you screen these works, about what’s most effective and salient for you here, and what you might want to explore through video or time-lapse. Are you interested in using sound? Stop-motion? Long, uninterrupted real-time takes / duration? Performance? Slow shutter speeds (which will require stop-motion or animation rather than live action video)?

Begin thinking of a set of possible goals/themes/ideas, and if you’re planning to participate in this assignment, we’ll connect over the break via email, or next Thursday to work though your plan.

*Remember that you will be able to approach this in a range of ways, from very lo-fi to more technologically sophisticated, depending on your interests/goals and your comfortability and skill-level with software/technology.

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SCREENING PROGRAM:

• Cindy Sherman, Doll Clothes, 1975 (2:22)
• Jenni Olson, Blue Diary (1997) (6 min)
• James Nares, Street (Excerpt) (2013) (19 min – Excerpted from 61)
• Sarah Morris, Rio (Excerpt) (2018) (8 min – Excerpted from 88)
• Tim Davis, Counting In (2014) (03:26)
• Marilyn Minter, Green Pink Caviar (2009) (07:46)
• Janine Antoni, Touch (2002) (excerpt with interview footage, original 09:37) 
• Sarah Jenkins, Slate Lines (2018) (2:46)

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INTRO TO MOVING IMAGE LECTURE:

• Watch this Video from my Still to Moving Image class, Lecture 1 (37 mins) The password is 22STMI!!!!
• Here’s a .pdf version of that lecture.

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SETTING UP YOUR CAMERA FOR VIDEO WORK:

1. Check out your camera manual, the physical copy or an online .pdf, to determine its video or stop-motion capabilities.
2. If you opt for stop-motion, you may need to choose an Interval Timer setting. Check out whether or not your camera has that option; reach out with questions.
3. If you opt for live action video, make sure your camera’s video setting is on HD (1920×1080 or 4K, high quality).
4. Set your video frame rate to either 24fps, 30fps (23.976 or 29.97 are also options).
5. If your camera allows you to choose between .mp4 and .mov files, choose .mov. Many DSLR’s do not offer this choice.
6. Consider using a tripod for static shots. This is the best way to transition slowly/smoothly into moving image. A makeshift tripod will do, but a real one is best.
7. Most DSLRs need to shoot on “Live View” (seeing the image on the screen rather than through the viewfinder).
8. If shooting Live Action video, make sure your camera is set to record sound (internal microphone on).
9. Consider recording simultaneous sound, or different sound recorded at a separate time, using your smartphone. I’ll follow up over the break or via email re: moving that sound over to your drive if necessary; you can just email the sound file to yourself or upload it to a Google Drive folder form your phone. Silent video is also an option, just remember that silence is a choice: it’s the presence of silence, not the absence of sound.
10. Make sure your camera is on full manual exposure mode, including ISO (no Auto ISO).
11. Temporarily turn off your Auto White Balance, and choose a white balance setting that looks best for the scene.
12. Use the Lecture video and .pdf to explore SHUTTER SPEED FOR VIDEO. As discussed there, a good rule of thumb for shutter speed in video is to double the frame rate, but you can use faster shutter speeds as well.
13. Turn off your Auto-focus (you usually do this both on your lens and in your camera settings); you want to use manual focus for video.
14. Remember that setting up a video shot is the same as setting up a still: be conscious of framing, and take a still test to make sure the exposure is looking good. *Note that for most DSLR’s the still exposure settings do not automatically carry over when you’re in video mode; you’ll need to set those again.
15. With your camera on Live View (screen viewing), zoom in closely (on most DSLR’s, this is a Magnifying Glass button that lets you look in closely at a small are within your frame where you want to focus. Focus manually on that thing.
16. Hit record and record some video! Try this with a few different shots!
17. When you finish up the video section and return to shooting stills, don’t forget to go back to previous focus/WB settings (Auto White Balance and Auto Focus).

 

Using the technical guidelines and image examples from the Photographic Lighting Lecture PDFs and Lighting Lecture Video (Password for this Video is Advanced) shoot 50-100 images using some combination of the techniques listed below. You can select just one of these approaches and do a deep dive, or, if you have the time and equipment, try several (or all) of them and select your most successful images for the critique. Individual images may combine techniques.

You will present 6 FINAL, PROCESSED JPEGs to show in the Lighting Critique on 2/10. The images do not need to relate to each other conceptually as a cohesive body of work, but should be technically polished both in-camera and in post-production. Have your raw images offloaded and narrowed down to 25 or fewer for our one-on-one session.

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Lighting Techniques To Try:

1. Using Reflectors (with natural or artificial light sources)
2. Built-in camera flash (or on-camera speedlite), on both TTL and Manual settings
3. Off-camera flash (even manually popping a flash during a long exposure)
4. Open Flash / Balancing Flash and Ambient Light (can be done without purchasing an external flash if your camera has a built-in)
5. Multiple Light Sources, including Mixed Color Temperature (can be continuous light sources rather than flash)
6. Light-painting with a flashlight or other continuous light source

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You’ll have until 2/10 to finalize your images as exported, processed, JPEGs, but please have some images shot, offloaded, and imported into Lightroom for our first one-on-one lab session of the semester.

1. Read the introduction to Charlotte Cotton,The Photograph As Contemporary Art. Be prepared to discuss it in class next week, and consider, as you read, which of Cotton’s categories might best describe the way you’ve been working thus far, or hope to work in the future.
2. Upload 10-25 images of your past work to share with the class community via Google Drive. See guidelines/specifications below.
3. Consider purchasing any equipment within your budget that you may want to use for the Photographic Lighting assignment (optional). One of the best reasonably-priced investments you can make to step up your lighting game is a reflector. Consider this basic Raya ($24) model or this upgraded Impact 5-in-1 version ($50). Please note that no student is required to purchase new equipment; you can complete the lighting assignment using your on-camera built-in flash, mixed natural lighting sources, your smartpone flash or flashlight, etc. If you intend to purchase a flash unit or other lighting equipment and wish to do so for the next assignment, please email me ASAP if you have questions or require some guidance.
4. Make sure you have the most recent versions of Adobe Bridge, Photoshop, and Lightroom Classic downloaded to your computer.
5. Create your Course Drive Layout / File Management System.
6. Double-check your camera settings.

 

Work-share Guidelines:

• Select 10-25 images of your work to share with the class. These files should be JPEGs, ideally 2000px on the longest side. Upload to the Past Work Folder on Google Drive, in a subfolder with your name.
• Your images can represent a single body of work, or multiple projects. If you work in media other than photography, feel free to share images of that work on its own or in additin to photographic images.