Christmas work

You need to take as many pictures as possible, remember the themes, Texture and Portraiture.

Texture: frost, snow?, Christmas trees and baubles, food, leftovers with napkins, think in terms of contrast in both colour and texture. Interior and exterior, natural and manmade.

Portraiture: really good time for family portraits, try to avoid the formal ones but get people unawares, older people asleep, childrens delight at opening presents, playing etc. Try unusual angles, from behind, over the shoulder, childs eye view etc.

Research existing photographers work and try to get inspiration from them, you can then put their images in your sketch book alongside your own.

You should use the holidays to get your sketch books up and running, you should be taking some good images now.

18th December

You should come to the lesson in the Media studio with all your darkroom notes, prints and photograms and your sketch book. You need to start putting your sketch book together.

You will be presenting your own portraiture images to the class and we will discuss your work.

Please ensure you bring material to the lesson, it would be best to put it on your blog then we can see it on the whiteboard.

17th Dec

We have had some good sessions in the darkroom, you have produced some excellent photograms, you should have had some experience of processing film, creating contact sheets and starting to print test strips. The next stage is to enlarge whole prints. Some of your attendance has been non existent. You must ensure that you catch up with this work. You can go into the darkroom at any time. If you give me some notice I can go in and show you how to do it, or you could ask one of the other students to help you, there are lots of worksheets in the cupboards if you get stuck.

In the lunchtime lesson I would like you all to take 10 minutes to prepare a presentation on one of the following images.
Use this structure to write about the images:
Photographers intentions
1. what are the photographers aims?
2. Who is the image for? More than one audience?
3. Does the image successfully communicate the photographers aims and intentions?

Analysing the image.
1. What type of photography is this? documentary, reportage, portrait, fine art, advertising, editorial?
2. What is included in the photograph?
3. What message does it convey?
4. What techniques do you think have been used to make the image?
5. Has the image been staged?
6. Has the image been manipulated in any way?

Personal Response.
1. How does the image make you feel?
2. Does it remind you of anything? personal experiences, other photographers work.

For homework I would like you to use the same structure to present one of your own portrait images, in addition to the above points you should also provide the technical specification for the image- Aperture f. reading, shutter speed, and ISO rating. It is also interesting to provide an unedited version on your blog or in your scrapbook to show how you have manipulated your image.

27th November

Have a look here for a really good guide to using the SLR cameras. Experiment and have fun and try to use up the film. Bring the film into me on Monday and I will try and get them developed as soon as possible.


Your second task this week is to look at the list of photographers on the sheet I gave you today. Find one image you really admire then write about it in response to the following points. Not all of these points will be relevant to every photo but just use this as a guideline and add it to your


Photographers intentions
1. what are the photographers aims?
2. Who is the image for? More than one audience?
3. Does the image successfully communicate the photographers aims and intentions?

Analysing the image.
1. What type of photography is this? documentary, reportage, portrait, fine art, advertising, editorial?
2. What is included in the photograph?
3. What message does it convey?
4. What techniques do you think have been used to make the image?
5. Has the image been staged?
6. Has the image been manipulated in any way?

Personal Response.
1. How does the image make you feel?
2. Does it remind you of anything? personal experiences, other photographers work.

You should then take a picture that has been inspired by this research. You can do a copy of the composition or just try and consider the theme or motive behind it. For instance the pictures by Annie Leibovitz that are of the Disney scenes, you could just try and recreate a story line or a nursery rhyme.

Work for 22nd & 23rd October

Magnum is one of the best known photography agencies, it is run by the photographers themselves and it is a great honour to be invited to join. If you are ever looking for a well known photographer, this is a good place to start. Click here for link. 1. Choose an image from this site and answer the following points on it. 2. Try and take an image of your own that is inspired by the image you have written about, have a look at the other work of that photographer and put your findings on your blog.

Looking at photographs
When you are looking for photos to compare with your own, follow this structure to write about them:

Photographers intentions
1. what are the photographers aims?
2. Who is the image for? More than one audience?
3. Does the image successfully communicate the photographers aims and intentions?

Analysing the image.
1. What type of photography is this? documentary, reportage, portrait, fine art, advertising, editorial?
2. What is included in the photograph?
3. What message does it convey?
4. What techniques do you think have been used to make the image?
5. Has the image been staged?
6. Has the image been manipulated in any way?

Personal Response.
1. How does the image make you feel?
2. Does it remind you of anything? personal experiences, other photographers work.

Work for 15th & 16th October

Black and white images are often more powerful and dramatic than those in colour as if by removing one layer of reality it allows us to see others more clearly.

1. This is a fantastic time of year to take some pictures outside of leaves.The trees are all changing and starting to shed so take some on trees and in piles on the floor. Look at the different colours, try getting really close up so you can see the spines and also look for large bushes or groups of trees with contrasting shades.

2. Try experimenting with colour and black and white. Either change the setting on your camera, if you can work it out or change it within iphoto ( simply go to edit-adjust, try boosting the colour first before you change it to black and white)

3. Read and take inspiration from this site an excellent source for ideas.

In particular this page is excellent for thinking about black and white.

Work for 8th & 9th October.

1. Have a look here . Choose your least favourite and the picture you like the most. You can edit them, crop, change the lighting or turn into black and white. I would like you to write 3 lines on what is good or bad about the composition, think, framing, position, lighting, background, focus etc.

Please upload these to your blog.

2. I would like you to take two pictures of an object you have found in your home. The first picture should show the object in its context, so we can easily see what it is. The second image should be taken of the same object but from an unusual angle so its not immediately recognisable. In next weeks lesson we will see if we can guess each others images so please have them uploaded. You will probably want to do this in extreme close up so be really careful with your focusing to ensure your point of interest ( remember the rule of thirds?) is in focus.

3. Read and take notes from this really good website http://www.bbc.co.uk/britain/goodphotos/index.shtml.

Your Photos

I have uploaded your photos here



You can download and upload your pictures here. If you click on the 'i' symbol you can get the technical info.

http://shsgphoto08.blogspot.com/

Photography lesson

From: shsgmedia, 10 months ago

Photography lesson

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Homework for 25th September.

1. Re read the attached powerpoint. Identify 3 key points that you consider to be most important.
2. Upload depth of field pics.
3. Take 3 portrait pics, one full length, one head and shoulders, one extreme close up.

Outline of AS course

From: shsgmedia, 23 minutes ago

Outline of course

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The Boulevard du Temple in Paris, an early daguerreotype view by Louis Jacques-Mande Daguerre ( 1838)