Beginning Photography September Projects

School is in full swing already. Did we have a summer vacation? It is getting hard to remember. The beginning photography students have started making photograms and getting used to working in the darkroom. This is one of my favorite projects. I can't wait to see what students decide to do with this assignment. We are discussing composition quite a bit and students will be working on a self portrait collage incorporating some of the elements and principles of design we are concentrating on right now-namely shape, texture, asymmetrical balance, pattern and rhythm. While the weather is good, we will also be enjoying the sunshine while making cyanotypes-an old process in which you paint your emulsion onto a surface, in our case watercolor paper or fabric, and lay objects, transparencies, or even bodies on the emulsion, use the sun to expose this and develop it in water. Later on this month we will be making pinhole cameras and learning about the early history of photography. Here is a slideshow of some photograms by various artists and past students.