November News

The beginning photography students finished up 1st quarter with some very nice portfolios overall.  Most students are starting to get the feel for the darkroom and working with film.  Now they can concentrate on the content and creativity of their images more.  They will start doing that with our first assignment of 2nd quarter which is working with motion.  This is always a challenging assignment but one of my favorites.  We will then quickly move into the other half of the creative controls when we explore depth of field.  For that assignment, students will be using the still life and objects to explore abstraction.
Advanced students turned in their 1st independent projects and a body of self portrait works.  Some really amazing pieces came out of these assignments.  Many students were really drawn to transfers onto wood, sculptural elements, an working in multiples.  For second quarter, we will be exploring the idea of multiple perspectives and repetition more plus each student takes on another independent project.

INSPIRATION
I was just in New York City attending the opening of the Alternative Process Competition show at SoHo Photo Gallery.  I was one of the participants of the show.  My friend and colleague, Lilly Windle, came with and we spent a fabulous weekend going to museums and galleries and seeing tons of art.  One of my favorite shows was Gabriel Orozco's installation, "Asterisms" in one of the galleries at the Guggenheim.  This is a body of work that addresses how human waste affects ecosystems.  Orozco and some assistants visited various sites and collected, categorized and photographed litter. Here are some photos of the show.