November and December in Photography

So many great things going on in the photography classes.  In the digital photo classes students just finished exploring color and making some really great grids and moody photos. I will be posting a slideshow of some of the best in the next couple of weeks.
In the 3-4 class, students just got done shooting, developing, and printing images from their first rolls of film.  They learned how to work with filters in the darkroom and matted some very nice images.
In the 5-6 classes, lots of really great work is being done.  The self portraits and star books were spectacular.  We have now moved on to food photography and making a cookbook.  We had the lovely Carrie Minns, a food photographer and blogger, come in and show us her work and how to set up a food shoot.  Her work is terrific.  Check out her blog-La Pomme de Portland
After Carrie's presentation the fun began.  I decided to have a friendly competitive food shoot.  The classes were put into teams, given an assignment, and had to set up and style, shoot, edit and print out their photos in one class period.  A team of jurors will do a blind viewing of the work and pick out the two best images for the front and back of our cookbook.  Here is the work that was made in one day that the judges will be looking at.  Which would you pick?

October Happenings

Students are well into the swing of things.  In the Photo 1-2 digital classes, students are working in Lightroom and shooting a variety of composition techniques.  We will be starting a color unit next.  In the 3-4 class, students are shooting and developing their first rolls of film.  This is always an exciting time.  I can't wait to see what everybody gets with this assignment.  They will also be learning how to work with filters in printing their images.  We will delve deeper into the creative controls next.  The 5-6 students are working on their self portraits.  This is always a difficult assignment.  I have added a new twist to this project in the form of a star book that will be a kind of family album almost.  I have been finding some interesting, sophisticated self portraits by young (16 to 18 years old) photographers on the website My Modern Met   Here are some examples:


                                                                       Phillip Schumacher

Cristina Otero

Alex Stoddard

Laura Williams

What's Happening in the Classrooms

Lots and lots of wonderful work being made right now in all the photo classes.  The Digital Photo classes just finished up making their blogs and getting organized.  We went on our first shooting field trip and will be talking composition, cameras, and editing in the next couple of weeks.  In the 3-4 class, students are learning to make prints in the darkroom using cameraless techniques.  Some beautiful cyanotypes were made using both plant materials and a variety of transparencies.  Students made photograms and tone reversal tests and shot some fantastic images with pinhole cameras.  They will now take their knowledge from all these tests and make some thoughtful final pieces.  I can't wait to see what they come up with.  In the 5-6 class, we made three different idea books using various Japanese stab binding techniques.  These little books are being filled with image ideas, visualizations of poetry readings, and technical notes.  The 5-6 students are also working on printing with fiberbased papers.  Each student is making one print on a matte surface and hand painting the image with photo oils.  They also shot a roll of film based on the prompt "dawn and dusk" and will be printing that piece on a more standard glossy surface.  These will then be mounted, framed and hung in the LincGallery.
To the 3-4 students-Here are the pinhole and photogram slideshows.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to a new school year.  I am looking forward to seeing many returning students who are signed up for both the 3-4 and 5-6 classes.  I also am excited to meet so many new students in the 3 digital photography sections I am teaching.  We will be in a new lab this year as the arts and publication classes are growing.  Check out the new pages in the website representing each class.  It is there you will find a class description, a supply list, your assignments throughout the year and an ongoing changing calendar of what we will be doing.  I am hoping to post more images soon.  For now, here is a slideshow of some of the past work that has been done in the photography program.  See you soon!

Slideshow of Portraits by the Beginning Photography Students

Spring has Sprung

Wow, it is hard to believe that we are beginning 4th quarter.  This year is rushing by.  Beginning Students just finished up working with portraiture.  I was so impressed with what they did.  Some absolutely stunningly beautiful pieces were made.  I will try to get them to scan in their work so I can make a slideshow.  Now students are moving onto Photo Essays.  This is one of the favorite assignments.  Students can shoot film, digital, phone, medium format, or toy cameras.  They choose their own topic and make a small body of work that is then presented in a little portfolio envelope.  The Digital Photo class has been heavy into editing and working with layers in Photoshop.   We are now going back to working more in Lightroom.  They will be making portraits and starting a magazine project.  The advanced class is starting their last assignments before preparing for the final show.  They will be making books and using other art forms as a prompt for producing small bodies of work in whatever technique they like.
Happy Spring!

Happenings in Photography

So much going on right now in all the photo classes.  In the Digital Photography classes students are working in Photoshop figuring out how to work with all the tools at their disposal.  We will be starting a unit on surrealism and photomontage in the next week.  I can't wait to see what fantastical creations are made.  The Beginning Photography students are starting a huge portrait unit.  We start this out by watching a great film on Annie Leibovitz for inspiration.  The Advanced students are learning all kinds of ways to transfer photos to a wide variety of surfaces.  Much of this work will be incorporated into hand bound books in the next months.

Painting by Rene Magritte

Louise Bourgeois Photograph by Annie Leibovitz

Emulsion Transfer by Dorothy Krause

A New Semester

Ah, second semester.  At this point, everybody knows what I expect, everybody is getting the technical side of photography down, and everybody is producing good to excellent work.  The beginning photography students turned in some stellar 1st semester final portfolios.  I will be hanging some of the best in the LincGallery in the next couple of weeks.  The digital photo students did some terrific emulations of other's photographs.  Some super clever images came out of this.  These will be posted in the gallery also in the next month.  The advanced students are starting to delve into all kinds of transfer processes, bookmaking, more exciting independent projects and getting ready for the final show.  Congratulations to advanced photo students Emily Hodel, Ally Cohen, Sage Smiley, and Kate Liu for winning awards from the Scholastic Arts and Writing awards.  Emily, Ally and Kate will all be showing their winning gold key pieces at PNCA from February 6 through 28th.

A New Year

Happy New Year!  All classes are finishing up for the 1st semester.  The students in beginning photography are super busy printing images for their semester portfolio.  I am seeing some terrific work up in the darkroom.  This is the time that everything seems to click.  In the Digital Photo class, students just finished up making diptychs, triptychs, and way cool kaleidescopes.  They are working on an emulation project for their final.  In advanced photo, everyone is finishing up another quarter's independent projects plus working on a text based final project.  I am expecting dynamite work from all my students.

The digital photo students asked to see some examples of emulation projects from last year.  Here are a few that I thought were very good.