Week 2... The Built Environment

Hi Everyone....

By now you should be up and running.. you are comfortable shooting and editing your pictures as well as posting to the blog and uploading images to fotothing. Important!... I don't have many of your screen names for fotothing so I can't add you as a "friend" or class member. If you let this go much longer, your grade will definitely be impacted. It is very important to build your fotothing portfolio as the class unfolds!

Some tips for this week... Move in close... fill the frame! Look for light. Don't post a picture of a whole building... or a whole sculpture... or a whole anything for that matter... Rather, look at the lines, shapes and geometric elements that make up the built environment to fill your frame with design. Use reflections, angles, corners, road lines, signage, etc to fill your frame.... Don't include the sky unless it has compelling light and really adds to the image. By now you have realized that you should not use flash! Working at dusk or at night can produce some amazing results (again no flash). Here are the directions from the syllabus....

Assignment: Downtown

Photograph shapes, reflections, light and pattern in an urban or town environment paying particular attention to the shapes you select in the frame and the quality of light on the subject.

Avoid being far away or showing a whole building. Always shoot with natural light. Never use flash in this class... get in close, fill the frame.

Read about Paul Strand.... His work in New York City in the early 20th Century defined how photographers could use new ideas of modernism championed in painting to great effect.

Read The Art Motive in Photography, Paul Strand, The British Journal of Photography, Vol.70, pp. 612-15, 1923

Browse through my portfolio of images from my "Connecticut Towns" project, particularly Stonington and Noank

You may work in black and white. Picasa2 makes it easy to convert and tone your images. Adjust the tones using Picasa's advanced editing tools.Submit your best two images on the class blog and post 6-10 or more to your fotothing album. (Links in academic expectations below).