Class final crit - our own Portfolio Walk - Thursday, December 15th

Our final critique and last meeting as a class will be this Thursday, December 10th, starting at 6pm. You will be presenting your entire portfolio from the semester - each student will be given half a table to lay their work out.

Photo 33: a total of 9 shots (white on white, glass glow, traditional, 3 shots from section 3 and 3 shots from section 4).

Photo 34: Section 1 Layout, Section 2 Noir and Surrealism, Section 3 the animation or 3-5 images from constructed series and Section 4 the three images. 

POTLUCK - yup, you finally get to eat in the classroom. You've worked hard - let's relax and enjoy what you've learned. 

Welcome to Studio Practices - Fall 2016

This blog will be used by both Photo 33 and Photo 34 students. Look for the labels on the sidebar and simply click on either Photo 33 or 34 to filter for your class.

Photo 33: This semester you take the big jump from finding images to creating your own worlds. I am a lighting fanatic - I'm continually interested in how light works and looking at little bits of light and shadow. During the semester you will do 8-9 shoots as the photographer and assist on another 8-9 because most of us start our photographic careers as assistants and it gives you double the experience.

A big part of what we will be doing is developing a "studio culture." What is this? It's how you learn to work with a crew, a supervisor and a wide range of equipment that (if handled incorrectly) could seriously harm you. Here's a great article on The Seven Arts of Working in Film: a necessary guide to on-set protocol" that really helps explain what I'm looking for and why.

Here's a copy of the Photo 33: Studio Lighting syllabus. 

Photo 34: This will be a continuing development of your visual style and portfolio. We will expand on your previous skills with new techniques - but it is also important that you are able to develop a strong portfolio. Here is a copy of the Photo 34: Advanced Photographic Applications syllabus.

Also, please remember that the majority of the information for the class will now be on our Canvas app. Please make sure you've signed up and downloaded the app for your phone.


Here are some resources if you're stumped for ideas:

For more ideas, here are the research sites I posted before. Remember when you review these sites that some (maybe most) of the images may be too "simple" for our purposes. Also, if you're choosing a fairly simple shot, make sure you bring in multiple strong ideas for the surfaces and backgrounds. Simple shots are actually fairly difficult because each object has to be perfect.

The Workbook is a source book for creative artists. This link should take you to the portfolio pages, check off the boxes you're interested in (try still life, food, product etc.) and you'll find pages of great ideas.

The Photographer's Showcase at Photo-Eye is dedicated to fine arts and has a search by subject matter.

1x.com is a Swedish photography social media site where all the images have been picked by professional curators.

Creative Editing is a blog post with a wide range of surrealistic and fantasy-oriented imagery. Well suited for advanced students.

The following video was shot about midway through a previous class.