Week 2!

Time to get started with the reason for taking this class.. learning to make beautiful images.

Here is what I have on the Syllabus for you this week:

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.

Tips.... Do not take a picture of a whole building with sky behind it (yawn)...

Don't take a picture of a statue or other public monument (yawn)...

Here is your mantra for the whole class... time to start... repeat after me....

Look for light, get in closer, I will turn off my flash.

Look for light, get in closer, I will turn off my flash.

Look for light, get in closer, I will turn off my flash.

( Turn off any date or time stamps too)