Mobile and Socio-cultural Implications for Photography

Question:

What are the cultural differences we see in the use of mobile devices according to this article?
Do you agree?
Have you had different experience if you are from other parts of the world, or have recently visited other parts of the world?

CNN-Cultural differences/Mobile

Do you think there exist cultural differences in the way people of different cultures choose a profile picture for Facebook? Read the article below, and with a small group, discuss your thoughts about what drives facebook profile selections. Think about Facebook Friends you have who might be from outside this area or country. Look at their Profile Pictures. Are they different than yours?

Facebook Photos May Reflect Unconscious Cultural Differences

Classwork week of March 23-30
Please make a Facebook Photo Album this week that describes your American Cultural Heritage as a high school student or American Teenager. If you are not American by citizenship, then for now, assume that you are immersed in American culture and complete the assignment from that point of view. What is it like to be in the United States as a person from outside the US. You would have a unique viewpoint of American teen culture and experience from that viewpoint. You will have an opportunity to greatly explore your own unique cultural heritage next week.

Your album must have a consistent overall theme and should consist of at least 10 quality photos that demonstrate excellent composition, mastery of camerwork in terms of exposure, and consistent and clear message.

This week you will shoot photographs in class and during school, after school that depict scenes of the typical American teen from a suburban neighborhood such as Saratoga-Los Gatos.  This might include:

1. Conceptual themes about stress, homework, academic pressure
2. Conceptual representations about other themes you would like to explore including teen identity, growing up, moving on, influencing others positivly, etc
3. Friendship
4. Peer Pressure
5. Food
6. Entertainment
7. After School enjoyment/ activities
8. Examples of homework/projects
9. Dances, plays, music, sports etc
10. Anything else

You will share your album with the class by sharing an album link in the comments section of this blogspot. To find the share link for your facebook photo album, click on a photo, find the little editing pencil icon in the upper right of your photo, it will have a share link URL. Copy that and paste below.

Homework:
You will begin the creation of a Facebook photo album that tells the story of your own cultural identity. Start by thinking about your cultural origins. Some of you were born in other countries, some of you are second generation. Some of you probably have never been to another country. Even though I am 5th generation Irish, I still feel cultural connections to an Irish heritage. When I first visited Ireland 25 years ago I felt a deep connection to the country, although I had never been. I loved the music, the laid back attitudes, the humor, the celtic art and the people. I also loved the countryside and the land. I felt a connection to a place I was not born, my parents and grandparents were not born. But still I had a connection. If you do not have a connection to your original cultural background, this is your chance to do some research. Some things to shoot might be:

1. Clothing
2. Food
3. Sheet music examples
4. Differences in language or text/type for alphabet
5. Differences in worship
6. Memorabelia from trips to countries with cultural ties
7. Old photos that could be scanned and merged with your own photo
8. What about taking an old family photo and merging yourself into it?

Over the weekend collect old photos to bring to school for scanning (if you have them). Also shoot photos that you can bring to school that describe/depict cultural heritage, such as clothes, objects, food. Bring to school Monday a collection of photos to work with. You should have at least 2 photos for scanning, and 6-8 photos you have shot for editing/cropping.

We will work on a Facebook photo album the entire following week that explores cultural identity and storytelling.

If you are unsure of your cultural heritage, respond by connecting to the heritage you feel most closely associated. For some of you, this could be your American Heritage. What does it mean to be American?

See me for any questions you might have.

Portraiture

Please take this quick anonymous survey. thanks

Please download the attached booklet from last year to look at portraits that Mrs. Leather will refer to in today's class.

Week's assignment:
Portraits-create a final collection of excellent portraits that capture not only the physical attributes of the subject, but the inner qualities of the person as well. (4 excellent photos to turn in my week's end).
These final 4 excellent photos should be uploaded to the google drive/classwork/portraits. And finally, make your own folder under portraits by giving it a name. 

Weekend Homework due 3/23:
Portrait: Create an excellent portrait of 2 people you know well. These could be family members or friends. Upload to portrait folder linked here. These need to be uploaded by 3/23, 8pm. Anything later will lose one letter grade. (directory: google drive/homework/portrait-make your folder)


Grading:
These will be evaluated based on:

1. Camera skill (solid good exposure)
2. Demonstration of narrow depth of field-model in focus, background defocused in at least 1
3. Composition-intentional thought has gone into how you are aligning aspects of your photo for optimal composition
4. Demonstration that you as photographer control the shot

Classwork Monday/Tuesday (when complete, please work on portraiture shots, week's photo assignment-listed above)

In groups, find examples of portraits that demonstrate the following concepts and put them into a shared google presentation to share with the class. In your presentation, show at least 8-10 examples of your research topic, siting what you like, do not like, challenges facing the photographer, challenges facing the model or subject of the portrait.

Variety of camera angles and or perspectives, variety of shots with model/subject looking in different ways, direct at camera, but also away from camera.
(jessika, corinne, rahul)

Differences in depth of field, from narrow/shallow to wide.
(tomas, caitlin, alison)

That use props to further tell a story about the person
(nina, andrew, erin)

Interesting use of composition, perhaps breaking standard compositional rules
(patrick, jimmy, ryann)

Show surface beauty, inner beauty and capture both-compare and contrast all 3
(jason y., brooke, carolina)

Studio indoor lighting, outdoor lighting, 3 pt lighting, dramatic lighting, pattern lighting
(samantha, daniela, taylor, jimmy)


Photographers to research (you must use at least 2 photographers from the first group below, and 2 photographers from Asia, as grouped in the second grouping).
You may also use photographers you find on the web through Google. 

Steve McCurry
Jousef Karsh
Irving Penn
Mary Ellen Mark
Joe McNally
Annie Liebovitz
Gregory Heisler
Peter Hurley

Daido Moriyama
Raghu Rai
Chien Chi Chang
Ho Fan

Avedon Documentary and Socratic Groups

Homework, Due: March 9th, 8pm. Point Value: 50pts (includes the best 3 plus evidence of your many photos shot over the weekend)

Take a series of photographs over the weekend that 'tell a story'.  Have fun, find interesting people, groups, situations, or stage something with a group of friends and use photography to tell a story. Think of freezing a moment in time from a story. In order to get one good shot, be a photographer all weekend  long. Take your camera with you where you go. When an opportunity comes up, get the camera in hand and capture the stories before you. Shoot many photos, select the best 3 and upload them.

Please upload your best 3 photos to this folder, Stories, under the homework folder.

Tips:
Shoot higher resolution. Think about your composition and exposure. Get involved, move, be active and take part in the experience.

Please respond to this blogspot reflection:

Look at the work turned in from Thursday's action shots. We will analyze the work in terms of camera mastery, composition and communication. Please explain which shot you would choose as examples of

1. Best Mastery of Camera Technology/Technique
2. Best Composition
3. Best Communication

Follow up by writing 1 paragraph about your experience on Thursday making action shots. Was it fun? Was it embarrassing? Was it easier the more you did it? If you did it again, how might you prepare differently?

___________________________

Click here to download the Avedon learning guide which includes insights into

1. Why we want to learn about Avedon
2. How it can help our own work
3. How the Socratic Process will work
4. How we will use documentary as a learning tool

Schedule:

• Monday-review/critique action shots, reflect upon the process and Avedon
• Tuesday-break into groups and watch the documentary parts in groups (1 computer per)
• Thursday, Monday, Tues-socratics run by groups. Socratics will use documentary rather than books to form foundation of learning. Each group will prepare a Socratic Seminar that will explore their Documentary Part (2-9) by creating and posing questions, running the seminar and making sure the learning is relevant to improving our own work. 

Socratic Groups:
Each group will watch their assigned part of the documentary Darkness and Light. You will distill what you think is most important for the class and create questions that will engage the class in discussion.

When you run your Socratic, you will play the movie (approx 10 min), and prepare a discussion that will run 8-10 min in length. The purpose of each discussion is to deepen our own understanding of Photography and to apply the concepts learned from a modern American Master of Photography.


Darkness and Light-Part 2

1. Tomas, Corinne, Carolina

Darkness and Light-Part 3

1. Erin, Jessika, Patrick

Darkness and Light-Part 4

1. Caitlin, Daniella, Allison, Brooke

Darkness and Light-Part 5

1. Taylor, Samantha, Ryann, Jay

Darkness and Light-Part 6

1. Nina, Rahul, Juliette

Darkness and Light-Part 7

1. Jimmy, Andrew, Jason Y.

Action Shots

Thursday:

Upload 4 action shots that respond to the 4 concepts below here

Moving outside today you will take a series of action shots around campus.

Take dozens of shots, at least 24-36 action shots to show Mrs. L in your camera, or transferred to computer using a transfer method. From your 24-36 shots, you will pick your 4 favorite to focus on.

Taking your 4 favorite shots, alter in Photoshop by:

1. Desaturating, look at the image and action in color and black and white. (Show Mrs. L for points). Demonstrate to Mrs. L and yourself the photo as B&W and Color. Which is more effective and why?
2. Demonstrate your knowledge of exposure as applied to action shot (what does this mean to you?) Is there an advantage to using an exposure that provides interesting depth of field, or is a high shutter the best approach? In looking at both photographers' work, do you think they use a high shutter to freeze the action? How can you apply the idea of exposure to your work. If you use high shutter, where do you get enough light?
3. Demonstrate your knowledge of Avedon through an Action Shot-get in the photo, make your subject move and have fun with them, enter into the action with your camera, become an active participant. Think about your exposure, lighting, camera angles, etc
4. Demonstrate your knowledge of Avedon through an Action Shot, but this time, convey a mood that would support a fashion advertisement.Think about more posing the shot and actors and look for a specific mood-this time you are making a fashion photograph - your job is to develop an "Image" to associate with a product.

You will have Thursday and Monday to shoot, edit in Photoshop and upload to Google drive.  Final uploads by Tues, next week.


Final assignment, Due Tues Mar 4th:
Hand in 4 shots based on #1-4 above.

Critique March 6th, review all action shots 1-4 using online methods for review. Students will select the best 3 for each category 1-4.

Upcoming:

Click here for Avedon Socratic overview

March 6th-Avedon groups assigned. Watch Avedon sections, create 3 questions to pose for Socratic. Socratics.

March 11-14 Avedon documentary, socratics.

Homework: Avedon- student choice, inspired by learning about Avedon.

March 17th-Levitation, special effects (intro green screen and worm's eye view)
Classwork: Try levitation concepts
Classwork: Plan worm's eye view-shoot background, shoot foreground (over green)

Homework: Student choice, inspired by either levitation concepts, or worm's eye view and green screen.


March 24-April 4th 
Portraiture and lighting, metering.

Homework: Portrait series around topic/subject of your choice, over 2 weekends. Total of 10 shots around a topic with theme and focus. It must fall into portraiture category and be a series of photos exploring a theme or concept. It could be the same model in different poses, different models/people but in the same pose, different people all expressing a similar emotion, same person expressing different emotions.

April
Found object, wabi sabi, google street maps.
Final trip of the year - Cantor Art Museum/Stanford (schedule pending)

Homework: Student choice, found object or wabi sabi with a study of cultural influences

May
Student Choice-develop an independent project that allow you to explore creative areas of interest, identify remaining areas of technical challenge, culminate in student show the final week or school year.

Homework: Student identifies topic, theme, angle. Student will demonstrate a series of photographs (8-10) that fall within the same communicative topic. Student will demonstrate concepts in these photos learned through the year including:

1. Triad relationship (subject, photographer, audience)
2. Exposure
3. Composition (rule of thirds, golden mean, sweet spots, visual hierarchy, balance, camera angle, etc)
4. Conceptual meaning, symbolism, emotional response
5. Lighting
6. Metering
7. Bracketing, exposure compensation
8. Multiple exposure concepts, overlay, multiple layers 
9. Photoshop retouching, cropping, sizing, resolution, file formats, rotation, intentional horizon line, image adjustments, histogram, effects, image compositing etc)
10. Genre of photography

Student will hand in at least 8-10 photos (no more than 12) for review along with a 2 page paper that explains these concepts and how they are demonstrated in the work.

Action Shots