Tree of Utah #2

On I-80 at mile-marker 36 is this little tree. I went out this morning at 5am to take this photograph. I got there about 30 minutes before the sun cleared the horizon. This image was made about 10 minutes before sunrise. This is the sweet light. I hope you have all seen it by now.



Tree Of Utah #2, Near Wendover, Utah, 2009

Photos From Mars

Take a look at these shots. They are amazing!

Link to article in the Boston Globe.

Today's Shot

Shooting With 11x14, Near Stansbury Island, Great Salt Lake, 2009

So you think my assignments were hard?

Watch this!

Thanksgiving Challenge - Extra Credit

Pretend you are photographing a big assignment for Gourmet Magazine. Photograph the creation and finished product of your Thanksgiving Feast. Concentrate on LIGHT, getting focus SHARP, good tight composition, and last but not least, TELL ME A STORY. Shoot the people making the food, some portraits of the cook/chef would be nice.

This should be FUN for both you and the people that you are photographing. If you get in the way and are making things worse for everyone, consider backing off and shooting the wide shot. Also consider *HELPING* a little bit. It will go a long way to making those people who are actually *making* the dinner happy with you.


Also, a nice image of the table with all the food spread out, the family in their holiday finery preparing to chow-down would be fun.

Good luck and don't get too sick!

Mini-Final

Put your favorite six images, that you took with your camera using your eyes and your hands and your brain on your blog.

These six images can be from ANY of your assignments, up to and including the one that you are finishing now.

This needs to be on your blog by the end of classes on Tuesday.

Write something about each image. Why is it your favorite? What worked well? What would you change if you could?

Enjoy your Thanksgiving vacation. Remember to give thanks.

Remember to shoot portraits over Thanksgiving weekend.

Wanna make some $$$???

International stock image agency announces $150,000 grant program for photographers

Article by Jason Segarra on November 11, 2009 at 21:35:26

Aspiring and professional shutterbugs alike will be dusting off the digital SLR soon as Seattle-based stock image supplier Getty Images has recently announced that it will continue its grant programs in 2010, giving photographers the chance to compete for up to $20,000 in winnings.

The grant programs, now entering their fifth year, provide funding for student and professional photographers as well as non-profit organizations to help produce significant works of art with the increased freedom that comes from an unconditional budget.

The grant for editorial photography will honor five professional photojournalists with $20,000 awards and four student photographers with $5,000 each. The Grants for Good program, which requires that participants seek out the guidance of a creative agency, will award two grants worth $15,000 a piece.

"As we are all aware, these are trying times for our industry and many of the traditional resources that would have given financial support to photojournalists have all but dried up," claims vice president of photo assignments for the company Aidan Sullivan. "That makes awards like this even more crucial, as without the grants, the photojournalists'' important work may never have been seen."

Deadline and application information is available on the company's website. Getty Images

Assignment #6 - Portraits

From Wikipedia (yeah, a terrible source, but I liked the definition...)

Portrait:

"A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer."



Three rules to this assignment.

Rule #1: NO MYSPACE PHOTOS - I think you all know what this means. You've seen 'em, you've taken 'em, I don't want 'em.

Rule #2: You need to shoot at least three separate people.

Rule #3: One of those three people MUST be yourself...but, you can't BE yourself...

Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.



Here is a link to the National Portrait Gallery. You will get a lot of good ideas here from paintings, sculpture and photography.

National Portrait Gallery

Here is one of my favorite portrait photographers...Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon Portrait Gallery

Hiroshi Watanabe's gallery has a few sections of portraits that are interesting.

August Sander was a German photographer who made portraits of farmers and working class people near Cologne prior to World War II. After the Nazi's gained power, Sander continued to shoot the people in his city, many of them shown in Nazi military uniforms. Sander's portraits provide possibly the widest cross-section of Germans during that time.

Here is a self-portrait of me as Abraham Lincoln.



Due on Friday, December 4th.

Y Block: 12 on blog, 6 prints, ONE of which needs to be a 'self-portrait'.

Yousef Karsh

My portrait of Winston Churchill changed my life. I knew after I had taken it that it was an important picture, but I could hardly have dreamed that it would become one of the most widely reproduced images in the history of photography. In 1941, Churchill visited first Washington and then Ottawa. The Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, invited me to be present. After the electrifying speech, I waited in the Speaker’s Chamber where, the evening before, I had set up my lights and camera. The Prime Minister, arm-in-arm with Churchill and followed by his entourage, started to lead him into the room. I switched on my floodlights; a surprised Churchill growled, “What’s this, what’s this?” No one had the courage to explain. I timorously stepped forward and said, “Sir, I hope I will be fortunate enough to make a portrait worthy of this historic occasion.” He glanced at me and demanded, “Why was I not told?” When his entourage began to laugh, this hardly helped matters for me. Churchill lit a fresh cigar, puffed at it with a mischievous air, and then magnanimously relented. “You may take one.” Churchill’s cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, “Forgive me, sir,” and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph.

Assignment #5 - Get On Your Belly!!!

That's right, every and I mean EVERY shot done for this assignment will be shot from your belly...or your back. What I want you to do is to look at the world from a different point of view.

Ask yourself when you are making these images how they look different shot from the low point of view. Do they look any different? If they don't look different than if you shot them standing up, don't make the image.

Shooting from below your subject makes it look larger than life. In the 'biz' we call it the 'Hero Angle'. It makes everything look heroic, grand, powerful and large...even if it is none of those things.

Think about what you can shoot that might not be heroic, grand, powerful or large, and how this point of view can play with your perception of those things.

Images and prints due Monday, November 9th. 10 images on the blog, 5 prints.

duck a: "quack"

duck b: "quack quack"