PHO5597 - Complete

I have posted all of my assignment from this course (with the exception of my final portfolio which was an amalgamation of all the assignment photos - and a few extras) and almost every one has had the same mark: A-. Near the end of the course I determined that it was near impossible for me to get anything other than an A- in the course itself without really screwing something up, and as it turns out I was right.
I checked my marks the other day and I did in fact receive an A- in the course. I am pretty happy with that mark as this was the first course in which I felt as if my photos were actually being graded for composition and content in a non-beginner's sort of way. I definitely learnt a fair bit in this course most of which I am already instinctively putting into practice when I shoot.
The part-time program from Algonquin College hit it out of the park yet again.

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Motivation Monday - Peter Lindbergh

"My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century." Peter Lindbergh on the overuse of retouching in fashion photography.

Peter Lindbergh (born Peter Brodbeck in 1944) has been called "the worlds greatest fashion photographer" (Ian Phillips, 1997). He has been taking fashion photographs since 1978 and has created some absolutely amazing photographs since. He has shot several television commercials and ad campaigns for some of the biggest companies and with some of the biggest stars (e.g. Tina Turner for Hanes). He has even directed a short documentary, which received great reviews and awards. He has shot some of the most famous fashion models such as Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford (photographed together in 1990, below). One would think, as a fashion model, being photographed by Peter Lindbergh would be not only an honour, but also something you would definitely include in your portfolio.

His photographs have been published in almost every fashion magazine in existence including Stern, Harper's Bazaar (Fashion Olympics article, below, featuring Lucy Liu) and Vogue.

His first book, Ten Women, was published in 1996 and has sold over 100,000 copies. It is a collection of black and white photographs of ten top models of the moment. He has been given award after award and many photographic honours throughout his career.

One of the things that I find most inspirational about him are his views on Photoshop and digital retouching (see quote at beginning of post). From what I understand of his views, mine are similar in that, retouching should not be a photographic tool as it is. It should take less of a role and the photographer should be more aware of their subject and have the abilities to create a flattering, and yet still honest, image without relying on digital assistance. Lindbergh definitely has the skills needed to create not only flattering images of his subject, but incredibly interesting and unique ones.

(images found through Google)

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Final Portfolio

I presented my final portfolio for my Composition and Design course this past Monday and was rather impressed with how I did. I am not the greatest public speaker, and I am even worse when I need to talk about my own work (rather than an abstract idea, project or some sort of research), but I managed to talk for 10 minutes, which was just under the requested time. My portfolio is twenty photos long and since it primarily consists of photos already posted here, I will not be creating any long series of posts for the images. If you are interested in viewing the photos, most of them are in my PHO5597 set on my Flickr account.

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Motivation Monday - John Sexton

"And then as I frequently do, some times I'll peek out from underneath the focusing cloth and just look around the edges of the frame that I am not seeing, see if there's something that should be adjusted in terms of changing the camera position" - John Sexton.

John Sexton (born 1953) has had quite an impressive career thus far. He has many honours and awards to his name and of course, a fantastic portfolio. He is quite possibly one of the most widely known contemporary black and white landscape photographers and educators. He had the honour and privilege of working with Ansel Adams from 1979 to 1984 (when Adams died) and this clearly shows in his magnificent works. He teaches several workshops and has taught many museums and universities in the past on photography techniques both in and out of the darkroom (including print making).

I love how his images are so incredibly classic and yet completely distinguishable. More classic examples of how one can take an every day scene, similar to the above photograph, and make it simply breathtaking. Also the complete control of his equipment - which is evident in the second image in this post, of the forest stream.

(images found through Google)

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Waterfall

This was taken in the Botanical Gardens in Montreal back in July. It may look somewhat familiar as it is the unedited version of the photograph I used for my blog header.

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Never Forget

One of the beautiful elephants that live at the Toronto Zoo. I think they are one of my favourite animals - especially at the zoo.

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Photoshop Gone

I am temporarily without Photoshop. In order to not have to write this out twice, the story behind this is posted on my other blog and can be read here.
Without Photoshop, I feel a little lost and bewildered. I am able to complete assignments by using Dave's computer, but without a properly calibrated monitor, I am not able to work on anything else as it just takes so long. Dave's computer can't really handle the Adobe software and it is therefore extremely irritating to have to use it there - though it is definitely better than not having it at all.
Dave and I are working on a few solutions to my Photoshop problem. But in my honest opinion, I truly believe I am going to have to fork up to dough to purchase the legal software. The creative suite (CS4) is available through major retail stores and the Adobe website for $2500, but using my student number at Algonquin College I can get it for $900 (student version).
To make a long story slightly less long, I will not be posting any newly edited photos anywhere for a little while. I am going to do my best to find some already edited photos that have been completed (and resized) for your viewing pleasures though.

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Assignment #6 - The Assignment

Monday night we were given the final assignment in my Composition and Design course: Architectural Photography. We were assigned a building to photograph, exterior and interior using techniques (and/or Photoshop work) to eliminate any distortion that occurred in the photo. In theory, this sounds like an interesting assignment and I had kind of been looking forward to it all year, but in reality it wasn't that great. I had thought we would each be assigned a different building on campus as there are so many, but all the students were asked to photograph the same building and the building itself is far from the nicest looking one (during the day or night). I struggled to take photos that night as I was really uninterested in it and knew that it doesn't really matter what mark I get on this assignment as my mark for the course is pretty much decided already based on the rest of the assignments.
I managed to scrape together enough energy to take the exterior shot at night, though I am not a fan of how the building got lit up so I will likely be returning this weekend to take a shot during the day. I then ventured inside to find an interesting, and unique location for the interior shot. I knew the larger classrooms would be pointless as everyone would shoot them and I ended up taking shots of the registration office and queue area as well as some shots of the cafeteria from a couple floor up. The latter of these two sets will be subject of other students as well but I needed a backup in case my first idea fell through.
Normally I would take hundreds of shot for an assignment, particularly one we are supposed to primarily shoot that day, but like I said before, I just wasn't feeling this one. I took about 60 shots total and hopefully it will be enough to get my standard A-, or not too far from it.

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Stephanie Beach Photography Version 2.1

This past Monday was supposed to be Motivation Monday, but as you can plainly see, I forgot to post something for it. Instead I spent the day revamping the blog and giving it a whole new look. My apologies for those of you who were looking forward to a post. But look at how pretty the new template is!

Last week I opened up this blog and realized I just didn't like the old template anymore - it really bothered me. It was a basic Blogger template and I found it to be both boring and way too colourful. I feel that a photography blog should be rather neutral in colour so that the photos (and how they are viewed by you) are not influenced by the surrounding colours of the blog. I hope that this new template enables freedom from influencing colours. I found the new template at ourblogtemplates.com which offers a ton of really great templates. You merely download the one you like and install it. After a tiny bit of coding to personalize it, you are good to go.

This new template also gave me the motivation to finally make myself a personalized header. The header used here is part of a photograph taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens (and Insectarium). I cropped it, desaturated it almost completely (there is still some colour in there) and then obviously had to resize it appropriately. I am really happy with how it came out.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1

I have been looking for a new point and shoot camera for quite some time now. My previous one, a Kodak DX7630, is rather old and outdated now and to be quite honest, really beat up. It has done very well over the last 6 years, and I really love many of the photos I have taken with it (some can even stand up to ones taken with my dSLR). I had a really great time using it, but it is time it is retired officially (it went into semi-retirement when I bought the Nikon d80).
The main features I needed in a point and shoot (p&s) camera were the it had fast start-up, high mega-pixels, optical zoom and some ability for manual control. I also wanted the ability to take movies. It would be really convenient if the camera used SD memory cards, as that is what my d80 takes and I therefore already have many of them (and didn't really want to invest in a new collected of say xD cards). I was interested in at least researching some cameras with underwater capabilities, but this wasn't at all necessary and was much less important than a quick start-up time.
I planned on using this camera when I didn't want to take my big, heavy dSLR for the sake of it being so big and heavy or for times when I felt it might get damaged or stolen. I also planned on using it as a backup and quick moments in which I didn't have time to set up the dSLR (I know you can set it to auto, but even that takes time in which I could miss the moment). It was also going to be Dave's form of entertainment when we are out on photo walks and I have to Nikon d80 with me. With all of this in mind, I started researching. I never got very far in my research though, as I would get distracted by lenses and other accessories for my dSLR.
This past weekend, during the Nikon sale at Henry's Dave and I found the perfect p&s camera for us: the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 (ours is black). It is slick and pretty compact and has most of, if not all, the features I wanted.Above is a picture of the camera, and you can plainly see how pretty it is. But, getting past the exterior looks of the camera, it is pretty awesome inside too. It is lightweight (only 5.6 ounces with the battery and memory card), it takes SD cards which is very convenient for my ever increasing library and can take both pictures and movies (HD movies to be precise). The start-up time is one of the fastest on the market as is the shutter press to image capture at just .32 seconds. Shot-to-shot lag is reported to be minimal as well as approximately 2 seconds. It is suprisingly small in size (2.1 x 3.9 x 1 inch - see below image) when you consider its lens specifications (8x, f3.3-5.9, 25-200mm). It uses a lithium-ion battery that charges (from a fully discharged state) in about 130minutes. The LCD is 2.7 inches (diagonal) which makes it really easy to view your images. The only downside with it's screen is that you have to use it - it does not have a viewfinder which is one of the things I hate about p&s camera, but that is the direction they seem to have gone.
I thas customizable white balance and ISO settings as well as Auto settings for these as well. It of course comes with many different scene settings (portrait, landscape, macro, etc) as well as colour modes (natural, vivid, black and white, sepia, etc).
Below is the first published image taken with the new camera (one of the first taken with it in general) and I am quite happy with how it has turned it (it was taken in very dim light settings and hand held).I have high hopes and big plans for this little camera, and I will definitely keep you all in the loop as to how it performs.
(images of the camera itself found through Google)

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Nikon Umbrella Kit

When I took the Small Flash Workshop at Algonquin College I was introduced to a simple umbrella kit, made by Nikon, that was portable and very useful for off-camera flashes. The Nikon 46" umbrella kit was really awesome and was the main thing from that weekend that really caught my eye (in terms of things I wanted to purchase). I have been mulling it over since then as at $189.99, it wasn't something I wanted to purchase without at least some thought. I was planning on purchasing it before Christmas as a early present to myself, and to help with a semi-assignment I have with some family over the holidays, but hadn't gotten around to it just yet. This past weekend there was a large Nikon sale on at Henry's and the price of this decreased to $169.99. I figured there was no better time than a sale to get the item I wanted.
I brought it home and set it up and am very happy with it thus far. The kit includes a 46" umbrella, a sturdy light stand, a light tight fixture and a carrying case.
The umbrella itself can be converted from the black one shown in the image above (found through Google) to a translucent white one you can shoot through.
The light tight fixture is used to secure both the umbrella and your light (or flash unit) in place. You are able to use equipment with different sized screws (or screw holes) with the different connections that come with the kit.
The carrying case is very nice and looks quite durable. It also has some really convenient pockets inside in which you can store any necessary accessories.
I am finding that with a few quick turns of the knobs, you can secure your equipment in place quite nicely and be ready for shooting.

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Small Flash Workshop

I took the Small Flash Workshop offered by Algonquin College in early November and was really impressed with it. It was a weekend course, 9-4 both days, in which I learned so much. The instructor, Ray Pilon, was absolutely amazing. He was definitely passionate about photography but also realistic in what could be achieved nowadays in terms of a career in the field. He was able to communicate and pass on information and knowledge pertaining to photography, flash units and lighting specifically, in a way that was understandable and seemed to stick.
The class size, though abnormal, was very small. There were only three other students in the course. We were told that normally the class size is somewhere from 10-16, so still very manageable and definitely still room and time for some one-on-one learning with the instructor.
As there were so few people in the workshop, we were able to get quite far off-topic and still manage to be ahead of schedule by the end of the first day. I was the only person in the workshop using a Nikon camera, which turned out to be to my advantage as the instructor was a Nikon user and allowed me to use all of his expensive (and very pretty) equipment including his high-end flash units and flash remotes.
We learned everything about our off-camera flash units from how to turn them on and what the different buttons on the rear of the units did to how to bounce them off the ceiling and control them remotely. I learned how to control my SB-600 flash unit with the instructors SB-800 and SB-900, and learned that my SB-600 cannot control anything above itself. At this moment I was certain I was going to buy a SB-800 very soon to be able to do remote flash photographs. That is until the instructor showed me how to control my SB-600 with my on-camera flash. It was incredibly awesome and filled me with delight. That night I went home and showed Dave all the neat things I had learned, the biggest one being how to remotely control my flash.
We did multiple assignment while we were in the workshop including portraiture using a technique called "dragging the shutter" (where you set your shutter speed to match the ambient lighting rather than your sync speed) and portraiture using a simple umbrella kit. We also learned how to fill flash effectively.
We also learned about flash accessories like Gary Fongs and regular diffusers and the advantages, and disadvantages, of different kinds.
All in all, this was the best course (workshop or full length course) I have taken at Algonquin yet and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who owns a off-camera flash for their dSLR and wants to be able to take full advantage of it. It is more of an intermediate course, as though it does start off with the basics, it moves into more advance techniques in a matter of minutes on the first day. I felt the hands-on portion of the class, and the amount of it, was very useful and the theory parts of it were very applicable and not as dry as one would expect. Like I said before, the instructor's passion for photography is evident and really makes the learning experience that much better. I am sure I have missed some key moments of the course in this brief synopsis of it, as even in writing this post I have gotten re-excited for flash photography and want to go use all my equipment and the techniques learnt in the course.
If you would like to see some of the techniques in action, I was able to use them the very next day in my Portrait assignment for my Composition and Design course - in which I received my highest grade of this course. See these posts here and here for images taken during that assignment which use some of the techniques like dragging the shutter, fill flash and remote off-camera flash usage.

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Assignment #5 - Marks

For the portrait assignment in which I used Chris as a model I got an A. I am really happy with the mark as it is the highest I have gotten in this course so far. I think I was able to break the A- barrier because I enjoyed this assignment so friggen much. Shooting it was really fun and working on the photos afterward was not a chore. I also had the best model in the class, which was definitely a plus. So thanks once again Chris for helping me out.

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PhotoSig

I recently joined yet another photo site - this one however, is more on the critiquing side of things and much more professional. It is called PhotoSig and it is pretty intense. It is essentially the same as most other sites out there with a few exceptions:

• You are only allowed to upload one image every 72 hours;
• You gain points for uploading and critiquing images and more points for critiques and images that are rated well by other users; and,
  
• Every 15 points you gain in a 72 hour time frame gains you another photo upload.

The rules make it so that you can't just come on, upload a million and a half images and then never do anything again, or just use it as a way to display your photos to your family and friends. It is definitely a really decent site and I am liking the way it is set up. So far I have only uploaded a few photos as the quality of images uploaded is very high, for the most part, and I only want to display my very best. I have gotten several critiques of the constructive criticism persuasion, and have so far found them very useful. I am really enjoying critiquing other people's work, but of course try to be as non-damaging as possible.

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Assignment #5 - Additional Shots

Closeup shot done in the studio.

Wide (full) shot taken under fluorescent lighting using ambient light and my flash.

Semi-medium shot taken in the studio.

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Assignment #5 - Submission

Above is a closeup shot taken under studio lighting. I think this may be my favourite shot from the whole session, but that is hard to say as there are a lot of really good ones.

Wide (full) shot in one of the many Mac computer labs in Algonquin college. A lot of students used this class (so I am told), but I think Chris and I got some pretty original shots from here. I used my flash as a fill flash to lighten up Chris and get some interesting lighting.

Medium shot taken using my flash and ambient lighting.

Another closeup done in the studio using the reflector as a prop instead of a tool.

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Target in Sight

This was Dave's simpler costume of the Halloween season. He whipped it up a few hours before the party as him more complex, and main costume was not ready in time. Essentially it is his Boba Fett helmet and gun from many years ago and his suit - he was a Professional (Killer).

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Assignment #5 - The Assignment

Assignment #5 is yet another portrait assignment. We have to shoot 4 photos of the "Student Photographer of the Year" (whoever our model is) using three styles: wide/full (where the subject's full body is in frame), medium (where their waist up is in frame) and closeup (where only their head is in frame).
We spent the first hour of the class going through examples, which is when I learned the different terms, and listened to pointers from the instructor. He suggested we go vertical (portrait) and get really close, partially cutting off the very top of the head or bottom of the chin. These were not great pointers to me as I have to force myself to take some horizontal (landscape) shots every once in a while and also to get further from the subject to have some options when it comes to choosing my submission.
Chris came to the class with me and was my model all night. I was extremely lucky to have her and realized this most when we were in the studio doing some headshots. The other students were having their model pose with photo equipment and getting close, using telephoto lenses and whatnot - it looks like they will have good photos. But Chris was amazing - easily the best model in the class (and I think a bunch of the other students knew it as some watched us with great interest). She posed with equipment, giving me ideas as well as great images. She took direction when given and then went with it even further, making my ideas even better. She had her own ideas, as she knows photography and lighting and what works. It was wonderful. We used a few available light locations that other students did and I can guarantee they don't have the shots I have simply because of my model.
I was also able to use some of the (flash) lighting techniques I learned this past weekend in the absolutely amazing Small Flash Workshop I took (post to come in due time). I bounced light off ceiling and walls, I used my flash in remote mode and commanded it through my on-camera flash, I altered the exposure level of both flashes to decrease the harsh feeling they can give. I was really pleased with the results and how I was able to use something I had learned so quickly. I have almost 600 shots to go through now and the vast majority of them are really good. There are some where my flash didn't go off as I was out-running both my flash and the studio lights sometimes (knowingly) and there are others were I caught Chris in a not so flattering facial expression (eyes closed, mouth in the middle of a word, etc) but like I said, most of them are really great. I stayed up late last night working on them and got rid of about 100 quite easily. I marked another 20 or 30 as my preferred shots for the assignment and will work on them more tonight when I have fresh eyes and more time.
I had the greatest time shooting this assignment and it has given me some really great results so far. I intend on using these photos for not only this assignment, but also the portfolio at the end as a replacement of one other studio assignment I wasn't nearly as happy with. Thanks again Chris.

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Costume for Justin

Justin also had to whip up a secondary costume for the first party as his costume (which was mostly done) went with Dave's and really didn't make much sense without it. I am not entirely sure what he was, some sort of ninja I think.

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Motivation Monday - Schedule Change

I have decided that Motivation Monday should not be a weekly feature. Not only is it hard to write a good post about motivational photographers every week, but I am finding little to no joy in writing them. I am hoping that changing it to a bi-weekly feature will allow me to get some inspiration from it as was initially intended.

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Dragon Ball Z

Yan went as a Dragon Ball Z character for halloween this year - a costume he started several years ago. I am not sure if this was Goku or Gohan as I am really not familiar with this series at all. But I believe the costume came out pretty well.

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Healthy Shots

Jello shots inside orange and lime peels - Jerrica is so creative with her alcohol.

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Assignment #4 - Marks

I got yet another A- (10.17/12) on my latest assignment. I am pretty happy with that mark especially since I would get something lower as I had to use a pretty high ISO for the available light portrait shots.

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A sip won't hurt

Jerrica had the best Halloween glass to drink from throughout the season. Inside this one is blood!! (I mean, coke zero - a vampire princess has to stay trim).

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More Pumpkins

A few more of the gourdes used to decorate die hohle during the Halloween party.

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Halloween Cat

Chris, though quite sick, managed to get into costume and participate for a little while. During the few minutes in which she had her mask on, we were able to get a photo of her and Binx-Binx that she didn't dislike.

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Motivation Monday - Erich Salomon

Also known as the Houdini of Photography and the Invisible Cameraman, Erich Salomon (1886-1944) was a master as candid photography. He was known for his candid photographs of diplomatic and legal professions as well as the innovative methods he used to capture them. You know how in older movies, and cartoons, people place a camera in a bowler hat with a hole in it and take pictures of 'off-limits' places - that was Salomon's idea. In 1927, he placed a camera capable of working in dim lighting in his bowler hat and photographed a police killer on trial in a Berlin court.

Salomon's reputation soared throughout Europe and he was able to photograph many situations normally unseen as diplomats were convinced that photojournalism was part of historical record. Salomon was one of only two people who have photographed a session in the US Supreme Court. He also captured the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact by taking the vacant seat of the Polish delegate and snapping away.

When Adolf Hitler came into power and the second world war began, Salomon fled to the Netherlands with his wife. When Hitler invaded the lower countries in 1940, Salomon and his family were captured. He spent the next four years in concentration camps and died in July 1944 in Auschwitz.

A prestigious photojournalism award is named in his honour given as a lifetime achievement award by the German Society of Photographers. He was a great inspiration to photojournalism and sparked the photo opportunity.

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Assignment #4 - Additional Shot

Studio lighting shot with our made up lighting scenario. Turns out it is almost Renaissance lighting (where you shoot from on main light to the side forming a triangle of light on the opposing, shadow, side). Taken in RAW format.

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Assignment #4 - Submission

This is my favourite of the shots I took of Chloe. Obviously studio lighting and was shot in JPEG format. Despite how bad I think I am at directing people when I am shooting them, I seemed to be one of the few people in the half of the class in the studio with me who could ask anything of their subject. I asked the simple task of put your head on your hand. I also suggested things like face that way but look back at me. I was pretty happy I was able to suggest poses unlike the last studio session I had.After a little while we starting playing with the studio lighting - moving it around and such. We turned off the secondary light (fill light) and moved the main light up just a touch. The result was the above lighting, after a few bad jokes, etc we were able to get Chloe to genuinely laugh. This was taken in RAW format.

Available lighting and taken in RAW format. This photo was taken at the top of some stairs in front of a pillar. I wanted the texture from the pillar to come through as an interesting background so I left her relatively close to it.After a few attempts at getting shots inside, we moved to the available light outside the buildings. We found this light which was at the second floor level of a building and it work wonderfully. This was taken in JPEG format.

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Pumpkins

Jerrica and roommates decorated a few different types of pumpkins this year. Above was one of their not so traditional jack-o-lanterns while below are some of the painted gourdes they whipped up.

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Assignment #4 - The Assignment

Assignment #4 is another portrait assignment. We are to produce two in studio (using studio lighting, etc) portraits and two on location, available light (no flash or pro lighting) portraits of the same person. We were to take both jpeg and raw photos and as my camera is awesome I set it to take both simultaneously to prevent not having enough good photos of either kind (like what has happened when needing to take x number of vertical or horizontal images).
Initially I was going to ask Chris to come and be my model for the class but as no one else in the class was asking friends or family to model for them, I thought it might be a bit odd this time around (there is a makeup studio class that I may invite her and/or others to for fun). I ended up pairing up with another student named Chloe. She is a really tiny lady, and in my opinion, very pretty. She is also one of the better photographers in the class and has taken the studio lighting course and was therefore a huge help when it came to setting up the lights and had some interesting ideas for the available light shots. Unfortunately we also ended up with another guy, whose name I do not know. He is also a good photographer and had good ideas for the available light shots, but as I was not really wanting to pose for two people, he shot Chloe as well and our shots will be directly compared which frightens me slightly. We will have to see what happens in the end.
Long story short, the portrait session went fairly well and I am working on the images now. Hopefully I will be able to get them posted in the next couple of days.

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Agricultural Museum

The Agricultural Museum has a photography contest for members ever year and this year was no exception. When Dave and I got our annual memberships back in March, I read about the contest and waited patiently for the entry time to arrive. And it has - October 31st is the deadline for entry into this year's contest.I began looking into my photos taken at the museum earlier this year and found that the vast majority of them, including the ones I liked the most, were taken before the June 15 start date. I rushed to the museum and tried to take a bunch more to add to the one set that fell within the correct date range. They weren't as good as the ones I had taken before, but they did fall into the correct range and were acceptable enough to be entered into the competition.To be honest, I don't know which of the three images I submitted is my favourite as my favourite from the museum was taken back in April. None of the images have much Photoshop work, in fact the only thing that was done to them in Photoshop was some contrast adjustments and file size and type changes. The rules stipulated that you could only adjust contrast, brightness, and sharpness of the photos, anything else done to the images would eliminate them from the competition.

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Flickr

I created a Flickr account the other day and have since started uploading some of my images to it. I think this will be the best way for me to share larger numbers of photos at one time (eg. Holiday photos of family and friends). I will let you know when I post a large group of photos there both here and on my regular/daily blog, for those of you who only visit one but might still be interested. They are of course, edited to some degree as well as signed and resized. If you are ever interested in any of my photos, just let me know and I will gladly discuss whatever it is you want to discuss.

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Assignment #3 - Marks

I attended my photography course last night and got thinking - where are the marks for my last assignment? Turns out he attached them in a reminder email that I thought was sent to the entire class, but instead was sent individually. My marks were down there at the bottom of our 16 message long conversation. I ended up getting 10.25/12 (and A-). I am pretty happy with the mark as I know he is a pretty hard marker (well, relative to my other Algonquin instructors). Looks like A- is likely going to be my final mark in the class as long as I keep going along these lines, and I'm okay with that.

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Motivation Monday - Henri Cartier-Bresson

"The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality." - Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was one of the main contributors to the creation of street photography, which is my preferred method of (candid) portraiture. He switched from painting to photography around 1930 after being inspired by a random photograph captured by a Hungarian photojournalist in Africa.
In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book "The Decisive Moment". Within the book he stated, "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment", and applied it to his photography. The Decisive Moment is now a term for images like the ones included in this post that capture a brief moment in time in which you feel as if you can picture what is next to come. According to Cartier-Bresson, "the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recoginition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression"

I am always trying to get photos that would fit into the category of the decisive moment. It takes a great deal of skill to do this as you need to have your camera ready to go at a moments notice. You have to be able to adjust the shutter, aperture and focus as required very quickly. Sometimes I can get lucky though.

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Motivation Monday - Eliot Porter

“You learn to see by practice. It's just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.”Eliot Porter (1901-1990) was most known for his colour photographs of nature. If you have ever taken a nature photograph you owe a gigantic thank you to this man.He started in black and white, teaching himself the everything that made him great. By 1930 he had mastered black and white development and though he never gave it up completely, it was in 1939 that he began focusing his energies towards colour photography.One of the many aspects which makes this artist so motivational to me is his background. He had degrees in both chemical engineering and medicine, and worked as a biochemical researcher at Harvard. He was a magnificent photographer who was able to use both sides of his brain equally as well. Some of his published books even combined his photographs with scientific information relevant to them.Some of Porter's images seem bland and dull in terms of the colour when compared to the rich saturation possible with today's technology. But he was there first, arguable, he is the original nature photographer.

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Assignment #3 - Submission Part II

AliveBeyond

Comfort
Fantasy
Go
The remaining photos submitted as part of my third assignment in my Composition and Design course at Algonquin. I used a variety of techniques for this assignment including painting with light and rear curtain synch flash.

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