Project One: The Fruits of Our Labor (Part Two)

The students took their studio skills to the next level. We talked about three important ideas for creating good photo compositions:

Triangulation (Hierarchy) - Creating dynamism in images by creating triangles and emphasis.
Negative Space (White Space) - Making the space between objects interesting to look at.
Minor White's Rule of Thirds - Dividing images into thirds and placing objects on grid lines.

Here are some sketches we drew to work from:







Here are some of the compositions we shot:

Daniel





Marianna





Cristina



We also focused on using lighting to create a sense of mood or emotion:

Indiana



Cristina



Indiana took some beautiful close-ups:

Project One: The Fruits of Our Labor (Part One)

The students did an amazing job with their first class working with studio lighting techniques. They were asked to take the first two images in a series of five images. One image should use lighting to document the object they are photographing with a solid range of values from light to dark, preferably no part of the image will be over or under exposed. The second photo uses lighting to create a close-up image of the surface texture of the student's object.

Marianna, 10th Grade
Document


Texture



Daniel, 10th Grade
Document


Texture



Indiana, 10th Grade
Document


Texture


At the end of class the students were asked if there was anything they had discovered about photography. Daniel said, "Lighting. It is everything." All the students agreed that a tripod makes a huge difference in being able to set up and frame a shot.

Week One - Syllabus, My Identity

In our first class we took some time to get to know each other. We did an identity exercise, defined the goals for the semester, talked about our individual interests in photography, went over the syllabus and the class contract.