What caught your eye - Final Week

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Pops,

Just wondering - now we have finished the 4 weeks can you give us a wrap on what you expected, what you got and did this help you formulate your ideas for your sturdents?

[PopsPhotos]

I should be ready to do that Tuesday.

OH, it is Tuesday. Sorry, I'm a bit crunched at the moment. I do intend to do a wrap up and should get it posted in the next few days. No grades, though, as I run a pass/fail class. I have the students tell me in one or two paragraphs whether they passed or failed. I've NEVER had to change a "Pass" to a "Fail." I have had to change several "Fail" to "Pass" and explain why.

I will tell you now that I learned that there is more to a cat than the skin. Just using photoshop to combine two photos into a picture had never occurred to me as fitting this exercise. I learned.

What I am trying to bring to my student is how to recognise what interests them in photography and how to tell the difference between the photograph and the picture. In some of your submissions, I had a hard time deciding if the first snap was really that much of a snapshot. Most of you turned the first inspiration into real pictures. A few learned that you sometimes just can't get the world to conform to what you want, at the time you want it. I think that last lesson might be the hardest one for us to learn. I learned that shooting places like Cathedral Gorge, Zion, Cedar Breaks and the Grand Canyon. I was lucky in that.

Yes, this exercise did help me a lot in shaping the assignments for my 3rd semester students. They are going to be hard to push higher, as most of them are very good technically, and have the eye. One of my second semester students (third semester this September) took best of show at the County Fair this year, with a picture I helped him perfect in class. (Ouch, I think I just sprained my arm, patting myself on the back. )

I'll get busy on a better wrap up over the next few days and get it out to you all. I truely thank each and every one of you for partaking in this series. I hope we all learned something from it. I was discussing this with one of the professional photographers in town and I heard him say, "Hmmmmmm" He said he had spent his vacation taking pictures of tiny things, because he spends 99% of his professional time shooting large things or people. He indicated he passed on a number of shots just becaue he did not immediatly see the "perfect" shot for it.

Pops

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Pops,

Thanks Pops. I wasn't looking for grades more to see it worked for you and your next semester project.

I have been asked to run another 5 week introduction to photography at the local municipal education centre so I might use the concept myself if I can to push my students.

Best of luck

[PopsPhotos]

Another concept I use often is the 12 shot. Find something you can move around, which has nice color and contrast. Place it on, in or around s good backdrop and shoot 12 different photographs.

It always interesting to see who moves in for extremely tight closeups on their final shots, contrasted with those who change the backdrop to move out and "make a story" containing other things.

Pops

[Peter Ryan]

Another concept I use often is the 12 shot. Find something you can move around, which has nice color and contrast. Place it on, in or around s good backdrop and shoot 12 different photographs.

It always interesting to see who moves in for extremely tight closeups on their final shots, contrasted with those who change the backdrop to move out and "make a story" containing other things.

Pops

Thanks Pops. I have just been asked to do another lecture series in the last semester so I will take all this on board.