Assignment 1: Up Close
This assignment encourages you to get close and personal with your subject. It is an exercise in viewing a common object in a new way and examining its finer details.
- Choose an object that you see or interact with every day.
- Focus on a small part of it, get as close as your camera will allow you to focus and shoot away.
- Try to capture different angles and unusual lighting to add to the mystery of this tiny world.
From the whiskers of a cat to common soap bubbles, there is an entire world that we often overlook because we don't get close enough.
Assignment 2: Motion
Photography is a static medium - it doesn't move. Conveying a sense of motion is often crucial
to capturing a scene or emotion and it is an essential skill for photographers to practice.
The goal of this exercise is to understand how shutter speeds can be used to convey motion.
- Choose a subject or series of subjects that will allow you to convey motion in your images.
- It can be slow motions like that of a turtle or fast motion like a speeding train.
- Blur it, stop it, or simply suggest that there is motion in the photograph.
Challenge yourself to capture the same motion in different ways. For instance, you might go to a race track and stop the movement of the cars completely in one image, then leave the shutter open and allow them to blur out of the frame in the next.
Assignment 3: Color Harmony
Color is essential to photography. This exercise requires a knowledge of color theory.
Do you remember art class in elementary school? You may have learned that yellow and blue make green, but color theory goes beyond that. There are cool and warm colors, complementary and contrasting colors, neutral colors and bold colors.
It can get quite complicated and photographers should have a basic understanding of color so you can use that when composing photographs. You don't have to study color like a painter would but can use tricks used by interior designers to influence your color decisions.
- Once you have an idea of color theory, take another photo excursion and put what you've learned into practice.
- 1. Capture photographs with the primary or tertiary colors.
- 2. Look for complementary colors then contrasting colors to photograph.
- 3. Try finding a scene to photograph that is filled with neutral colors, then one that uses a bold color to 'pop' from the scene.
This is an advanced lesson, but one that any photographer working with color images will find useful.
Due Friday, end of class.
Assignment adapted from Liz Masoner.
