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A1: Environmental Portrait

Assignment #1 Environmental Portrait

Location Contacts Due: Week #3 2/13/12

2 Final Prints Due:           Week #5 3/5/12

Environmental photography lets you say something about your subject or, more correctly, lets the environment say something about the person or persons in the photograph.

“Environmental” portraits can be portraits taken of people in a situation that they live in (work, rest or play) and/or a place that says something about who they are.

Environmental portraits:

-       Give context to the subject you’re photographing

-       Give points of interest to shots, but don’t distract from your subject too much

-       Help your subject relax

-       Often give the viewer of your shots real insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject

These shots sit somewhere between the purposely posed shots of a studio portrait (they are posed and they are unmistakably ‘portraits’) and candid shots which capture people almost incidentally as they go through their daily life.

For your assignment (if you haven’t guessed it by now!) you are to photograph an environmental portrait of a friend(s), a family member(s), or even a complete stranger(s).  Keep in mind that the environment they are placed in should add to the photograph.  The background and setting should only enhance the viewers understanding, appreciation, or curiosity of the subject(s).

For week #3, please come prepared to share digital (or traditional) contact sheets with me of a handful of locations you have chosen for your environmental portrait.  Please put a good bit of time into researching interesting locations as they play a vital part of the environmental portrait.  Edit your location shots down to about a dozen or so varying angles and locations and print them out in a contact sheet format.  Please edit the selections and mark the contacts with your favorites (maybe your top 3?) and share them with me upon entering class week #3 2/13/12.

Due for critique are two final prints, at least 8”x10”, of your Environmental Portrait.

Journal

© Frank W. Ockenfels 3

 

Assigned: Week #1 1/30/11

Due Date: Week #7 3/19/11 and Week #14 5/14/11

Details:  Journal can be any size or style, but I recommend it to be small.

The purpose of this assignment is to be constantly seeing the world as inspiration for your photography.  You are to use this journal assignment to collect, muse, reflect, examine, organize, and assess anything and everything that is of interest to you...especially as it relates to location photography!
 

Grading Criteria:

A             Comprehensive writings and imagery including the following:

-       General inspiration

-       Specific inspirations pertaining to assigned projects

-       Tearsheets, sketches, scraps, and visuals

-       Resource lists or specific information pertaining to execution of your projects

-       Postmortem, examination, assessment of projects

-       Any musings that help you gain a better understanding of yourself, the world around you, and your process

B             Writing and Imagery of only clinical information pertaining to your project including:

-       Resources lists and some production information

-       Some tearsheets, sketches, scraps, and visuals

-       Some specifics regarding the execution of projects

-       Some analysis and examination of  how well the project was executed

C             Writing and Imagery lacking specifics pertaining to your project

D             Very little writing and Imagery of any kind

F             Failure to turn in a journal

Journal samples:

• Frank Ockenfels - (samples mixed within portfolios and in "drawstick") - www.fwo3.com
• Walter Iooss - ("diaries") - www.walteriooss.com
• Jonathan Saunders - (thumbnail on bottom) - www.saundersjonathan.com
• Peter Beard - ("selection of work" or "works of art") - www.peterbeard.com or www.artnet.com/awc/peter-beard.html

Week #1: 1/30/12

Environmental Photography

"Half of all location photography is moving furniture." - Arnold Newman 

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." - Arnold Newman

Explore some of the below photographers for inspiration:

Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Brassai, Man Ray, Sante D'Orazio, David LaChapelle, Arnold Newman, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, August Sander, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Thomas Ruff, Horst P. Horst, Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz, Cecil Beaton, Southworth and Hawes, Julia Margaret Cameron, Phillipe Halsman, Gertrude Kasebier, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Francesco Scavullo, Mary Ellen Mark

Homework:

• Begin your journal and come to class with Location Photographs that inspire you
• Begin scouting/shooting for A1: Environmental Portraits locations
• Create a Location Kit list

Syllabus

Welcome

Welcome to Spring Semester 2012 

PH 361 Logistics of Location!

I'm very much looking forward to sharing my knowledge of location photography with you, and I can only hope you are just as excited to utilize my teachings and explore photography on location!

Before getting started, I wanted to point out that I like to begin each class with a quote that relates to that week's discussion material.  I think it's a fun way to introduce the lecture and I hope you enjoy them. 

  

"Half of all location photography is moving furniture." - Arnold Newman 

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." - Arnold Newman

© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust?