Assignment Eleven: Up Close and Personal
Let’s get close up and personal with your subject. Use details and close focus to show us something about your subject we may not be aware of from normal viewing distance. Coming in close for a shot is more than simply focusing a macro lens. It is isolation on many levels. 1. We are isolating the subject with focus. Most Macro shots have very little depth of field, so subjects are sharp and backgrounds are blurry. 2. We are isolating the subject from its context. We are so close that the subject, the object of our photograph, is...
read moreOne Sweet Assignment
Check out the post at Essentials for Photographers. Featuring 20 Chocolate and Dessert images from the Flickr assignment pages. Cover Photograph by Bret Doss.
read moreAssignment Ten: Power
Specifics: This is a concept shoot. NO specifics on format or size. If you want to shoot it and crop it square – cool. I f you want to make a very wide horizontal panorama, cool. Just tell us why the crop was chosen. If you shoot it to format, you can say: “shot to format…” and that is fine. If it is square, tell us why you did it. Illustrate ‘POWER’… KNOCK US OUT with POWER. Color / BW / film / digital / people / landscape / still life… POWER – that is our subject. Get your thinking caps...
read moreNick’s notes
Another installment of a day in the life of your humble correspondent. This month has been a trying month. I’m still trying to put “my moves” on the area. Constantly reminding myself that the harder I work at this, the luckier I’ll get.Anyway, I thought I would share with you the development of another cover photo. The cover for March’s Modesto View. The theme was built around the Modesto “arch”, which is a landmark of the town. This year on the Ninth of March it turns one hundred. So there...
read moreAssignment Nine: CD Cover/Back
Assignment Nine: CD Cover Assignment: Joni Mitchell Re-release of “Amelia” (fictitious assignment) CD Cover Assignment: A new artist us doing a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Amelia” (fictitious assignment) Video Critique of this Assignment Here Audio Critique made before the show is here: Free MP3 download: amelia-crit.mp3 Two images: Both square for use on CD cover. Front image should tell a story based on the lyrics. Backside would be covered with type, but should relate to the front image. (In real life, I would be...
read moreAssignment Eight: Recipe and Ingredients for a Regional Magazine
Photo by John Kleb. Shoot the ingredients for a salad (your recipe) on a white background. Keep the shot very tightly framed. We need a little white space at the foreground for some type. Regional magazine wants a one page article shot for their upcoming issue. Specifics: magazine is 8×10.5″ tall full bleed image, with recipe text over image prefer to put text on the bottom area of the image, but NOT a deal killer they want the shot on white (a stylistic format they use) prefer something simple like a salad or desert whimsical or...
read moreTry “Improvisation” To Build Your Vision
I believe that photography is “jazz with a camera”. Always have. The improvisational function of what we do is so similar to a jazz musician that the allegory works incredibly well. In this post I show you one of my recent “improvs” with a handfull of seashells. The point is to narrow the scope of the project to a confined area / time allocation. This increases focus. Your energy level stays high and you are pushed by the constraints of the situation. Read the article at Essentials for Photographers and let me know...
read moreAssignment Seven: A Cellphone Portrait
Assignment Number Seven: A photograph of someone using a cellphone for a local communications company point of purchase display and matching brochure. This is what the art director gave you for the job: Click to make larger. And yeah, this is exactly the kinds of things you can get. I have gotten layouts that looked like gorgeous illustrations and layouts on napkins. This is an example of the latter style… a quick ‘idea’ scribbled down during a hurried meeting. Your assignment is to shoot an image to this layout. A POP...
read moreNew Book Available At Amazon
This was a pretty fun book to work on. I wrote it and then illustrated it. The first book was written to the images I had. Next time a happy medium… both were not the ideal way I would like to have done them. I hope the folks who like light will take a few moments to view the book. I am hoping for some early deliveries so I can go through it myself. Hope you enjoy it if you decide to purchase. From the publisher: Lighting Essentials: Lighting for Texture, Contrast, and Dimension in Digital Photography by Don Giannatti AVAILABLE MAY...
read moreGear Pages Added.
I see where a lot of the Project 52 folks are asking about some gear ideas for the assignment work. You do not have to spend a lot of dough on this stuff, but it is always good to have a bit of gear around for the times you need it. I have posted the Speedlight Gear page and you will find it under the About button on the nav link. Full disclosure – the links include my affiliate code, so I do make a tiny percentage from Amazon on your purchases. It is not added to your price, but taken from the Amazon part of the transaction. I will add...
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