Sports of all kinds have their moments. From skating to baseball to cricket to polo… they all have that magic of win/lose, the paraphernalia of the game, the textures, visuals, icons… this is YOUR sport, and you want to present it in the most incredible fashion possible. Show us what it is all about!

Specifics:

This shot would run on the left side of a double page spread. So that makes it vertical. Just take all of what you have learned, your inherent talent for excellence, and make a killer shot of  ’sports’ within the genre you love. If you are a people shooter, do something with people. If you are lovin’ still life, there ya go.

This is a very relaxed shot, but make it totally awesome. Grit, shine, pain, strength, winning, losing, attitude…

Sports… whatever you love.

Here we go!

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This will get your brain going!
Sports Equipment can be cool too!
And swimming, hiking, and spelunking are all considered sports.

From still life to product to architecture to people to glamour sports figures… the genre has it all!

Make it your way.

Assignment Due May 31, 2013

Spring is coming soon. This is a ‘welcome to spring’ Gardening shot. This is a sort of ‘free’ shoot. Do what you want, but let’s focus on gardening. If you are a portrait shooter, do a portrait. If you are loving still life, do one of those. This is a chance to bring your skills and aesthetics to a creative assignment with fewer parameters. These are the kinds of shots where you and your imaginary AD get together to discuss the treatment based on all kinds of stuff. Weather, budget, time frame. So bring your thinking caps and do something very cool – in the area that YOU love to shoot.

The client is simply looking for something to use to catch the eye. They are a small hardware store and the image is for their “Get Ready for Spring” store promotion.

Ideas:

Seed packets for a still life.
Gardening implements.
Child with seeds or planting stuff.
Garden in the sun/snow.
Planting / Getting a garden ready.
Planning a garden.
One Light portrait of a person and a gardening tool.
Hands with seeds.
Portrait of kids with flowers
Vase with flowers
Veggies with garden tools
All kinds of portrait ideas.

I can see people shots, tools, kids, and flowers. (Just make sure that the flower shots look like a garden flower, not some sort of African exotic lilly or something.) Fruits and vegetables and chopping blocks and all kinds of stuff. Think about it well before you shoot it. This is the kind of shot you can stretch out on and make something very cool. Tossing a carrot on a white seamless ain’t gonna cut it.

The client has a budget of $1100. Flat.

You have to work within that framework, so make sure you ‘cover’ all your costs. Let us know what they were (fictitiously).

You are to deliver one finished image. Vertical. Color.
With the post let us know what your concept was, and how you were able to stick to the budget allowed. You will be surmising, but it is a good exercise to think about how you would do it.

Here are a few links to discover:
Better Homes and Gardens
Phoenix Home and Garden (regional)
Southern Living
NYT Home and Garden
Sunset Magazine
Google Image Search on Spring Gardens (oh my)
Google Image Search on Gardeners
Google Image Search on Gardening

Flickr Page is here:

A portrait / still life with illustrating this phrase: “Hitting the Wall”. What does that mean to you? What context does it offer up for a view of how that image should be portrayed.

I am allowing portraits AND still life to make sure that you can do this in your style.

It could be funny or it could be sad or angry even…

We have all used the term “Hitting the Wall” before and we all know what it means to us.

Explain that to us in a photograph.

Color or BW / Wide or Tall.

Assignment Part B:

Light and shadow… use them. In the above photograph, I want a dramatic representation of a dramatic statement. I want you to USE light to help make that statement.

Glows, Fill, Beat the Sun, Overexposed Areas, Shadows, Bounced, Edge Lighting, Grid Spots/Snoots, Silver reflectors, Mirrors, Storbs, Big Studio Lights, Candles… whatever you do, make sure you USE light to help sell the image.

Yes the subject matters, but we are now going to add LIGHT as an element all its own.

As usual, set up shots are encouraged.

Critique:

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You ask what the book is about and they say it is about changes in the society, how we interact with each other and what that portents about the future of communities.

Huh… well, that certainly is vague.

“Sorry”, the young voice says on the phone, “that’s all I know.”

Digging a little deeper on your own you see that the writer is pretty positive when it comes to writing about the future, and all of the ramifications of the technological advances we have made.

So you are to do a cover based on your research, the title and the words of the intern: “My boss says you are the person to do this cover… she loves your style.”

OK…

Let’s get the facts, and nothing but the facts.

It is a small 6×9 book, so the dimensions are 3:2 – easy enough for us, right?

It is to be in color… BUT, it also must convert to black and white well because of the trade magazine ad placement. They don’t run color, so if the color doesn’t work as a black and white they can lose sales.

No animals, babies, or space aliens.

Let’s do this… they need the image by Friday, May 10, 7PM PST.

 Flickr Page

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 something we are familiar with – but not at such a close distance.
3. We are isolating it from reality in the same way a 400MM Telephoto will make the moon look much larger than it really is when rising over the landscape.

Close up, or macro photography is one way the photographer can delight the viewer by giving them something they have to think about for a second. What is that? Where is that from? And then when the realize it is but a small piece of something they are totally familiar with, there is a bit of connection.

This work can take its toll if you do not understand that all of your work is to be one in a small space. If it is window light, get in close to the window. Bring your fill cards in close… get tight with all the tools that you use to make these shots… fill cards, speedlights, softboxes, grids, snoots or whatever.

Specifics:

Get in close. Use speculars and highlights from your light source to show the shape of the item you are shooting if possible. Then move and adjust the composition to find something unique. PUSH yourself to make an image of something we all know, and present it in a new way… using light and specular and shadow and reflection. This can be food, still life, people, kids, glamour, landscape… as long as it is in your style and your approach. Oh, and make me go woohoo!!!

Thinking caps at the ready?

Good!

Assignment due on Sunday, May 5, 2013
Flickr Page.

Either a self portrait or something you work with a bud on.

This shot will be used for your ‘About Me’ page.

Make it fabulous.

Make it fun.

Make it before April 26.

Baseball… played the world over, this game is one of heroes and villains, intrigue and skill.

“The Boys of Summer” is a term used for baseball players, and I think a play or movie too. No matter, we are using it as the title of this assignment.

Critique:

Baseball…

“Ray. People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around”, you’ll say, “It’s only $20 per person”. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again. Oh…people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

– Terrance Mann – “Field of Dreams”

Just read that paragraph again for visual ideas. And that is where you draw your inspiration, your muse so to speak. I want you to dig down deep and make a photograph that illustrates this paragraph, or a line in the paragraph or something YOU think SHOULD have been in the paragraph.

It’s about baseball, summer, ‘the game’, competition and the mystical allure of a green grass field and a small spherical object.

Specifics… oh yeah, there are specifics.

1. The shot must include a baseball somewhere in the frame.

2. Still life or a portrait.

3. Color.

4. Vertical.

5. This is to be a “Made” shot, not a taken one.

This will be an easy assignment if you let go of preconceived notions and false parameters. You must make a vertical color photograph that contains a baseball and is either a portrait or a still life. I would say ‘think outside the box’ but… you guys are pretty good at that. So I will say… knock my socks off. Knock the socks off of the other contenders… make this shot the one where you break out if you have been challenged lately. And if you have been hitting it pretty well, swing for the fence and hit a homer.

Assignment is due on Friday, April 19, by 7PM PST.
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The client is a financial services company. They help people take the mystery out of financial planning.

The point of this brochure is to show some new plans they have for money management, and how that new strategy can benefit the consumer.

This is a vertical brochure. The image is to be in color, and feature hands… hands with money, shaking hands (but beware the cliche’d handshake), hands in the air… whatever you want to do.

Financial Services… for people.

Due on Friday, April 12.

Critique:

Flickr Page

In this assignment, you will have to very carefully follow the brief for the shoot.

The client is a small PR firm in your area, and they are handling the promotion of a regional classical music string quartet. The quartet is made up of University string teachers.

This is the first CD they have made and they are being looked at by a major label for possible signing.

Your job is to create an image for the cover that will do two things:

Show something regarding a string quartet and say a little something about the music.

{Before we continue… I do not care if you do or do not like the music. So please do not give that a consideration for sharing. You are a commercial photographer. You make pictures for a living – you are not a music critic. We do not have that luxury… to decide what we like or what we don’t like. We love our clients, and we work hard to provide them with what THEY need.}

So this is the assignment music:

Samuel Barber, Composer

String Quartet is the piece.

Movement One | Movement Two | Movement Three

A fierce problem is that you may not have access to a string quartet. Or even a string instrument.

Google is your friend…  Notice how many CD covers are there. Notice how not all of them have string quartets on the covers… or even musical instruments.

You are to provide the following:

Cover image – square format / Color or Muted Color / No Border, so full bleed image.

We are often given specific information and units and we are expected to deliver. If you are not sure how to do this, we will have to work you through the methods.

By the way, the second movement was turned into an Adagio for Strings aptly named “Adagio for Strings”. You have probably heard this piece at some moment in time. It is quite lovely.

Flickr Page.

Assignment Due Friday, April 6.

Assignment Critique:

Remember that even if you do not purchase these items, logging in to Amazon from any link on this site helps support Project 52 with no cost to you. Appreciated.

“One Red Balloon” – that is your assignment.

I do not have any more to tell you… shoot it your way.

The only thing I am asking is that somewhere in your shot, featured in the image, is one red balloon.

Have fun with it.

Flickr page for posting images.

Due on Sunday, March 31 by Midnight, MST.

Review: