Week #14: 5/9/12 Work-In-Progress Crit

"Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera". - Minor White

"…the art is in selecting what is worthwhile to take the trouble of photographing…" - Berenice Abbott

"The students think that I am teaching photography... but not really. Creativity cannot be included in the syllabi." - Lakshman Iyer


Final Project Work-In-Progress Critique

Course Evaluations and Final Exam Review

Due Next Week:
  • Journals
  • Final Project
  • Final Exam
  • $15 Color Darkroom Rental Fee
  • Department Archive Images (see below)

Please prepare Digital Files for the Photography Department archives
(Required of All Major Photography Classes)

Image prep guidelines:
  • Please submit ALL 5 assignment image files plus your final project via CD/DVD 
  • Files should be 72 DPI and 1600 pixels at the longest dimension 
  • Save as the highest quality JPEG (.jpg) file format 
  • Please name the files as follows:  "PH241_StudentsLastName_001.jpg"

Joel Sternfeld
© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

Week #13: 5/1/12 Gallery Field Trip

"I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck". - Dorothea Lange 

Today's class is CANCELED.
 You must attend a gallery show in lieu of class - please see below.
Your Final Exam AND Final Project Critique will both take place Week #15 5/16/12.

Today's agenda was going to be reviewing for your Final Exam and a Work-In-Progress Final Project Critique.  This now becomes Week #14's agenda, so please come prepared.  And please bring $15 for the My Own Color Lab printing trip next class.


Please attend one (or all 4!) of the following galleries during class time:
You must email me a digital photograph of yourself tomorrow outside the gallery, or in front of your favorite image from the show!  Please briefly explain to me which image you were most inspired by and why.

Jorn Vanhofen @ Robert Mann Gallery 
(Open 11am to 6pm:  210 11th Ave. 10th Fl @ 24th / 25th Streets)
© Jorn Vanhofen

Alex Prager @ Yancey Richardson Gallery 
(Open 10am to 6pm:  535 West 22nd St. 3rd Fl @ 10th Ave.)
© Alex Prager

Tim Hetherington @ Yossi Milo Gallery 
(Open 10am to 6pm:  245 10th Ave. @ 24th / 25th Streets)
© Tim Hetherington

Chip Simone @ Steven Kasher Gallery 
(Open 11am to 6pm:  521 West 23rd St. @10th / 11th Aves.)
© Chip Simone


Please prepare Digital Files for the Photography Department archives
(Required of All Major Photography Classes)

Image prep guidelines:
  • Please submit ALL 5 assignment image files plus your final project via CD/DVD 
  • Files should be 72 DPI and 1600 pixels at the longest dimension 
  • Save as the highest quality JPEG (.jpg) file format 
  • Please name the files as follows:  "PH241_StudentsLastName_001.jpg"


Week #12: 4/26/12 Critique A5

"No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph." - Bill Brandt, Beyond Monochrome : A Fine Art Printing Workshop by Tony Worobiec (Photographer), Ray Spence (Photographer) , ISBN: 0863433138 , Page: 5


"I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse." - Diane Arbus

"Don't ever be the smartest person in the room." - roughly quoted by Jeffrey Rothstein (photographer at My Own Color Lab)

© Todd Hido

© Todd Hido

© Todd Hido
© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders

© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders

© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders

© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders

© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders

© Maurits Giesen & Ilse Leenders
from X-rite Photo describing a proper Color Management Workflow using the ColorMunki hardware and software calibration system

 

Week #11: 4/18/11 Printing Field Trip

"I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations. And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment." - Bill Brandt  - "Camera in London", The Focal Press, London 1948, p. 14]

"In the history of photography, one process has always replaced another. The tumultuous realignment that's going on in the photography now is really just a natural evolution. The irony is that none of the processes that have been replaced have disappeared. More people than ever are practicing every approach to shooting and printing." - Keith Carter 


What to do with your film shot at Coney Island last week:


Take your film to a reputable and professional lab for processing...not CVS!  I suggest the following labs which are within proximity to campus:


Sunshine Color Lab
Say hi to Jesus for me at the front counter.  ;)
138 W 31st St
New York, NY 10001
212-290-2239
*?% discount with student ID

L&I Photo and Digital
1W 22nd Street
New York, NY 10010
212-645-5300
*20% discount with student ID

  • Color Negative:  Instruct the lab to process "C41" and "Normal".  Ask for 1 set of contact sheets as well.  *Note that it will take at least 24 to 48 hours to develop and contact, so please drop your film off no later than Monday morning so it is ready for Wednesday's class!
  • Reversal Film (Chrome):  Instruct the lab to process "E6" and "Normal".  Ask for them to be cut and mounted as well.  *E6 processing should only take a few hours.
  • Digital Images:  Each student selects 1 image to print at least 8"x10" for critique.  *Please refer back to Week #8 Notes as well as the Handout on Printing in order to follow the proper procedure for an accurate color management workflow.
Free Webinar explaining the ColorMunki monitor and printer calibration system 
Use link above to register for next Tuesday, April 17th at 11am or 1pm 


Notes on traditional film and the development process

Color Negative film (often with "color" in its name) has 3 layers of emulsion each sensitive to one of the RGB additive primaries.  During development, the developer oxidizes and combines with color chemical couplers in the emulsion to create the CMY dyes in our negative.  The blue-sensitive emulsion layer basically forms the yellow dye and so on.  Once all the light-sensitive silver is removed (different than B&W!), you are left with a negative image created solely from CMY dyes.

Reversal film (often with "chrome" in its name) produces a positive image called a chrome, slide, or transparency.   

Exposure latitude is the extent to which a light-sensitive material can be over or under exposed and still achieve acceptable results.  This makes it somewhat subjective.

It is not to be confused with Dynamic Range, which is the range of light intensities a medium can capture.  A recording medium with greater dynamic range will be able to record more details in the dark and light areas of a picture. Latitude depends on dynamic range. If the same scene can be recorded using less than the full brightness range available to the medium, the exposure can be shifted along the range without clipping data values in the shadows or highlights. Greater exposure latitude allows one to compensate for errors in exposure while retaining quality.

Push Film Processing: (brightens the film, and adds a bit of contrast) Over-development of the film, compensating for under-exposure in the camera.

Pull Film Processing: (darkens the film, and flattens the contrast a bit) A technique that compensates for overexposed film by under-developing it at the processing stage
  

Cross-processing is developing color print or slide film in the wrong chemicals.
  • Processing positive reversal film in C-41 chemicals (normally for negs) results in negative image on a colorless base 
  • Processing negative print film in E-6 (normally for chromes) results in a positive image with the orange base of a normally processed color negative

Field Trip to My Own Color Lab 
to learn color darkroom printing

Rental of the facilities and printing paper requires $15 from each student to be collected in class

My Own Color Lab - Color Darkroom Rental
18 West 27th Street - 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
212-696-4107

© William Eggleston

© William Eggleston


© William Eggleston
© Raygun Studios (Micheal Lampert)

© Raygun Studios (Micheal Lampert)

© Raygun Studios (Micheal Lampert)

© Raygun Studios (Micheal Lampert)




Week #10: 4/6/11 A6 Shooting Field Trip

Coney Island Field Trip to shoot A5: Creative Gray!

Meet in the classroom at FIT and we will travel on the subway together!

© Marvin E. Newman

© Peter Granser

More inspirational images for your final project.  

Notice Kajetan's use of a slightly blue gelled fill and hair light!
© Kajetan Kandler

© Kajetan Kandler

© Kajetan Kandler
© Viktoria Sorochinski

© Viktoria Sorochinski

© Viktoria Sorochinski



Understanding RAW and Printing

Understanding Digital Raw Capture - (pdf Whitepaper) article by Bruce Frasier





Color Printing Technique article by Lee Varis - in digitalphotopro.com

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Color Printing Technique

The leap from computer monitor to printed output is where most professionals experience issues of color shift and a loss of punch in a photograph. Los Angeles-based pro Lee Varis takes us through the steps to get perfect prints.