FIT Foundations of Color: January 2012

A1: Documenting Color

Assigned: Week #1 2/1/11

Due Date: Week #2 2/8/11

Images Due: 4 Digital Images

Details: Set your digital camera to Auto White Balance, Raw image capture,

and a color profile of Adobe RGB

The purpose of this assignment is to stimulate your color awareness. You are to simply explore the colorful world around you with your digital camera. Find inspiring photos that incorporate your assigned color while depicting appealing compositions and subjects. You may create the environment, or find it in “nature”, but you must document your assigned color!

You can be literal or figurative with the photographs, but they must document your assigned color. For a range of concepts, consider the following suggestions to get you started:

Capture your color dominating the frame
Capture your color as a small, but important, part of the image
Capture your color along with its complimentary color
Capture your color along with its neighboring colors
Capture your color highly saturated, or very dull

Due for critique at the beginning of next class are 4 RAW images you’ve selected through editing and that you feel are your strongest.

Be creative and have fun!

Your Assigned Color: ______________________________________

Week #1: 2/1/12

“There is nothing else to be desired but the presentations of these children of light to the astonished eye in the full splendour of their colors.” - Louis Daguerre

In class we discussed how in 1666 Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that white light is the source of color. By passing a beam of white light into a prism, he noticed that it split and subsequently discovered that white light is actually a reflection of ALL colors of light. Newton then sat down and designed Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album cover...just kidding - well, sort of!

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum

The human eye (and most image sensors and film) is sensitive to only a small portion of this spectrum with wavelengths ranging from 400 nanometers to about 700nm.

The colors we see are part of the Visible Spectrum

Additive and Subtractive Color

From this crucial bit of color science, we move forward to understanding that all colors can be created by mixing 3 primary colors together.

The Additive Process involves mixing Red, Green, and Blue light together in varying proportions to produce any color. The RGB color method is used in today's digital camera sensors, television sets, and computer monitors, and was was used in early color film photography. Adding red, green, and blue light together in equal amounts will produce white light. Mixing just 2 of the additive primaries together will produce one of the subtractive primaries (see below).

RGB = Additive Primaries

Equal amounts of RGB light mixed together = White light

The Subtractive Process involves mixing Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow dyes or pigments together in varying proportions to produce any color. These colors absorb their compliments of red, green, and blue, thus subtracting them from white light. CMYK is the subtactive color model which refers to the 4 inks used in color printing (K representing Black ink which is introduced to save on costs and because CMY inks are impure and do not produce a true black when mixed equally). The inks literally subtract brightness from white when mixed.

CMY = Subtractive Primaries

Equal amounts of CMY dyes/pigments = Black

Journal

Assigned: Week #1 2/1/11

Due Date: Week #7 3/14/11 and Week #14 5/9/11

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 having to do with color!

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

SYLLABUS

Below are some excerpts from the course syllabus.

Images of the full syllabus can be clicked on and viewed below.

Course Description:

This course is an exploration of color as it applies to photography. The use of electronic flash, tungsten light, and daylight as primary light sources are utilized in the exploration of how film records color and light. Additive and subtractive color mixing, color harmony, lighting for color, color temperature control, color correction, creative color interpretation, and film and digital color reproduction techniques will be covered.

Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to:

Understand the technical fundamentals behind color in traditional and digital photography
Comprehend the basics of color theory
Utilize light and color as design elements to add depth and feeling to an image
Control and manipulate color through filtration, lighting, exposure, and processing
Demonstrate professional skills in the approach, handling, and presentation of color imagery
Identify the characteristics of an assortment of color films and control how film and digital cameras record light and color
Manage color corrections in camera and in Photoshop to achieve accurate colors

Evaluation Criteria:

10% Class Attendance, Participation, and Professionalism

10% Journal

20% Quizzes and Final Exam

45% Assignments

15% Final Project

Textbook: Photography; Tenth Edition; by Barbara London, Jim Stone, and John Upton, Pearson Prentice Hall, February 27 2010, ISBN# 978-0205711499

Supplies: Journal, Flash Drive or preferably a portable Hard Drive, Rosco Gel pack or Rosco Strobist Collection Pack (purchase gel pack online using the links, or at Adorama, Set Shop, etc. - refer to the resource list contained within the syllabus pages below)

Welcome

Welcome to Spring Semester 2012
Foundations of Color Class!

I'm very much looking forward to sharing my knowledge of color photography with you, and I can only hope you are just as excited to explore the creative world of color photography!

Before getting started, I wanted to point out that I like to begin each class with a quote from a famous photographer 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. Below is our first quote from Louis Daguerre, who in 1837 invented the daguerreotype - which was really the first practical photographic process which put us on the road to where we are today (...and yes I know daguerreotypes are not in color!).

“There is nothing else to be desired but the presentations of these children of light to the astonished eye in the full splendour of their colors.” - Louis Daguerre