Big surprise that upon further review I had about 8 shadow pictures. Kudos to my few kids in this class that do all of the assignments. At least I have pictures to look at, could always be worse...
Jawed
I'll bet you'll never guess what I had to go over with every single student in the first class while choosing portfolio pictures, despite the fact that they were all watching everyone else get told multiple times before they went. That's right, every single person wanted all of their portfolio pictures to be the pictures that someone else took of them. Or, even better, all of their pictures that they took of other pictures that they took of beautiful flowers and scenery.
As soon as I told each person for the third time that day and millionth time total what the portfolios were for and their purpose of having their best pictures that they took of real things to be reviewed by others to be chosen for the advanced class, it got even more interesting. They chose every single picture they had.
"This one's beautiful, this one's great, I like this one, that one too." But, it wasn't just that. It was all or their worst pictures, the pictures that they took of each other while sitting around in the park void of all emotion. Since they couldn't choose themselves, they chose their best friends. After narrowing down about 20 times each person, we ended up with semi legit portfolios.
I just don't even know what to think with this class, other than most of them all love cameras but hate using them. I told them that on saturday I'd have all of their portfolio pictures, certificates, and pictures for them, and off they were.
The next class was much much better. It's funny how it started off with the second class making me pull my hair out and by the end the first class made me want to reach for my gun while the second class always made me so happy. Lots and lots of shadow pictures from this class. Smooth sailing for choosing portfolio pictures. Afterwards, they got to take all their chosen portfolio pictures and practice using GIMP since last class they just observed. I told them the same thing, saturday everything would be ready for them to come by and pick up.
Nasir
Nasir
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Nice. The second class really pulled it out for you! Good job!
ReplyDeleteWOW some of them are dang good.!
ReplyDeleteWow! What are the demographics of the second class, especially in contrast with the first? The ring-is-a-heart series is neat and Zarif's shadows-of-life series is super. Can you guess at why the first and second class are so different in output?
ReplyDeleteThe second class has one less student, they all show up more consistently, and take it a lot more seriously, for the most part they all speak decent english as well. The ring as a heart thing they stole because it was in one of the examples I showed them of shadow photography, but there were still a lot of ways they could've messed that up, so they did a good job. Zarif's thing he did on his own. The first class has yet to get over taking pictures of themselves and their friends staring blankly at things, and coming up with excuses as to why they couldn't take any other types of pictures. The second class is much more interested in taking photos, they have plenty of photos like the first class, but plenty of the assignments as well. They ask more questions, give more feedback, try a lot harder, and seem a lot more concerned. When we review and they don't have good photos they'll usually go out that same day and re take the old assignment to get practice more.
ReplyDeleteMany of the shadow pictures are prime candidates for experimenting with changing the contrast, brightness, gamma, and tint/hue/temperature in GIMP. You can perhaps use any of these in your next class (ie, by saying these are examples from last class).
ReplyDeleteDo you think you can also pull together a "best of" print and online portfolio? Perhaps per class. Print and hang at the fablab. I think this will help with future classes. Send me digital version and we can add to the website.