Flash Photo Project: Photo Manipulation

Jeison Munguia - Edison Tech Photo Student

Essential question: 

How can I use the apps in my phone to create an interesting and unique piece of art using photographs I take with my phone? 

Video #1

This is a one week assignment with an in class photo critique inspired by the Mobile Photo Awards. You will take photos using your phone that you must manipulate heavily with several of your phone's apps. You must post your best photo to your blog AND write a reflection! Your photo MUST be posted to your blog in order to receive full credit plus the reflection!

Project Requirements:

1). Post to your blog, one quality edited photograph that is manipulated heavily using several of your phone's photo/art editing apps.

2). Photos are to be taken by you using the settings and filters in your cell phone or camera.

3). Photo should fit all criteria of good photography discussed up this point. (ie. composition, defined vantage & focal points; proper lighting & contrast; interesting angles; clear subjects in focus; a sense of narrative that tells a story; backgrounds that adds to, rather than detract from, the subject of the photo)

4). You must write a reflection in the same blog post as the final edited photo.

 Use the Rule of Thirds to help with the overall composition.

Students must post their results to their blogs to get credit and a grade for this assignment. 

Photographer: Richard Avedon

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981, 1981, printed 1985 - Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".[1] - wikipedia

Video #1

Video #2

Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

My Rochester : Portraits

Essential questions: 

How can I use the composition elements of: Line, Space, Shape, Shadow, Setting & Context to create interesting portrait photographs with good contrast and composition about individuals in Rochester? 

How can I capture on film the natures and personalities of my subjects in a way that my viewers can understand and relate to?

You will take photos, trying to capture, Portrait Photography in interesting ways in black and white. You must post your best photos to your blog AND write a 250 word reflection following the instructions on the class blog post and you must have at least 12 photo examples of Portraits posted to your blog in order to receive full credit plus the reflection!

Also, include a few sentences describing what you learned from this exercise about Portraits & Illustration in photography and how you were influenced by Martin Munkacsi and Richard Avadon's photographic portrait work.

Project Requirements:

1). 12-15 quality, edited (if necessary) photographs of Portrait Photography of unique individuals united by the theme “My Rochester”.

2). Photos are to be black & white using the settings and filters in your cell phone or camera.

3). Photos should fit all criteria of good photography discussed up this point. (ie. composition, defined vantage & focal points; proper lighting & contrast; interesting angles; clear subjects in focus; a sense of narrative that tells a story; backgrounds that adds to, rather than detract from, the subject of the photo)

4). 250 word artist statement in the same blog post as the final 12 edited photos

 Use the Rule of Thirds to help with the overall composition.

Students must post their results to their your blogs to get credit and a grade for this assignment. 

Photographer: Martin Munkacsi

Martin Munkacsi - Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika

Video

Martin Munkácsi was a newspaper writer and photographer in Hungary, specializing in sports. At the time, sports action photography could only be done in bright light outdoors. Munkácsi's innovation was to make sports photographs as meticulously composed action photographs, which required both artistic and technical skill. (continue...)

In 1932, the young Henri Cartier-Bresson, at the time an undirected photographer who catalogued his travels and his friends, saw the Munkácsi photograph Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, taken on a beach in Liberia. Cartier-Bresson later said,

"For me this photograph was the spark that ignited my enthusiasm. I suddenly realized that, by capturing the moment, photography was able to achieve eternity. It is the only photograph to have influenced me. This picture has such intensity, such joie de vivre, such a sense of wonder that it continues to fascinate me to this day."
He paraphrased this many times during his life, saying,

"I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over."
Richard Avedon said of Munkácsi,

"He brought a taste for happiness and honesty and a love of women to what was, before him, a joyless, loveless, lying art. Today the world of what is called fashion is peopled with Munkácsi's babies, his heirs.... The art of Munkácsi lay in what he wanted life to be, and he wanted it to be splendid. And it was."
In 2007, the International Center of Photography mounted an exhibit of Munkácsi's photography titled, Martin Munkácsi: Think While You Shoot![1] in conjunction with the show Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook: Photographs, 1932-46.[2] In 2009, the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York City staged a joint exhibit of photographs by Edward Steichen and Munkácsi.

Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.