TOPIC 3 - Memory = Vintage

TIME

Creating a sense of space in a photograph constructs an environment in which your viewers can spend time. Once you have this, you have the potential to present evidence of past events in this location. Or the possibility of future events can be hinted at. Or even the absence of time, aka timelessness, can be the point. In this way nothingness can be something. [re: Zen Philosophy]

In all of these instances we are using time as the main variable. Most of the photos up to now have been in present time, but time stretches in both directions. Time in the past resides in our memory. Future time is in our dreams and is a product of our imagination. Timelessness can be a strong emotional state if one feels suspended in it.

The term vintage refers to the past. The Vintage Effect in photography is becoming very popular with Smartphone and Lomography photographers. But first we must understand the meaning of the word vintage. Some definitions of the word Vintage include:

• representing the high quality of a past time; classic: e.g. vintage movies.

• of, imitating, or being a style or fashion of the past; retro: e.g. vintage clothing.

• old-fashioned or obsolete.

• too old to be considered modern, but not old enough to be considered antique.

MEMORY

The word vintage has both good and bad connotations, but since this all has to do with images from the past, it all has to do with memory. When organizing the content in your photos you have to think about how we remember things, places, events, people, etc.

It is also said that we only remember the good sides of things. Then maybe vintage implies some kind of positive emotional attitude. But there are also nightmares – bad memories. You could follow this course of thought as well.

For example, I had a student who went back to the sites where significant and usually traumatic things happened in her life. She shot self-portraits at those locations. You never knew what the exact story was, but the feelings were strong. Another student went back to her high school steps and superimposed a current self-portrait over a shot her friends had taken before they graduated. Each photograph was made translucent (by lowering the opacity of each image) so neither really seemed ‘real’.

Another way to create translucent people is to shoot with a long shutter speed and have the subject person move slowly through the frame, or stand still for half the exposure time and then quickly move out. There are smart phone apps available can control your shutter speed to make long exposures possible. 

LEGACY

In the photographic world, vintage is often used to refer to photographs shot on film that are usually at least 20 years old so the prints are now fading and the colors have shifted. Another variation of the vintage look is the Instant Film look a.k.a. Polaroid. These prints also have their own peculiar color balance and the color of these prints shifts through time in a different direction from that of conventional film. Yet another variation is a technique known as cross-processing. This is when positive color film (for slides) is developed in the chemicals for negative film (for prints), or vice versa. This creates unusual color shifts that are somewhat unpredictable. Other photographers have found old film that has been damaged and have made prints from these negatives. I had a student who would boil her film and then freeze it, producing a 'damaged' or broken look. This gets into the territory of ‘marks made from process’, aka intuitive, or improvisational, or unintentional, all of which are part of another conversation that we will get back to...

The key point in all of these examples is that the colors are not “normal”. There is a precedent in the amount and direction of the color shifting because all this came from chemical film processes. In digital photography we often try to emulate chemical processes. After all, this is our legacy. This is where the vocabulary of photography comes from. Digital technology now gives us the power to push things a little bit further and in directions that were not previously possible. But you have to be careful. If you push things just enough you get really interesting looking photographs because they are within the realm of believability. If you push things too far you get photos that just look weird or worse, fake, aka unbelievable.

VINTAGE/ RETRO

We return to the question: What is the vintage look and, more importantly, why would one want to use it? If you answered, "Because it looks cool", then you are missing the point. Vintage refers to photographs that look old. What are the attributes of old photographs other than the technical described above? The colors are faded, the edges are bent, the saturation is reduced, the details are unclear, and so on. How do these attributes line up with potential content? The form of any piece must reflect or support the content. If you are making photos that deal with the past, then you should have a specific memory or type of memory of a kind of situation in mind when shooting. If you are making photographs about faded memories where the details are less clear, and the feeling has gotten softer and fuzzier, then maybe the vintage style supports this content.

You should go through the list of fx that are attainable with various Smartphone apps and experiment with them to see what visual modifications they produce. When you have some of that under your belt, stop and think about what photographic content would be best be expressed using these appearances. Then make those photographs. And you may not be able to just walk around and wait for the world to hand you photographs. You may have to make them happen. This is where the photographer moves from being a ‘gatherer’ to being a ‘hunter’, aka a person who makes photographs happen. [ref: Intuitive vs. Directed Shooting ]

Remember to share your experiments with your classmates. Please let the class know early if you find any other apps that work well. People are encouraged to find new ways of doing things that are different from what is prescribed. These people will get better grades. Share any discoveries and how you have used these tools by posting entries at the bottom of your Topic 3 blog page. 

note: be sure to avoid the obvious photo clichés, e.g. the expressive hands of old people, aka pictures of your parents or grandparents, the gnarled roots of might trees, old things such as old truck and classic cars, etc… It is not enough to just take pictures of old things. Old family photos are too obvious. This has to be down through Ambience and Feel, where everything is implied.

note: do not forget about all of the elements of good shooting we learned in the beginning of the class. You still have to make photos with mystery, using the various tools that we learned. [re-read those pages explaining these techniques if you need to.] Many people took very simple photos for the Color Topic that were too obvious and were things stuck in the middle of the frame, shot just because they had color. There was no mystery in these photos. There was also little passion, the whole point of the topic.   

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VINTAGE/ RETRO ƒx APPS

There are so many apps available and each has sometimes thousands of fx and presets possible. It is very easy to see that this is where things get out of hand. It is impossible to write a tutorial on his. In order to give you a head start however, here are some lists of the fx available with several very good Camera Apps: SnapSeed (by NIK), Photo fx (by Tiffen), and Vignette. Each app has a tutorial section built into it and a web site to accompany it. You should run through those first, and then start playing.

APPS of Choice:

SnapSeed (Apple + Android)

By Nik Software, Inc., respected maker of computer photo filter fx software

home site: https://support.google.com/snapseed/

for instructions, video tutorials, etc.

• Black & White: neutral, contrast, bright, dark, film, darkened sky

• Vintage: 

• Drama:

• Grunge:

• Center Focus:

• Tilt-Sift:

• Retroflex: 

• Frames: 

note: This app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Photo ƒx (Apple)

by Tiffen, Inc,. respected maker of optical camera filters.

home site: http://www.tiffensoftware.com/products/iphone-ipad-apps/photo-vex

and there is a tutorial page in a drop-down menu

http://www.tiffensoftware.com/tutorials/photo-fx-tutorials

In Photo ƒx, you can choose from 76 filters containing 878 presets organized in 8 different filter groups. 

Some of the filters in their respective categories are:

• Film Lab: Bleach Bypass, Cross Processing, Faux Film, Grain, Three Strip, Two Strip

• Diffusion: Black Diffusion, Black Pro–Mist, Bronze Glimmer–Glass, Center Spot, Cool Pro–Mist, Diffusion, Glimmer Glass, Gold Diffusion/FX, HDTV/FX

• Grads/Tints: 812 Warming, Color Spot, Color-Grad, Dual Grad, Mono Tint, ND–Grad, Nude/FX, Old Photo, Strip Grad

• Image: Black & White, Fluorescent, Haze, Levels, Sharpen, Sky, Temperature

• More: Close-Up Lens, Depth of Field, Vignette, Wide Angle Lens

note: This app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Vignette (Android)

Vignette is also a full-featured camera application, featuring digital zoom, time-lapse, self-timer and more. It has more than 70 customizable filters and 50 frames useable in any combination to create many photo effects. 

Examples: http://vignette.neilandtheresa.co.uk/filter-examples

 • Retro/Vintage styles
• LOMO/Diana/Holga toy camera styles
• Instant camera styles
• Cross-process, duotone, charcoal, tilt-shift and much more
• Photo-booth and double-exposure
• New: Touch to focus
• New: Share your personalized saved effects with other Vignette users
• Take pictures at your camera’s full resolution, even with effect (paid version only)
• Use the flash and front-facing cameras on most devices
• Self-timer, time-lapse and steady-shot modes
• Digital 10× zoom
• New: 21× optical zoom on Samsung Galaxy Camera EK-GC100
• Store location data in pictures (geotag)
• Use the volume rocker as a shutter button
• Edit imported photos
• On-screen controls for exposure, zoom, flash and switching camera
• Launch from the lock screen in Android 4.0+
• Remote shutter with Bluetooth remote, wired headset or Sony Ericsson LiveView
• Time- and date-stamp pictures with adjustable size, color and format
• Rule-of-thirds and golden ratio composition guides
• Optimized for taking pictures underwater
• Share pictures via third-party apps

 note: The paid version of this app retains the full resolution of the camera and does not reduce file size!

Some other possibilities:

Vintage Camera: (has only 1 camera, 20 effect presets, no post-processing one saved, saves at 1280 x 1280.)

Retro Camera Plus: has 6 cameras, but saves at only 512 square

XnViewFx: a reasonable number of fx, including retro, color and texture, etc.. Allows saving presets. Saves at full resolution.

Photo Toaster: reasonable collection of modifiers but no radical style or retro fx. Good for subtle, tasteful photos. Saves at full resolution. 

Camera 360 Ultimate: also has a reasonable collection of adjustments, fx, and borders. Saves at full resolution.

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Additional Tips

You have to keep track of what you're doing. It is easy to start working intuitively until you get just the look you want. Then you realize that you have no idea how you made it. Knowing how to repeat your process and create similar looking photographs to create a set of related shots is part of the craftsmanship that we are seeking. Eventually you need to know how to duplicate specific looks so you can build a ‘personal visual vocabulary’, that uses a ‘visual toolbox’ that is specific to you. This is what the photo recipes are all about - knowing how to do what we want to do, knowing how to repeat it, and then sharing this knowledge with others.

Some apps keep track of what you've done and allow us to save those fx actions as a preset. If you have that ability, you can apply the same effect to other photographs to retain consistency within a series of shots. It is preferable, however, to vary each shot even slightly to have variation and project the feel of being hand-made into the photographic work. You can then create a recipe from these presets.

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This topic is where we really get to 'make' photos rater than simply 'taking' them.

best of luck - - -

IMPROVING COLOR PHOTOS

It seems that many of the recent color photographs are sliding back in to an earlier state of mind. You seem to be forgetting the tools you learned during the initial shooting in Black & White- all the aspects of Framing and Composition that were laid out in the document of the same name. Many photographs now up on the Blog are too simple and only present a single object in a limited space that does not contribute to its meaning. It is just, “Here it is” and that's it. Rather than constructing photos by setting up the angle of view (that could only been seen by you) and getting close enough to cut out unwanted pieces of the background (so the viewer has a better understanding of just what you want them to see), photos are being shot straight on of things that happen to have color. That is a much too limited interpretation of this Topic.

> FramingComposition.pdf

One important rule is: If the subject of the photo can be easily identified, the viewer will not look very long. This is why Mystery is so important. It is preferred to have your viewer respond to your photo by saying, “What the heck is that?” As soon as they do that, you have engaged them in a conversation Then the photo continues to feed them clues about what is going on and maybe the subject becomes more clear or maybe it says unclear in such a way the the viewer has to complete the photo (by adding their own experience to that of the photographer’s).

What you have to do now is add Color on top of the Mysterious photos you were shooting to increase the sense of Passion. 

SPACE

Another important step is to take those two important tools and extrapolate on them. 

Angle of View: The way to increase the personal angle of view is to include more than one subject in the frame. Present your viewer with a main topic and then a secondary topic. Their eye should move between these two focus points. If you can add a third and a fourth the photo gets even deeper. But don’t have so many that the viewer does not know what you really want them to look at. There has to be a hierarchy of relevance. You have to establish what is the most important subject, and what is the next most important, and so on. This is all done by how you position things in the frame. 

> Multiplicity.pdf

Closeness: Now that you have learned to get close to eliminate all distractions for the frame, it is now time to step back and include more of the environment of the subject. This provides context for the content. When you do this, always check all four corners of the frame and make sure there is something interesting happening there. It is possible to take very interesting photographs even if most of the frame is blank-  as long as the corners have interesting content! 

TIME

The complimentary aspect of Space is Time. [Einstein enlightened us that these are two aspects of the same thing.] It is important to include a sense of time in your photographs. By this I mean that they should have a history to them, some indication of what happened before you clicked the shutter, and what may happen after the shot is taken. Photographs that reach back into the past deal with memory. Photos that imply what else may happen are employing the imagination. These are two key aspects that are taken further in the third topic of Memory = Vintage, so we will delve into this more in the semester.

Reminder about Photo Clichés

Please avoid photos of pets, or drooling babies or cute kids. Please do not pose for the camera (pretentious = snapshot) Avoid shooting on TU campus (too easy, unless we really can't tell...) Do not take photos of sculpture or iconic Center City buildings (someone else has already made the art). Do not document sporting events or concerts, musicians or dancers. This is documentation, objective not subjective. Remember to also avoid the new Smartphone photo clichés: selfies, pictures of food, lights and sunsets. 

I’m not telling you totally what not to do. I’m just trying to steer you clear of things that will almost automatically become generic and therefore mediocre photographs.

> PhotoCliches.pdf

Pictures of your feet are NOT self portraits! Pictures that look like snapshots are not self-portraits. They are snapshots. If you are posing for the photo it will probably look like a snap-shot.

All photographs have to be taken during the current semester. This proves they are in response to the current topics being taught. 

Photo Hunting

Get out of your apartment and stalk the streets for good photos. And please, get out of your car to shoot! Work at getting the best shot of the scene at hand. See what you are drawn to intuitively. Collect those pictures, organize them into sets, and then go hunting for more pictures to fill out or expand the set.

> IntuitiveVsDirectedShooting.pdf

Teaching Tips – Critique 1

Let's take a look at some of the best photographs for this critique and see what makes them work. I have organized them into small subgroups so we can get a better handle on what people are looking at, and more important, how they are looking.

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We start our journey out in nature where we have several landscape photographs.

The first photo by Jay may seem like a regular bunch of trees at first but the light is pretty extraordinary, in part because it is enhanced by a little bit of tonal tweaking. Maybe more important is that the bottom of the frame sits just barely above where the trees hit the ground, removing the horizon line. This is a subtle but very effective technique that adds tension to the shot.

The next photo, also by Jay, allows us to look further back into the picture space but then immediately blocks our view with the fence. Typically, photographs with the subject in the center do not work that well because there's nowhere for the eye to go, but in this case the fence blocking our view of the trail sets up a kind of psychological barrier. We can see where we want to go but we cannot get there. There is an expression about how the thing you can't have is the thing you want the most. This photo is just as much psychological as it is visual. The subtle warm tone enhances the photograph even further in both of these realms. 

The next two photographs are by Kevin and work in the vertical mode using the 16:9 format that extends the space even further than usual. These two photos have a really old look and this effect is pushed further by the subtle blue tone that cools the photos down. Both photos play around with the contrast of foreground against background. The footprints in the snow in the second shot are particularly intriguing and add a secondary point of interest to the shot. They make we wonder if someone was walking away.

The next photo of the overlapping tree branches is also by Jay and is a great example of what I mean by Passive vs. Active shooting. This photograph is constructed in the photographer’s eye, set up by exactly where they stand and how close they are to the subject. If you had been standing next to her when she shot it, you would not have seen this. This reminds me of some of the abstract paintings by Franz Kline whose work is really extraordinary, but you really have to see it in person to grasp its intensity. If you can get your photographs to have the formal structure of a good painting then you are doing well. The light brown tone an extra feature is really beautiful, strong enough to have a visual and emotional effect yet subtle enough to be restrained. 

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The next few shots combine trees and architecture to take us to a different place. 

The next shot by Courtney has a unique upward glance with a strong diagonal in the foreground. This allows your eye to travel from the front to the back. The extra contrast add drama.

The next photo by Patty has us looking through a screen onto a snowy vista. This time we become aware of the photographer looking out the window. This is another example of a more active photographic view, even though it is still a pretty passive situation. 

Allison take us out onto the street after the blizzard but what makes this a great photograph is that all the key energy is pushed up in the very top left corner. The horizon line is a little sliver along the top edge, parallel to the frame, and that adds visual strength. The lights in the very top corner have power even more power. It is good when something so small in the frame can have a strong visual effect.

Annie's photograph also uses that background horizon running parallel to the top edge to good effect. What's important here is that she got the foreground and focus and let the background go a little soft. Whenever you have an extreme foreground/ background situation it is better to get the foreground crisp and let the distance go a little soft. Otherwise people will just think the whole thing is out of focus.

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The next several photographs use empty sky as a major element.  The first two are both by Mary.

Having a photograph that is 90% empty seems to break all the rules but this one is hysterical. Just the tops of those arches and one little spire on the opposite side... this is wonderful. Sometimes photographs can be a visual delight and need no further explanation.

This photo pushes the building down to the right-hand corner, giving it power, and the power lines etched into the sky become a strong graphical element. If enough of the spatial clues are removed then the visual space can get flattened. This is when photos start to take on the characteristics of drawings or paintings. [I was once instructed to squint at my photos and make drawing of the key lines and shapes in the frame. If I ended up with a nice drawing then the photo was well composed. Try it yourself.]

This photograph of wires by Jake is almost completely flat. The space again working more like a drawing rather than a photograph. The subtle gradation of the sky form top to bottom is smooth and subtle. The small vertical element on the right and the little curvy thing near the bottom take on greater relevance because everything else is so minimal. This is nicely done.

The next photographed by Francesca brings us down to reality, back onto the street. The strong visual element of the striped barrier plays against the brickwork in the background of the street itself. The top left corner has a pole that is perfectly parallel to the vertical edge of the frame yet the building on the right side seem slanted. This is a function of ‘camera vision’ and is the kind of thin people do not usually see just with their eyes. Beyond the pole in the top corner is a little white space that allows our eyes to escape out of the frame. These are very important elements even though they may seem minor at first. These are the kind of details you need to be paying attention to. Always look at the four corners of your frame to see how everything is sitting inside the rectangle.

This shot of the bicycle wheel is also by Francesca and uses the street in a different kind of way. Again we are given an obstacle to look through that changes the way we think about the space. The shot is from low down that opens the space up and makes us more aware of our point of view.

Another even tighter shot of another bike by Courtney almost transforms the bike into a piece of sculpture and yet the flatness of the picture space moves it even more towards being a painting. This is very strong toning but it works to great effect with this subject.

This photo by Jay plays with the brickwork to create interesting pattern. We have a window on one side and a doorway on the other that allow our eyes to bounce back and forth and keep the viewer engaged. Looking through these allows us to escape and move into the distance. It's a pretty bizarre place and I think we could spend time here.

The next shot by Jay is tight in and looking down and it makes the chair even more extreme. This is another active view that works well. The placement of the curves in this and the previous fame show us the kind of forms that Jay is drawn to. You will soon become aware of your own visual preference that you did not know you had. Once you come to  this recognition, use it to make more photographs of similar form.

This photo looking out the door by Francesca has a similar downward glance but it is the lines of light cascading across the entire frame, from front to rear, and that makes it great. Our eyes can follow the light out the door and we can wander across the street and play with all the visual goodies out there. This makes us think that the photographer is sitting there looking. It puts us in their shoes (or inside their brain).

This vertical sliver of the window, also by Francesca, presents us with a similar viewing situation. This time the viewport is restricted from both edges in, which intensifies the view. This is the kind of consistency I was referring to in Jay’s photos.

This photo by Mayuko also sets up an active view through a doorway, across the room, and then out the window and across the street. There are a couple of people out there that become 'omake', the extra little added surprise. (That’s a Japanese word and concept that I teach to all my classes.) People can spend more time inside your photos when you give them multiple places to go and different people or things to contemplate.

Here's another example by Jake of really great light streaming into an empty space that amplifies the solitude. The cameras is a little bit lower and it opens up the space a bit more. Try to find spaces that your viewer can inhabit for a while. Then try to get them lit with extraordinary light. Ansel Adams would sit on top of a mountain for hours just waiting for the sunlight to hit just the right angle to make the perfect shadows! 

In this photograph by Judith the light is working in the opposite direction. I am not going to call this a self-portrait and typically one tries to keep your shadow out of the frame but this one has a life of its own and almost reminds me of walking on the street with my friend (my shadow, of course). This shot just makes me feel comfortable.

This Photo by Mayuko also almost looks like it's picking up some inspiration from Cartier-Bresson. The street scene is great on its own but the people walking through the space actualize the scene. The icicles and snow in the dead of winter almost render a scene of destruction. [She reveals in her evaluation that there was a fire and all the ice came from that! The feeling of destruction does come through even though it is not evident. Somehow photos can carry hidden information without that info being in the visual frame. This is the magical power of photography.] 

This nighttime shot by Judith also creates an intriguing space, only partially lit.  It keeps you bouncing from one side to the other. I can stand here pondering what is going on in those dimly lit rooms in the distance.

The extraordinarily rich toning and this photo by Courtney takes the nighttime and intensifies it. The restricted space and upwards view is also intensifying. I don't know where I am or where I am going but looking at this photograph is almost like eating really rich chocolate cake. Can’t beat that!

This richly blue toned photo by Kat depicts fire they we usually think of as being hot, but this time it is cool. Sometimes taking photographs in the opposite direction of what is expected can be quite effective. The restrictive view and downward viewpoint are both very effective.

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These last two photographs move us to a more abstract approach. The next series of 10 photographs gets progressively more obscure and interesting. 

The train pole (catenary) photo by Patty is taken from an oblique point of view that creates a geometric design. The trees growing sideways are part of the magic. The writing on the pole is also part of the graphic nature of the shot.

This photo by Mayuko offers us another fractured view of some unidentifiable space. The foreground has text that serves as a visual element and then the edge on the left side splits the frame yet allows us to view peer down a long hallway. We have no idea what is coming or going because it is hidden behind this structure. It is a tenuous situation, and again, tension is good in photographs.

The closest of view in this photo by Allison renders another set of graphical patterns. Nothing seems to be parallel or perpendicular here. And the little Hyundai logo in the middle makes it even more peculiar. Gravity is suspended by the limited viewpoint. This removes the clues with which we would define perspective.

This crossbeam by Mayuko also becomes abstracted because of the limitation caused by its closeness of view. The numbers are another text element that is more visual than meaningful. 

Mayuko comes through again with a completely different collection of items; hoses and ribbon on a curb all bathed by beautiful light. The closeness of view and the way things are cut by the edge of the frame make them even more visual and beautiful even though it is not pretty stuff in and of itself. This is another painting in the making.

Be subdued light in this photograph by Patty renders what could be an ordinary chain-link fence into a beautiful pattern of curves and reflected light. The warm brown toning is what makes this really beautiful.

This little piece of wall, also by Patty, is even less defined and let's our imagination take over. Again, warm brown toning is a major factor.

This almost blank shot by Courtney is just moisture on a wall with some white light reflected off the right-hand side. It is very simple yet very beautiful. Just the combination of water and light and warm brown toning is enough.

Another water picture by Kevin is this time, water on a window that we can look through, yet the background is not what is in focus, so we are left to ponder. This evokes the viewer’s imagination.

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Now, geometrical patterns move us from places and things into the world of people.

Mary give us a whimsical photograph of eyes peeking through a landscape. It is interesting that the eyes are looking past us. I wonder what would happen if the eyes were looking straight back at us. That might be too intense.

Here Jay has a shadow pattern running across her face that is interesting. The way the expression on the persons face interacts with what else is happening the frame that makes the real intensity. I wonder if she is anticipating something scary happening or just dreaming. Maybe we watch too many scary movies. [Do you know how many people we watch get killed every day on TV?]

Here again we see Jay as an actress. The look of fear or anticipation on the face is more apparet than in the previous frame, and it becomes startling. The light sepia tone takes us back to the 1940s. This is almost a Hitchcock film still.

Francesca gives us a 3/4 portrait in soft light. Her gaze is just past us. The warm yellow–brown tone softens the look even more. 

The contrasty and grainy black-and-white effect in this photo by Courtney takes us off in the other direction. It is way more gritty and the expression is much more intense. Cutting the face just above the high intensifies the expression.

This stark black-and-white photo by Kat has a similar structure. One eye is covered and the other is looking back at us rather intently. This is also a striking portrait.

This close up by Mary has her looking down and away from us and it becomes just as much about the texture of hair and material. Still, the doorway in the background provides us a little bit more information and puts her character in a context. It makes us wonder about what may happen next. This is a nice addition.

The last photo by Patty is nicely warm toned with a little bit of reddish color in it. The face is split almost down the middle. The texture of the hair against the scarf is wonderful and the gaze looks off to the side with a little bit of sparkle in her eye.

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notes:

In the Comments, many people discussed the structure of the blog in the ‘construction’ sections. It would be more helpful if we shifted these comments to the structure of the photographs themselves. Although, in this first round, these comments were really helpful to get the bogs designed in a consistent fashion. 

Lets keep the recipes all together at the bottom of the blog. Placing them after every photograph starts to compete for our attention. This is why we do not see artist statements on the walls of galleries, but rather, at the front desk in a booklet about the artist and their work. 

You also have to go and check your blog on a computer to make sure that all of the photographs are links. Clicking on any photograph in your blog should open up a new viewing window where the first photograph appears very large and all the other photographs are along the bottom in a thumbnail view. This mode allows you to scroll through all of your photos using the arrow keys, then you can see them at the larger scale. This is where I grab your photos for my ‘Teaching Tips’ feedback blog. If I grab them off of the regular blog view I get smaller files. If your photograph does not link to this view page I cannot get your larger resolution photo.

Speaking of resolution, I am a little bit worried about the lack of resolution of some of these files. Always double check the size that your phone is putting out. Some apps really reduce the resolution and that's not such a good thing. 1200 x 1600 pixels should be the smallest file.

A couple of people did not include their POW photo in their Self Evaluation. You can go back and paste that it, so we have it for reference.

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This was a strong beginning. I hope you realize that one of the main reasons for working first in B&W is because shooting in Color is often distracting when trying to learn about the form of a photograph The ideas about Framing and Composition are much easier to grasp in a monochrome series. It is now important to remember all of these lessons when adding color on top. 

happy shooting - - -