03/02/09 - FINAL EXAM & CONTEST:

1) The final image must be a composite, containing at least
one original photo taken by the student at any time
since the beginning of the class.
2) " Theme - anything goes. Show me your creative vision! "

There were 2 prizes - Grand Prize & First Prize

Winner Grand Prize - Sarah
Winner First Prize - Tulio

Once again, judging these contests is very difficult. The students
always seem to produce their best work when there is a little
incentive. I was again amazed by the students' creativity
and with their quick grasp of a complex program such as
Photoshop with only a few short weeks of instruction.

Check out the results. Really nice work from everyone!!

To see all photos from this assignment, click the image below.
02/23/09 - ASSIGNMENT: " Your Vision of California".
This time the assignment was designed specifically to make
the students think, rather than just stop on the way to class
and grab a picture. Obviously, the assignment is a rather
broad topic, but I wanted to see how each individual interpreted
it. This group of students for the most part did not have access
to automobiles, so much of the photography for this assignment
took place in proximity to EF in South Redondo.The resulting
imagery showed that these students are starting to express
the creative vision that I saw from the first day photo contest.
Nice stuff!









To see all photos from this assignment, click the image below.

02/09/09 - ASSIGNMENT: A seemingly simple task - an
artistic photo of a flower or flowers. For novice photographers
this is not necessarily that easy. First, there is utilization of
good light, but more importantly ( and most basic ) is to get
the flowers in FOCUS! Autofocus is often difficult to control in
macro mode. Getting the students to check and make sure
they got it right in some cases took a couple of re-do's. In the
end, as you can see if you click the link, they not only got
them in focus, they got some really nice photos!








To see all photos from this assignment, click the image below.

02/02/09 - ASSIGNMENT: Keeping in mind how lighting
effects the emotion that the viewer sees in an image, shoot
a portrait.Every group of students is different, and this
semester thestudents response to this assignment was more traditional, inthat they got more close up and personal with
their subjects.What I found most interesting with this group
of students was that they seemed a bit uncomfortable
shooting people on a formal photographic level. Whereas
they would take lots of photos of inanimate objects, they would
only take one or two frames for a portrait. They were told that portraiture is more difficult because there are so many things
to get right in a portrait - eyes, expression, body position,
hands, etc. not to mention good lighting. After a couple of
re-do's, the resulting images were pretty good, but I still
feel that there is some room for improvement.


To see all photos from this assignment, click the image below.

.
Photo by Begum


Photo by Esther


01/21/09 - First Day of Class Photo Contest.
INSTRUCTIONS - Photograph a motor vehicle, take a
portrait of your team partner, and photograph a building.

The assignment was given to see what skills and vision the
sudents had before having any instruction at all in
photography or digital imaging.

The class was divided into five teams of two.

Judging, as with the Fall 2008 class, was difficult. Two
top professional photographers finally agreed upon a
winning team. We were again amazed at the imagery
produced by all of the students.

To see photos from this contest, click the image below.



Photo by Sarah & Tulio