Photography 2

Now that you are back from Ephesus with mounds and mounds of images to sort through, your next assignment for Art is to choose three (3) of those images and create an album on Facebook where you will upload and store the pictures.

Here are the instructions:

1. Look through all of your photographs
2. Choose: a landscape, a portrait and a detail
3. Rename the photo files using this format: yourname_portrait.jpg. Usually your image will be called something like: DSCF6616.JPG. You will need to click on the file until it is highlighted and then type in a new name, for example: lacoste_portrait.jpg. It is important that the file extention JPG is at the end
4. Check your file names. You should have 3 images that are labelled like this: yourname_landscape.jpg, yourname_portrait.jpg & yourname_detail.jpg
5. Create a new photo album in Facebook
6. Label the album: Your Name Efes Photos (example: Lacoste Efes Photos)
7. Upload the 3 pictures
8. Save

When your Efes Facebook album is created we will use it for English and Art class. This is going to facilitate our ability to put together the Ephesus Book as well as use it for the Visual Blog that we are also going to make. Good luck! Come and see me or Ms. Helmer if you have any questions.

Photography 1

Aphrodisias adjusted using Tilt Shift Maker

The main art component that you are going to be working on while on your trip to Ephesus is photography. As a class (together with English) we are going to be working on compiling a book based on your photos from the Ephesus trip. Ms. Helmer has been talking to you about captioning photographs in order to help tell the "story" of the picture. We will talk more about that when you get back. What I am going to send you off with are some general guide lines to think about while you plan your pictures:

Improve Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time is an excellent guide of easy tips to read and REMEMBER. You do not have to remember them all, but if you read through the list the ideas that are interesting to you are the ones that you will think about the next time that you plan an image.

Tilt-Shift Maker is a fun application that can be used when you get back from Ephesus. What are tilt-shift photos you ask? Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs. This can be an effective technique to employ, especially when looking at the type of architecture that you will be seeing. The fun comes with making the scale of the photo look as if you are seeing a miniature replica of the real thing. I find that it draws you in to the details of the landscape.

You can compare the two photographs in this blog, the one above is tilt-shifted and the one below is the regular photo that I took while visiting the site.

Aphrodisias without any adjustments

As I mentioned, Ms. Helmer has been talking to you about captions and how to write to support your photograph with information which does not re-state the obvious but, rather, adds to what can be seen. While you are thinking about captions you can also think about how you might describe a picture that you did not record. Unphotographable is a website by the photographer Michael David Murphy who describes it as; a catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter.

There, a few things to think about while you adventure on your Grade 8 trip. Enjoy!