Trip to the Cultural Center

Last week the group went across the street to see the Barbara Crane retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center. Sannya Munir, a student in AP photography, recounts our time there:

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. When you look at a picture you only see some of the words. Others viewing the same picture might see the other words. And some words are yet still hidden. When our class visited the Cultural Center’s exhibit on Barbara Crane titled Challenging Vision, our vision was definitely challenged. Crane has an ability to create different styles of images, and she can force viewers to compare the different in the same light.

Crane is “someone who is very curious about photography,” remarked Bill, our instructor. After viewing the exhibit, I believe that Bill’s statement is true. She used Polaroid, film, and digital cameras; and experimented with fish-eye lens, sandwiched negatives, and double exposures. Here is an example of her ability to experiment:



There was a picture of a dead bird. It didn’t make the bird pretty or anything; it was more about the study of the physical characteristics. This picture was in a series that Crane did, in which she captures the “beauty” of death. Here is an example from that series:



This was a fun field trip. We learned a lot about the different processes of developing/making pictures.

Cinoman says:

Motion Photos due next week.

Vantage Point

Click HERE for instructions to the Vantage Point assignment.

Where a photographer is standing in relationship to their subject is called the photographer's vantage point. When beginning in photography, most students tend to make all of their images at eye level. For many images this is appropriate. There comes a time, however, when a photographer needs to mix up their approach. Changing vantage point is an affective way to give the image a greater sense of design, or to present a familiar scene in a new way. So for this assignment, we ask the students to break outside of the vantage point norm. We ask them to find a high spot and look down; we ask them to get low and look up. During this assignment students begin to understand how physical photography is as a medium, as they climb stairs and crawl on the ground in search of that perfect vantage. Here are some examples:


Ben Lozano


Ben Lozano


Erika Marquez


Diana Martinez


Diana Martinez


Deja Richardson


Dolly Rivera


Andrew Vega


Andrew Vega

A Day In the Life...

A Day in the Life... is the first assignment of the year where we ask the students to make photographs using their cameras. The main intention is to introduce them to using their 35mm SLR film cameras and to working with their digital cameras. During this time we also discuss the process for developing black and white film and for making prints in the darkroom. We also continue our discussions of Photoshop. The students then use this software to edit their photographs (density, contrast, color balance, etc). Finally, they make professional quality inkjet prints on our Epson 4800 printer. These are all skills that they will continue to improve upon during the year.

The subject for the assignment is wide-open. We merely ask them to consider the world around them, and to make pictures that reflect that world. This is where the assignment title A Day in the Life... comes from. Here are some examples:


Khalid El-Amin


Khalid El-Amin


Amanda Marco


Erika Marquez


Diana Oropeza


Diana Oropeza

Photography is an odd conundrum: it records the world, but the best photographs are something new--something only the photographer observes. As the students progress during the program, they begin to realize this more and more. They begin to understand Garry Winogrand's famous dictum that "I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.

Bill Guy
Teaching Artist
AAEP

Light and Shadow

Click HERE for instructions to the Light and Shadow assignment.

I always tell my students that Light and Shadow is the meat and potatoes of photography. If you can use it well, then people will pay attention to your photographs.

So for this assignment we ask students to make photographs where light and shadow is the signature element of the image. In other words, the shot would be meaningless without it. They are asked to use light and shadow to create a sense of design, to set the mood of the image, or even as a metaphor for a greater meaning. They are asked to consider this "problem" with black and white materials, along with color. Here are some examples:


Rudy Alfaro


Ben Lozano


Erika Marquez


Leif Novak


Deja Richardson


Dolly Rivera


Andrew Vega


Andrew Vega

After this assignment they generally begin to understand that light is available in a wide variety. Natural light changes during the course of the day, and is also influenced by weather and the seasons. As the light changes, so does the design and feel of the picture. Students start to see that they have to wait, find, or create the appropriate light for the types of photographs that they want. They start to exert more control over their photographs, and their unique vision for photography begins to take shape.

Bill Guy
Teaching Artist
AAEP

Artists in the Workplace - Panel Discussion

There are many goals for the Advanced Arts Education Program at Gallery 37 Center for the arts. One of those goals is to expose young people to the variety of opportunities that await them after high school. AAEP hosts several events and discussions throughout the school year. Colleges come and present their institutions and look at portfolios. There are also workshops on financial aid. And there are workshops on career opportunities after school.

On Tuesday, October 6th, Gallery 37 / AAEP hosted a panel discussion on artists in the workplace. The AP photography group, along with students from the other programs, spent the afternoon at the Chicago Cultural Center hearing testimonies from several Chicago-based working artists. Among the panelists were Sharon Gopfert from UIC, copywriter and creative director Wendy Lalli, graphic designer Susan Marx, and William Raffeld from UIC.

The panel discussion had three main objectives:

1. To showcase the variety of careers in the arts
2. To illustrate various paths taken to achieving successful careers in the arts
3. To give teens a brief overview of the connections between the participants, their careers and their overlapping skill sets.

Here are some testimonies from the students in AP photography:

Amanda Marco: "I liked hearing everyone's different stories about how they got to where they are today."

Erika Marquez: "I liked how one of the panelists was a former student at Gallery 37. It was cool to see that he had just finished college and was already professionaly working in the arts."

Dolly Rivera: "The panelists were open and honest about college. They each offered their different perspectives on the art world."

Andrew Vega: "The panelists were asked if they regretted anything in their lives. They responded that they didn't regret anything that they'd done, only things that they hadn't done. It was very motivating to hear that."

Field Trip to Museum of Contemporary Photography

On Friday, October 2nd, the AP photography group from AAEP took a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Photography.


Photograph by Dolly Rivera


Photograph by Dolly Rivera

Once we arrived, a member of the museum staff pulled out some original photographic prints from their collection:


Photograph by Dolly Rivera

Sannya Munir, a student from Jones College Prep, shares her thoughts:

The artist that struck out the most was Robert Mapplethorpe. We saw two of his photos, and both were entitled self-portraits. The first one was of his face, in which he was wearing make-up:


Photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe


It was from that picture that we learned about gaze. Gaze means where the person is looking at. It also refers to where the person viewing the picture first looks. The other Mapplethorpe picture was a Polaroid, of his hand on his bed. In my opinion that was the best picture we saw. It was beautifully put together, and had great form.


AP Photography class outside the MOCP at Columbia College Chicago

Scanograms

Students go through a similar creative process for scanograms as they do for photograms. In both, they begin with a blank canvas and must compose objects within that space to create their final work. This is an interesting twist in a photography course, as creating a traditional photograph is a subtractive thought process: you begin with the world, and then you crop things out with the four edges of the frame. The result is a photograph.

For scanograms, however, students work in our digital lab with flatbed scanners and with the Adobe Photoshop software. They are asked to scan a variety of objects, some 3D and some 2D, and then assemble those objects in Photoshop. The project serves two key purposes: the first is to give them some variety in the breadth portion of their AP portfolio. The other is to teach them the fundamentals of digital photography and Adobe Photoshop. They are expected to consider image size, the layers palette, and a variety of tools. The tools include but are not limited to the crop tool, the move tool, brushes, and the eraser tool. Here are some examples:


Amanda Marco


Diana Martinez


Dolly Rivera

Like the photograms in the previous post, the best scanograms consider the entire page and transform the original objects into something brand new. Some also work within a coherent theme or idea and even employ metaphor, expanding them beyond mere aesthetic concerns.

Bill Guy
Teaching Artist
AAEP