Author Archives: Sandra Cheng

Final Exam Short List and Terms

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Almost time to celebrate! First let's finish finals week!

Almost time to celebrate! First let’s finish finals week!

Please note that the short list for the final exam is posted online under Photo Class Files/Slide Lists.  Also please be reminded that the extra credit for the class is due by Monday 12/12. These extra credit assignments are optional but must be submitted by 12/12/16 on Blackboard (look under Submit Papers).

The following are the terms for the Terminology section of the Final Exam.

Choose 3 of the following terms to discuss.  Write a few complete sentences defining the art movement and give an example.

Dada

Group f.64

Surrealism

Social Landscape

New Topographics

Pictures Generation

Homework #3: Robert Capa’s Death of a Loyalist Soldier

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Falling Soldier

Robert Capa, “Death of a Loyalist Soldier” 1936

At the age of 23, Robert Capa took a photograph that many have labeled the greatest war photograph of all time.  Taken during the Spanish Civil War, the renown of Capa’s photograph, Falling Soldier or Death of a Loyalist Soldier, reverberated around the world as it was published and republished in contemporary news magazines.  However, Capa’s photo has been shadowed by controversy, including accusations of fakery.  Read an analysis on the image by Capa’s biographer, Robert Whelan, on the authenticity of the photograph.  Do you find his arguments convincing?  Do you think Capa’s photograph is staged or not? And do you think its authenticity matters? If you wish, you can compare Capa’s photograph to another controversial image.

Richard Whelan’s discussion of Capa’s photograph

To complete this homework assignment, please submit a post.

Please post your responses by Monday, December 11th.

Upcoming Midterm

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Richard Sandler, Grand Central Terminal, 1990

Richard Sandler, Grand Central Terminal, 1990 [via Time.com]

The midterm is on Monday Oct 24th, 11:30 am in Atrium 631. Because we begin with the slide id’s please make sure you arrive on time, otherwise you will not have a chance to go back if you miss the slide IDs. Come early!

Don’t forget to review the images on the short list, as well as the vocabulary words and terms from earlier slide lists. The exam format and image files are also uploaded under documents.

The processes for Part IV—Terminology section of the midterm are:

  • daguerreotype
  • wet-plate collodion process
  • calotype
  • gum bichromate process (gum print)
  • cyanotype
  • photogenic drawing

Here is an image on the differences between Pictorialism and Straight Photography:

pictorialism-vs-straight-photographyTo review the contributions of Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo Secession to the history of photography, you can watch the first 37 minutes of a documentary on Stieglitz, entitled The Eloquent Eye: https://youtu.be/w-wtfjEo8Qc.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions. Most importantly, ARRIVE ON TIME on Monday!

Homework #2: Food and Coffee in the Civil War

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Tintype of federal soldiers enjoying coffee and hardtack. Credit: Heritage Auctions.

Tintype of federal soldiers enjoying coffee and hardtack. Credit: Heritage Auctions.

If you had a choice, which would you give up? Food? Or coffee? This week, we will look at photography of the Civil War and the difficulties of producing photographs during war, especially with the wet-plate collodion process. To help better understand the conditions that photographers worked in, this week’s homework explores what Civil War soldiers ate and their dependence on coffee. The typical food ration for a Union soldier included small amounts of meat, coffee, and hardtack (what’s hardtack? Look here to find out.) The Union side half-jokingly believed coffee helped fuel their soldiers. Meanwhile, the Confederate South suffered vast food shortages due to strong Union blockades, and resorted to unique recipes (called receipts in the 19th century) to produce coffee substitutes. Read about cooking on the battlefront and the importance of coffee (the word ‘coffee’ appears more frequently than ‘rifle’ or ‘bullet’ in Civil War diaries).

Share what you think is most fascinating about a Civil War soldier’s diet AND post an image of a food item that you cannot live without. You can link to a photo on the web, or take a picture!

Read about what Union soldiers ate at PBS.org.

Read the NYT’s article “How Coffee Fueled the Civil War”

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR POSTS BY THURSDAY OCTOBER 6, 2016 (CUNY is running a Monday schedule on a Thursday).

Photo HW #1: Photographing and Describing Texture

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tex·ture          /ˈteksCHər/       noun

  1. the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or a substance.
Olivier Richon, Spiritual Exercise, 2012. From ibidgallery.com

Olivier Richon, Spiritual Exercise, 2012. From ibidgallery.com

For this week’s homework, I ask you to think about the idea of texture in food, and how does one capture texture in a photograph. The key to communicating texture in photography is to pay careful attention to detail. For homework, you get to practice taking a photograph and uploading it to our class website. For example, look at the photograph by contemporary photographer Olivier Richon and note how it gives you a sense of the texture of an egg, an object that we’ll be thinking about a lot this semester. Take a food-related photo (something you made or saw), and upload your photo to the class site with a short 100-word passage describing the texture of your food item.

For step-by-step directions on how to submit a post and how to upload a photo, click on the “Blogging Guidelines” on the header above.

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR POSTS BY MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2016.

Art! Camera! Food! Looking at Food, Looking at Photography

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Brittany Wright, pepper gradient
Image credit: wrightkitchen.com

Welcome! If you’re here, then you’re probably enrolled in the “Art! Camera! Food!” Learning Community. We are three classes that will meet together in the Fall 2016 semester. All students are enrolled in Prof Cheng’s History of Photography ARTH1100-LC01 class and either Prof Garcelon’s Culinary I HGMT 1203 or Prof Jacus’s Baking & Pastry I HGMT 1204 class. This website is where you’ll submit much of your discussion and work for my History of Photography class. Although I’ll be grading your work, Professors Garcelon and Jacus will be looking in too, as well as commenting and participating. You will get many opportunities to think about what you produce in Culinary I and Baking & Pastry I in artistic terms, and better understand the history of the ever-changing medium of photography.

I look forward to meeting you in class. Look around, and check back frequently as I develop our class site, and please do not hesitate to contact me.