Author: Prof. Matthew C. Lange (Page 2 of 2)

Required Tools: A camera, Lightroom
Location: Near a light source
Duration: 20-25 minutes

Premise: 
We now want to begin taking control of our camera settings by switching to manual functions. Using the Lightroom Mobile App, we will explore a couple of the ways that we can manage our exposure settings.

Objective: 
Take a series of photographs in which you manipulate the image by using manual settings in Lightroom’s Professional shooting mode. 

Compose a shot with very bright areas and very dark areas. Tap your screen in different places to alter the exposure, and shoot all of the different possible exposures. 

Use Shutter Speed settings (‘Sec’) to record blurred motion or frozen motion. If a family member or pet is nearby snap pictures with fast and slow shutter speeds as they move in front of the camera. If you are on your own try to move the camera to create interesting scenes of the world in motion.

Submission:
You should shoot at least 20-30 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best 2 or 3 with our Group. Create a new post in our OpenLab course with your best image.

Required Tools: A camera
Location: Outside of your home
Duration: 35-40 minutes

Premise: 

The frame begins as a tool for making selections. It can become a tool for distorting, warping, magnifying, metamorphosing, twisting or turning. It can become a tool for abstracting. It can transform everyday objects into mysterious entities. 

Objective: 
Photograph abstractions from everyday life. Position yourself and your camera in such a way that the world appears new and different. 

Photograph from the bird’s eye view and the worm’s eye view. Come as close to objects as your lens will allow. Experiment with different focal lengths and zoom settings if your camera contains these possibilities. Turn your lens to invert forms or to defy gravity. Make straight lines diagonal. Find the points at which the world converges or diverges.

Submission:
You should shoot at least 20-30 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best 3-4 with our group. Create a new post in our OpenLab course with your best image.

Required Tools: A camera
Location: Outside of your home
Duration: 35-40 minutes

Premise: 
Photographic composition reduces the world to a series of shapes organized on a two-dimensional picture plane. 

To continue seeing photographically we will look at shapes in the world, and create similar forms in our cameras. 

Objective: 
Photograph shapes. Document existing forms. Use the camera to create new forms from the lines and structures around you. 

Transform rectangular forms into triangular ones and vice versa. Consider the placement of squares and rectangles in relation to the lines of your frame. Make ovular shapes from circles and circles from ovals. Intersect these round forms with the edges or the corners of your frame. Note the ways in which space is collapsed within the frame.

Submission:
You should shoot at least 20-30 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best 3-4 with our group. Create a new post in our OpenLab course with your best image.

Required Tools: A camera
Location: The room or rooms that you’re currently occupying.
Duration: ~25 minutes

Premise: 
The camera is first and foremost a vessel for capturing light.

Every camera is an empty chamber, designed to allow minute quantities of light to enter. The size and complexity of any given camera is only a matter of controlling the light that will enter, and the means by which that light will be recorded. 

To understand how the camera will collect that light, we should understand the nature of the light itself. We may begin to do this by observing the light that passes into a larger chamber.

Objective: 
Photograph the light in your home, and nothing but the light in your home. Notice where sunlight enters a room. Follow its path to find where it leads and the surfaces off of which it bounces. Record this light with your camera. Examine the sources that produce artificial light. Study the quality of these artificial lights. Attempt to capture them in an interesting or beautiful way. Remove all distracting or unnecessary elements from your frame. Keep only shadows to contrast the light of your picture. 

Submission:
You should shoot at least 20-30 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best 3-4 with our group. Create a new post in our OpenLab course with your best image.

Required equipment: a camera
Location: The room that you’re currently occupying.
Duration: ~20 minutes

Premise: 
The camera can be a powerful tool for recording the people, places, and things that matter to us most. For this brief exercise, we will document a few of these things. 

Objective: 
Find the items in your room that are the most important or valuable to you; or the things that you cannot live without. Place them or hold them in an interesting light. Arrange them into an interesting composition. Take several pictures of each item, approaching it from different angles. 

Submission:
Please shoot a minimum of 15-20 images. These images will be the first items that we upload to Flickr and to our OpenLab site. Once we create our Flickr accounts, we will upload these images to our Camera Rolls/Photostreams. We will then select 2-3 images to share in a new Post on OpenLab.