Category: Lab Sessions

Required Tools: Computer, Image files
Location: At your desk
Duration: 40 minutes

Premise: 
Our final lab session will be an opportunity to discuss your work-in-progress for the final series, and to plan your shooting schedule for the next two weeks. 

Objective: 
We will split into breakout rooms to share the images we’ve shot for our final series over last week. In these rooms you will discuss your progress, your plans, your successes and your failures. You’ll answer the questions below in a new OpenLab post, accompanied by a few images.

As we enter the breakout rooms, be prepared to share your screen with your peers. Ideally you will have everything you’ve shot so far open in Lightroom. Divide the time of the session evenly, so all members of your group have sufficient opportunity to present work in progress.

Please answer the following as you display your work in progress to your peers:

• What is the concept behind your series? How has the idea taken shape or changed as you set out to begin shooting?
• What inspired you to pursue this idea? What particular photos are you thinking about (from class or from anywhere else in your life) as you’ve begun shooting? Do you have any painting, design, or other non-photographic visual references in mind for the project? Are there any particular styles that you are attempting to emulate?
• How did the first week of shooting go? Did you encounter any difficulties or setbacks as you began to shoot? Have any parts of your series proved more difficult than anticipated?
• Have you had any great successes in your first week of shooting? What has gone better than expected? Have you been surprised by the outcome of any shots? Which images are you most excited about?
• Which images is your group most excited about? Are there particular qualities of those images that you can pinpoint or define? Can anyone in the group clearly state why they’re reacting to these particular images?
• According to your group, which aspects of your pictures need to be improved or refined? Are there any technical issues that need to be resolved? Are there ways you could improve your exposure, your composition or your framing? 
• According to your group, where should you focus your energy in the coming weeks? What would members of your group like to see added, changed, removed, etc.? How will you go about doing this?
• What is your agenda for shooting in the next couple weeks? When will you be shooting next? How many more shooting sessions will be necessary to complete your project? Remembering that you’ll need time to edit your images, what are your dates for shooting?

Submission:
Summarize the discussion held around these questions. You do not need to answer every question one-by-one, but you must provide a recap, including feedback from your peers and your plans for shooting. Post that summary, along with 2-3 of your best shots, as a new OpenLab post.

Required Tools: Camera, using manual settings
Location: Inside/Outside
Duration: 45 minutes

Premise: 
This week’s lab session will explore the idea of a photographic series. We’ll all create images that are connected visually and conceptually. 

Objective: 
Together we will create a very quick series, defined by the same overly-simple parameters; we’ll make photographs of every door or window in our respective homes. 

Take pictures of every door and window in your living space with your camera set to Manual (via the Lightroom app if using your phone). Photograph from directly in front with the frame of the portal square to the frame of your camera. If there are interesting items on a windowsill, frame your shot to include those things. Don’t be afraid to move those things around to improve the shot. Go outside to photograph from the exterior…if you can, and if it will make an interesting shot. 

As you shoot, adjust your exposure to balance the interior and exterior light. Be deliberate about your decisions to emphasize interior details or the scene outside. Turn lights on or off accordingly. Most importantly: take your time composing each shot, and shoot multiple images of each door or window. 

Our theme is deceptively simple. A typological series such as this one can be fascinating if properly executed. But when done poorly…

Submission:
Shoot at least 30-40 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best with our group.

Required Tools: Camera, clamp light, tabletop, backdrop, props
Location: Inside, darkened room
Duration: 60 minutes

Premise: 
This week’s lab session will continue to examine lighting techniques for studio photography. We’ll turn our attention back toward still life arrangements, with an emphasis on composing meaningful tableaux for the camera. 

Objective: 
Work with props collected from your room or your home (or any other place you can very quickly access) to create “still life self portrait”.

Think back to our first lab and homework assignment of the semester. Consider the items that represent your personality, your family or cultural history, your ambitions, and any other aspects of who you are. Gather those items to use as props. Arrange them on a tabletop with fabric, a sheet, or a backdrop that reveals something about yourself. Pay close attention to the way that your items fill the camera’s frame. Experiment with the position of your clamp light to see how lighting can create a mood or tell a story about the objects pictured. 

Submission:
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 images.

Required Tools: Camera, model, clamp light
Location: Inside a darkened room, and inside near a window
Duration: 60 minutes

Premise: 
This week’s lab session will continue from last week’s portraiture session, and will also incorporate the lighting techniques that we examined the previous week. We’ll look at some of the ways that lighting can create a mood or emphasize particular qualities in your sitter.

Objective: 
Work with a family member, friend-in-your-pod, or use yourself as the model, to create interesting portraits using artificial light sources.

Create a studio arrangement in your home with appropriate seating, a backdrop, and enough room to work comfortably with your subject to compose portraits. Experiment with your clamplight to light the subject’s face in different ways. Try to create Rembrandt Lighting, Direct or Butterfly Lighting, Split Lighting, Broad Side and Short Side Lighting. Add a second clamp light or move close to a window for fill light if possible. Remember to pay attention to framing, shooting close-up.

Submission:
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 images.

Required Tools: Camera, model
Location: Inside near a window or outside 
Duration: 60 minutes

Premise: 
Our objective for this week’s lab session is to explore ways that available light can be used for portraiture. We’ll look at a few ways to frame and compose portraits, and to position your subject for ideal lighting.

Objective: 
Work with a family member or friend-in-your-pod to create interesting portraits using natural light sources.

Find locations outside, or inside next to a window that allows in sunlight, where you can work with your subject to compose portraits. Study the ways that the light hits your subject’s face. Position your subject, and position yourself in relation to your subject, to optimize the lighting available to you. Pay close attention to how your shot is framed and to your subjects expressions. 

Submission:
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 images.

Required Tools: Camera, clamp light, modifiers
Location: Inside, workspace with table
Duration: 60 minutes

Premise: 
The goal for this week is to explore some of the ways that artificial light can be used in a studio setting. We will use very simple tools to examine the way that the arrangement of light sources can affect the quality of light in an image.

Objective: 
Take a number of photographs using various configurations of a single light source.

You should arrange a number of objects on a tabletop or flat surface, away from any natural light. Find a stable place for your camera, with an interesting vantage point toward the arranged objects. Position your clamp light in different places to alter the appearance of the image. Try shooting with the light directly in front of, or directly above the objects. Try to set it behind or below. Use paper or fabric to diffuse the light. Use white or black flags to bounce or restrict light.

Submission:
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 images.

Required Tools: A camera, Lightroom
Location: Near a light source
Duration: 40-45 minutes

Premise:
We will continue to explore our camera’s manual functions using the Lightroom Mobile App, now turning our attention to image quality and color.

Objective:
Use the Lightroom Mobile App (or a camera with manual settings) to create photographs emphasizing color.

Compose at least one interesting image for each color on the photographic spectrum – Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow.

Compose images that juxtapose multiple colors in harmonious or contrasting combinations. Look for vibrant colors and muted ones. Find combinations from the traditional spectrum. Try to create an image containing the entire spectrum. Create a monochromatic composition. Consider the meanings of different colors in your images.

Submission:
Shoot at least 40-50 images and upload them to Flickr. Share your best 4-5 with our group. Create a new post in our OpenLab course with your best image.

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.