Week 2 Photography Assignment

Submitted by harrisol on Thu, 01/18/2007 - 5:02pm.
Visualizing Ecology
Week 2 Photography
Due:  Thursday 5pm Week 3

Technical Assignment:

One of the goals of this class is to learn how your camera handles light.  Experiment with the fill flash and exposure features of your digital camera.  Make 3 photographs of a still life in which you vary the amount of flash.  Make 3 photographs of a still life in which you vary the exposure (normal, over-exposed, under-exposed).  Print out these images (on cheap paper in black and white) and make notes about the results in your sketchbook.

Expressive Assignment:

This week’s readings on evolution and our trip to the cemetery lend themselves to several possibilities for thematic expression.   Instead of the mechanical view that a creator established a harmonious and balanced system where each species with unique characteristics and a particular nitch, the evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin sought to explain the competitive struggle he observed among the living in nature.  Darwin also had to figure out what could explain extinctions of species and entire ecological systems.   While visiting the cemetery we were confronted with evidence of the transient nature of life.  Your assignment is to make an image in watercolor that explores one of the following ideas.

1.  Create a “Vanita”.  A vanita is a still life that celebrates life’s pleasures and at the same time realizes that life is transient.  Vanitas traditionally include a timepiece, skull, overripe fruits etc.  You could create and photograph an updated version that celebrates symbols of what seems to be pleasurable in your life along with objects that symbolize your knowledge that it can’t last (e.g. symbols of time and death).  There are props available for your use in Sem II D4107.

2.  In the lecture on Images and Evolution, we saw images of evolution as a ladder with the simple organism at the bottom and the more complex humans at the top.  Make a photograph that conforms to this idea or subverts it.

3.  The world that Darwin observed involved death, conflict, competitive struggle and extinction.  Make a photograph that depicts this theme.

Make two versions of this photograph- a before Photoshop and an after Photoshop. 

You have two options for turning in these photographs. 1) Print them in the Digital Imaging Studio (8 x 10) would be nice.  2) Place copies of your 2 photographs in MASU – Programs – Visualizing Ecology.  In the workspace folder, you will find a folder labeled “ A Photography Critique Week 2.”  Place your photos here using the following naming convention:  LastNameFirstInitial_2A  and LastNameFirstInitial_2B.  For example, HarrisonL_2A.