Assignment 3:

-Looking at Photographs

Download the PDF containing 5 spreads from Looking at Photographs from Blackboard (in READING section on left)

For each spread read the text and consider the image carefully. Select the image that most engages your attention and write a paragraph explaining why you have selected the image. Please keep in mind the photographic elements described in last week's reading (detail, frame, time, vantage point) when you are considering and evaluating the photographs. Post your paragraph to your blog.

(note: this is not the assignment I mentioned in class, you do NOT need to email me your campus contact sheets)

Answer: "Broken Window" by Brett Weston was one photograph from Looking at Photographs that most engaged my attention. The single black area of the photograph gives a sense of wonder and curiousness to its views. At first, I did not recognize it as a broken window, in fact, I didn't know what i thought it was. After reading the short article about it, I found it fascinating that the back area was not a void or negative space but the actual presence of the broken glass. The lack of detail and high contrast lighting really gives me no choice but to "see nothing as something." 

-Reading Quiz

1. Describe IN YOUR OWN WORDS what is meant by the idea that “the link (with the human eye and its usual optical radius) is not really needed” in terms of photography and film. (Ossip Brik reading)

2. What is a DNG file? Why would you convert your files to DNG when you are importing them to LR?

3. How do you enter Lights Out mode in LR? How can you use this mode?

Answers:

1.  By saying "The link (with the human eye and its usual optical radius) is not really needed," we basically are stating that even without our eyes looking though the lens, a camera and take of the cinema is so advanced and unexpected that a photograph can be taken and a scene or subject can be shown in a way that the human eye isn't used to seeing.

2. A DNG File is an Adobe Digital Negative Raw Image file.DNG files store all of your metadata and raw settings within the file itself.

3.  Press the "Shift-Tab" keys to hide side panels and then "L" twice to enter lights out mode. You can do this for presentations and to view what your image looks like blown up and as a final product.