DPH-1013 - The History of Photography and Art

This is the first is a series of postings describing courses in the Digital Photography Program first term. We are coming to the end of that term, and since it is the first year for the program, we can now let parents and family of current students and prospective students for next year find out better what the students in the program do.

We will start with DPH 1013 – History of Photography and Art (because it is the course taught by me, the blog author). Most Photography programs in the province have a history of photography course. It is important for aspiring photographers to know a bit about how the craft started, and who the early photography giants were. At Lambton, this is the first third of a course in the first term.

But photographers also rely on more than 1000 years of art history, since painting and other types of art were the means of recording the world before photography was perfected. Thus our course delves into Art History, concentrating on painting from the early middle ages to today.

But unlike a university Art History course, DPH-1013 does not expect students to memorize names of artists and dates they worked like a university course might. Instead the art is related directly to photography. Students look at a (picture of a) painting, and try to relate it to photography. Most of the assessments in the course are not tests – they are photographic projects, leading up to a final project where students submit a photo inspired by a famous work of art.

There is no final exam in this course. The goal is not to make students memorize facts, but to expose them to many of the more famous artists of the past millennium, so they can recognize famous paintings and styles of art. Our hope is that they might emulate the posing of Da Vinci or the lighting of Rembrandt or the sheer inventiveness of Dali when they start working in the field as full time professional photographers.

Our Studio

The Digital Photography Program professors are justly proud of the new studio space that Lambton College built for us when the program opened this fall. The space, which doubles as a learning studio, has chairs and tables on wheels that can be wheeled away when the space is being used for labs. A total of 6 individual studio spaces are available, partitioned by long black curtains (installed this week) can be configured from the lab space. Three of these have wall hooks to hold seamless paper backdrops, or fabric muslins.

It is the sixth space that is the most impressive. Called the Cove by current students in the program, it includes a double cyclorama on the junctions between the walls of the corner, and the walls and the floor. This is a curved piece of fiberglass that eliminates the visual line of the joint, making a seamless background for photo shoots.

And Richard Beland, coordinator of the program, has allowed first year students to make use of the space. (In many other programs, only second year students are allowed to use all the facilities). As a result, several groups of students have taken advantage of the Cove to do photo shoots, and as assignments from the various photography related classes in the program increase this will grow.

In the photo above, Jeff McCoy is the photographer, Shelbie Hensel is the model, and Megan Dunn is the assistant. The photo was taken by a fourth student, Geri Freeborn. The three students photographed spent three or four hours in the studio. There is nothing that warms the heart of a professor more than seeing students this dedicated to their chosen field.



The Digital Photography program at Lambton thanks the Facilities Department including Paul Mantle and Brent Thomas for their work in making our space happen.

Photo of the Month - September

We have been running photo of the month for some time now, and we have included some shots from the web, and some from our professors. From now on, assignments from our students that get the spotlight.
Keep in mind that these are first year students, in the first month of their course. Professor Dave Chidley selected the nominees, and came up with a tie. Two photos from his assignment to create self portraits in black and white were selected.
Congratulations to Megan Dunn, and Jeff McCoy for their works, shown below.

Megan Dunn

 Jeff McCoy
Other students can look forward to seeing their work in a future month's blog.

Fall Exposures - Save $20

Pretty much everyone reading this is going to be a Photography nut. And that means you will be in the target demographic for the Exposures Photography Show in Toronto. It is held twice a year, and I attended the last two spring shows. Now the fall dates of October 12-14 have been announced.

The show involves all the suppliers for Henry's Camera shops, with booths from Nikon, Canon, and all the others (camera, lenses, flash, equipment, etc). A cool feature of the spring shows, which I assume will also happen in October, is a sort of Garage sale, where Henry's sells off all the demos and floor models at great prices. You can't wait that long to get a camera (and there probably won't be any newer Nikons) but is is great for getting a flash, tripod, lighting kit, or any of the other toys you will be needing.

More important, there is a continuous stream of training sessions, geared towards both pro photographers and serious amateurs. You can pick up some great tips attending these.

And now for the best part. The admission is $20 at the door, but this link will take you to a place where you can get in free (see the link at the bottom of the page).

Software from Adobe

A few students have reported trouble getting their software from Adobe. You should have Lightroom and Creative Suites 6 on your computer for the first week of class (next week). At the same time you definitely don’t want to order before you get your student number. This, combined with Adobe’s occasional foolishness in accepting your student IDs, may result in problems.

The solution is to download the 30 day trial version of the software. It can take several hours to download (I downloaded 5.5, and 6 may be different). That is with a high speed connection … don’t even try with a dial up connection. If your home only has dial up, come to school and log in here, but be prepared to spend the day. If you have high speed at home, that will give you the best service.

Once you have the trial software installed, you can use it free of charge for 30 days. Be careful not to reset your computer clock during the trial though. People tried doing this in the past to make the 30 days never end … except Adobe was quickly on to them, and made it so that as soon as you try to alter the date, the trial runs out.

And, if you think that you can just run trials over and over again, that will also fail. The only way this can work is if you completely reformat your hard disk … and even that might not work with the new activation processes they use. 

However, the trial is a good way to get started. Once you get the trial you will have a month of access to the programs, allowing you time to get your serial number for either the cloud or full versions of the software. Once you do, all you have to do is enter the activation code into your log in screen, and then you will have a legitimate version of the program. There is no need to uninstall the trial and reinstall the full version.

Photo of the Month

We are honored to use this blog posting to announce a new faculty member on Lambton's Digital Photography team. David Chidley will be teaching the Design and Composition course in September.

Dave's experience is vast, both as a commercial photographer and as a photojournalist. He spent 18 years working at the Calgary Sun, where he won a National Newspaper Award (the Oscars of the newspaper business) in 1997, and in 2001 he won the Canadian Press sports picture of the year. He won a second National Newspaper Award in 2007 of a photo of newspaper magnate Conrad Black making an obscene gesture at his trial. It was News photo of the year for Canada.

Dave worked for the London Free Press for several years as a staff photographer before going into freelance work, and now works for Canadian Press, Toronto Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, and other publishers. As well, a visit to his web site will show that he does commercial, wedding  and portrait work as well.

Just prior to signing on with Lambton, Dave spent the entire week in Toronto photographing the Canadian Open golf tournament. As the photo above shows, he photographed world leaders at last year's G20 summit in Toronto. Dave was one of the official photographer at the event and shot the official welcome, group photo, events, etc., for the government.

Richard Beland, program coordinator for the Digital Photography program said that hiring a famous professional like David Childey is a feather in the cap of Lambton College, and shows that the prorgam will feature the best possible training for aspiring photographers from teachers who are known experts in the field.

Back to the Blog

Sorry for no blog postings lately ... we have been very busy getting things ready for the program in September. So far all has gone well.

The last day of July, so I will get another Photo of the Month in. This time we are going to do a repeat of the work of our co-ordinator, Richard Beland. We featured a macabre shot of Iggy Pop a few months back, and this time we will have a much more pleasing photo, of Natalie McMaster, famous Canadian fiddler.

Richard shot the cover of her 2011 album “Cape Breton Girl.” The shot above shows Richard’s favourite shot of the shoot ... although Natalie liked another pose, and chose it instead (you will see it if you Google the album title.) Richard related an interesting story about shooting these images, which were taken at the end of the day when the lake was mirror calm.

Natalie is standing on an egg crate, which is sitting on the soft sand of the lake bottom. Every few seconds it shifts, making it highly unstable. So there is a photo assistant standing in the water, just out of camera on either side of her to prop her up between shots. Natalie’s instructions to them were to the effect of: in case of disaster, let her fall into the water, so long as they keep her concert violin from getting wet.

No disaster happened, but taking chances like this resulted in a great shot.
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Another accolade for Richard: He was chosen as one of only 20 Canadian photographers exhibited for the Canadian North by Northeast Music Festival held last month. Several of Richard’s photos were chosen for the exhibit.

More free stuff!

Free is good, isn't it? I like free. It is my favorite price.

This week we want you to be aware that you can get free tickets to Exposure, a consumer photography show in Toronto at the end of this month. I went last year, and I think it cost me $10 or $15 to get in (I wasn't smart enough to get the free deal). Canon, Nikon, and a dozen or two other vendors of photographic equipment show up, carrying things as varied as photography bags and knapsacks to tripods and lighting equipment.

The main sponsor of the show is Henry's Photography the national camera chain, and they have a great feature where they sell all their demo and used equipment at trememdous price reductions. I didn't buy anything last year, so I really can't say whether it is best to get there on Friday, when selection is best, or Sunday, when they might start making better deals to clear stuff out. You are on your own with that one.

The other great feature of the show is that there is a nearly continual series of tutorial lessons given by famous and talented photographers. I sat through a great session by one of the Toronto Star photographers last year, and viewed some of the amazing shots he had created over the year.

The other treat is that Yours Truly will be attending the show. Lambton College Digital Photography has booked a booth for the show, and I will be manning it. Richard Beland, our photographic wizard will be in and out, but I should be there most of the time letting the Toronto market place know about the new program at Lambton.

Here is a link to the show web site. If it interests you, scroll down to the very bottom of the first page to get to the link to the free ticket.

I hope to see you there. It runs May 25 to 27.

Software from the Cloud

Suddenly, it all changes.

Until recently, we have been telling students looking to enroll in the Digital Photography program at Lambton College that purchase of Adobe Creative suite 6.0 would be a requirement for completion of the program. At a student cost of $799 ($2599 value) this was a significant chunk of money, especially if you are buying a camera and a computer for the program.

But now there is an option. You can purchase the "Creative Cloud" software for only $29.99 (student pricing) a month on a one year purchase. It appears that the charges will be billed monthly to a credit card, in US dollars (so the number may bounce around a bit with currency rate fluctuations). There is a month-by-month non-educational version, but I suspect that educational will require an annual commitment.

Apparently you can end a yearly commitment early, but only by paying a fee. That is never good news, so I wouldn't recommend planning on ending the second year of the program after 8 months (when term 4 ends). Besides, you will need this software if you are going to being working in the field.

So you have a decision to make. The $799 price gives you the software license eternally. But in two years, there will be a CS7 out, and it will cost about that much to upgrade. If you buy the Cloud, then you will pay $716.76 over two years, and will automatically be upgraded to the new version. You will also be out of school, and the cost will jump to $49.99 a month, so after two more months, you will have paid more for the new software. It is possible to run for several years on software that has been upgraded ... many photographers are still using CS1 to CS3 to this day. That is one reason Adobe is pushing the Cloud. I suspect (personal opinion only) that the Cloud will be the only way available for using Adobe software in two to four years.

Talk it over with your parents or significant others who might be financing you in school. The ability to spread payments out over the two years may make it appealing. Feel free to contact us at the college if you have questions. Details on the offer from Adobe are here. (There is a good FAQ page to look through).

Oh yes, Lightroom is still not included in the Cloud, so you still are going to look at another $89 for purchasing it (at student rates).

Free magazine

Here is a deal for students who have signed up for the Digital Photography program at Lambton this fall ... and those who are still considering it ... and anyone else who is into photography.

You can get a free subscription to this magazine. It is available online, but it is cool to be able to see the great shots full size in your hands on paper. I've been getting it for nearly a year now, and no negatives (like advertising spam or the like). They seem to make their money by selling ads in the magazine, and want people who love photography to get it.

To subscribe, just go to http://www.photonews.ca (not .com) and find the "subscribe for free" button in the upper right corner.

Enjoy.

Photo of the month

Photography + Imagination = Art

 

The photo of the month this month comes from the strange and inventive mind of Erik Johansson, a young Swede now living in Germany.

If you go to the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) video here at 3:41 in he shows how he does it, through imaginative use of Photoshop and two rather ordinary photos.

Another cool example of his work is Mind Your Step here. But a better view of it comes here, on his own blog.

The Lambton College Digital Photography Program will teach you the Photoshop and Photography skills needed to do this kind of work. The Imagination component is something that you will have to develop on your own (although our projects will help get you started on thinking outside the box ... or lens, in this case.)

Photo of the month

This month, our photo of the month is a special one. Not only is it a great photo, but it was taken by Richard Beland, who has been building the photographic courses in Lambton College’s Digital Photography program. He is slated to be the professor who will be teaching students in the program this fall, so we felt it was important to show you some of his work.



His take on the shot shown here:

"My shoot with the infamous stooge himself, Iggy Pop, was one of my very first professional shoots. I knew Iggy loved to perform shirtless, so I asked him to take off his shirt for some shots. I wanted the purest Iggy. Even though he first seemed a little reluctant to do so, he quickly warmed up to the idea, dropped his shirt, and effortlessly slithered into Iggy mode; when he squeezed his own nipple, though, he really outdid my original request." -Richard Beland

(A print of this photo, and several others by Richard, are available at RockPaperPhoto.com.)

Matte or glossy

This is an interesting topic, since it used to be something photographers dealt with when ordering prints. You could get them with glossy or matte paper (shiny or less-reflective). Now the question rears up with computer screens.

Most Macintosh computers now come with a glossy screen. It provides more vibrant colors and richer blacks, to many users. The biggest shortcoming with the glossy screen is that when you are in bright light, like outdoors on a sunny day, the screen becomes a mirror, with the glare making it almost impossible to see text or the image on the screen.

 But most photographers prefer a matte screen. The colors and blacks on the glossy screen can be misleading, and the matte screen provides you with a closer look to what you will get on the prints that many users consider the final output for their photography.

So our recommendation is: matte screens on your Mac Plus. But ...

You decide

Our recommendation is only that. A recommendation. You don’t have to have a matte screen. Or even a Mac Plus. You need a computer you can bring to class (sorry, an iPad won’t cut it). A PC is acceptable. We recommend the Mac because most pro photographers use them, but not all. If you want to go with a PC, this is okay. You just have to know that the course will deal with Mac key commands and instructions, and you will have to convert (it isn’t that hard). Don’t think you need to buy a new laptop just to take the program.

The same applies to the recommended cameras. You can substitute other makers. Canon is every bit as good as Nikon, and is favoured by just as many pros. We chose Nikon arbitrarily, since we want to build our collection of loaner lenses as quickly as possible, and thus can only offer one make. Nikon lenses will not fit on a Canon. But so long as you don’t need to borrow school lenses, the Canon is fine. As are many other makes. The camera must be a DSLR, and you need to be able to access a manual mode, and shoot 10 minutes of video. (And if you can’t do video, you can buy, rent or borrow a video camera for those second year courses).

If you want to know if a particular camera or computer  will be sufficient for the program, feel free to post a response to this blog below, or email either Richard or Don to get an opinion.