3rd Session 24.02.12

This weeks session was held at High Elms, home of NHS Start.
The students begun the session by telling us about their homework task from the week before, bringing in portraits or poses they liked and saying why.
They were then split into 3 groups for 3 diffrent workshops that were rotated around.

One of the groups involving taking photographs using natural light, and working with reflectors, and also about positioning a subject to take a photo.
The other group were introducted to using 'hard light' for taking photos, how to take a light reading, changing the exposure on a camera in responce to the light reading, and positioning the subject in the light. They were also encouraged to take photos from different positions/angles, and also to take photos with larger or smaller exposure times on the camera to see how the photos differ if you didnt take a light reading. I took this session. I felt like the students really responded well to this exercise, and found comfortable taking about the different aspects of the lights and cameras with them.
The other group did an exercise with Howard, in which he brought in a 'feely box.' Basically a number of different objects were placed in a box and the students had to feel the objects without knowing what it was, and a photograph of their reaction was taken. A large number of students seemed to really enjoy this exercise, and there was alot of very positive feedback about the boxes.

We need to get permission from the students to post photos, but hopefully some images from this weeks session will be put on this blog.

Here are some images of facial emotion recognision:

This weeks homework task:

Second Session 17.02.12

This session also took place in the Whitworth art gallery. This week was about looking at the paintings with a particular focus on facial expression from the 'Dark Matters' collection.

(Session Outline)

We did an exercise with the students comprising of a questionairre about a particular given painting in the exhibition. I was paired with one of the students to do this exercise, I learnt alot from talking with him about the particular etching we were loking at! We looked at 'St Jerome in His Study' by Alberecht Durer (below)



The sheets below are the questions the students were given, and then my personal answers from looking at this etching.

As the main focus of this course is photography, the students were given a glossary of photographic words that will be used and looked at in future sessions. This is show below:



After this, it was then my turn to hold a short exercise with the group, I was really looking forward to doing this as I thought some may benefit from doing it. I made concertina books as a medium to use for this exercise.

The rules to the 'Closed Eye Drawings' are below:

Before the session, we agreed on words that could be drawn that depict certain personality strengths/traits. The students were then asked to draw these traits with their eyes closed. After the drawing, I asked some questions (see on the image above) about their drawings and listened to their responce. I felt like some of the group engaged with this more than others, but I got some really lovely feedback off some of the group which made me feel happy that I had done it with them. The closed eye drawings are something I use in my own work to free up the mind and become abit more expressive rather than having to take yourself too seriously or minding what you are actually creating.

I was really glad to see the varity of different drawings created within such a small group, and they are really interesting to look at how people interpret words and images differently.

Some examples of the drawings created are shown below :



First Session 09.02.12

Today was the first session at the Whitworth gallery with the students from 'Start' and 'Out in the City.' We did a short ice-breaker exercise where we learnt each others names, and had a talk from the gallery curator behind-the-scenes looking at some prints from the likes of Rembrandt on face expression, background and body language.
The students were then placed in pairs and asked to take photographs of each other in the same pose but on different backgrounds around the gallery to see how background effects the image they were taking.
There was  a mindfulness exercise to close the session, and then students were given homework to complete for the next session, and were asked to fill in a diary about their experience of the first session.
(These documents will be scanned at a later date)

I thought that this was a very successful first session for everyone involved. Everyone seemed to get along with others and most expressed how well they enjoyed the session at the end of the day. The talk from the curator was very interesting and may prove useful when students begin to think about their own self portrait. I think they all enjoyed using the cameras to do abit of work, and will enjoy it even more when they are shown more about photography as the course progresses.
Overall I think a very beneficial first session for all, I felt comfortable within the group, and feel this confidence will only grow as the weeks progress.

Lighting

These are the notes taken from a session involving working with the cameras and lighting studio so were capable of taking portraits when the tome comes for the students to want to do their own. I found this is going to just be one of those things that once youve done afew times it will become second nature! Will still familiarise myself each week with the cameras to make sure I stay on top of remembering the key aspects of the cameras.

Canon 45OD

Canon 40D

Canon G9

The 3 types of camera we have access to at the studios that we have been working with

Personal Aims

These are some notes of my personal aims for this course, I shal work on these each week and then get feedback after all sessions have been completed on how well I have done.

Session Plans

Each week, I shall be attending START in the mornings to create session plans for the week ahead, these are examples of what the first 2 are going to look like, and a blank document to which we are going to work to.

Body Language Investigation into Dark Matters Exhibition at the Whitworth

Exploring portraits we can look at when investigating body language at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

Personal Strengths investigation for 'Unspoken'

'Unspoken' Advertising Letter