[Insert good photo here once I get the stuff]
Wow! There is a lot to buy for this course. I got most of my stuff from Freestyle and from Jerry’s Artarama albeit some of the items were difficult to find on the Jerry’s website.
I’ll call the InkAid folks tomorrow and order the starter kit that is listed below.
Per the course site:
Required Items
| Item # | Item | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| 36857 | Strathmore Watercolor Pad 130lb 11×15 | 1 |
| 32939 | Turpenoid – 4oz Bottle | 1 |
| 83144 | Utrecht Gaffers Tape 2in x 30yds – Black | 1 |
| 41898 | Foam Brush 4in | 1 |
| 41895 | Foam Brush 2in | 1 |
| 35148 | X-Acto Heavy Duty Retractable Utility Knife | 1 |
| 52126 | Van Gogh Oil Pastels Set of 12 | 1 |
| 27304 | Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Painting Set | 1 |
| 81085 | Dahle Comfort Grip 8″ Scissors | 1 |
Digital Print Supplies
| Item # | Item | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| InkAid sampler | 1 |
| Item # | Item | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| Printing Paper | 1 |
Additional Camera Supplies
| Item # | Item | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| T-mount and/or extra body caps for DSLR and/or 35mm SLR | 1 |
| Item # | Item | Qty |
|---|---|---|
Course Learning OutcomesAs a result of successfully completing this course, students… Will be able to:
Will be familiar with:
Throttled Back?August 21st, 2010
Every semester I write about keeping pace and even working ahead, when possible. It seems that AAU is happy to let you work ahead but thay are only going to let me see into the future by one module (week). From the AAU site:
BTW: A module typically represents a week’s worth of online class material. It doesn’t contain all the material as there are often assignments using physical books, and additional online media. (Maybe I should write a module post?) Modules are a great way of seeing what is really involved later in the course. My experience at AAU tells me that some syllabi are weak or incomplete representations of what is really involved in an entire course. Course outlines are slightly better yet they can also be vague. The best instructors provide a detailed outline of deliverables at the start of the course. I hope that AAU is toughening up their standards on outlines and syllabi so fundamental information about course work is well-defined across all classes. I wonder why this is? Are students downloading the material from all the modules during the first week or so of classes then dropping classes? This new policy makes it more difficult to download content for future personal review and use. As long as instructors tell me what they expect for mid-terms, projects, and finals I don’t see a problem. Due to work assignments (Read: Austin City Limits Festival) I will have to ask my instructors for homework assignments that are more than a week out, a couple of times this semester. Just more work for the student and instructor I suppose. UPDATE: (8/21/2010): I’ve sent a request to the helpdesk at AAU for a comment on this post. More later… UPDATE: (09/01/2010) I’ve sent another request to the helpdesk at AAU as I have not received a reply yet. More later… REVIEW: PH 608: LightingJune 15th, 2010 One of my final images in lighting. This class was a disappointment. I have some more about that in another post here. The review here isn’t going to discuss the person that was supposed to teach this course. I’m going to stick to the curriculum. I’ve also been told this class is being revised so I can only speak to the course I took in Spring ’10. This course seems to take an in-person studio class and turns it online without much consideration to the differences between on-site and online courses. The videos are very boring and do a barely adequate job in demonstrating most of the concepts that want to be taught. The videos and the bulk of the course material and the course assignments are targeted towards studio photographers and the generally larger and more expensive lights and light modifying tools that studio photographers use. The course requires studio strobes, light modifiers, gels, and an incident light meter. However, the bulk of the assignments can be done with small hotshoe strobes. The exception here would be a large softbox but there are rigs that can use 2,3 or more hotshoe flashes to light a large softbox. True, you lose the modeling light capabilities but the use of LCD screens on DSLRs and computer to camera tethered solutions make more sense and would be very helpful in teaching the building up of lighting for a scene. The incident light meter is fine and useful, yet most students are using DSLRs and learning how to read histograms for high and low-key lighting and how to use the in-camera reflective meter in difficult lighting situations seems more useful than the 250 bucks spent on an infrequently used Sekonic. The basics of lighting apply from small desktop sets to large staged productions. Only a fraction of photographers become F/T studio-only photographers and this course would greatly benefit from covering a much wider gamut of shooting situations. I can and did get more value out of a $45 Scott Kelby book/DVD on lighting and I could see teaching a class using that as a course supplement. I also recommend Joe McNally’s “Hot Shoe Diaries” to those with a bit of lighting experience. If you are interested in lighting I can also suggest the free courses on Strobist. Again, the online version of this course as I took it in Spring ’10 is not recommended…Strongly not recommended. REVIEW: PH 613: Color Theory for PhotographersJune 15th, 2010 One of my final images in Color. This course is required as part of the MFA-Photography degree …at least it was this semester! I have heard from a program director that this course is undergoing revision so I can only discuss my experience in the Spring ‘10 section I took with professor Marc Ullom. I learned a LOT in this class. I have never had any formal training in color and color theory and I now know why someone with red hair looks good in green from a technical perspective. I also found that I was creating images that I would have never attempted if I wasn’t studying color. I didn’t find this class hard, rather I seemed to be in a discovery mode in this class and every week was another mini-adventure in color and photography. There are some difficult aspects. If you had PH612: the Nature of Photography then you touched on plasticity. In this course you will get some more face time with this difficult concept. The modules in this class spend a lot of time discussing the exceptional work done by Johannes Itten on color theory. After a few weeks into the semester I decided that instead of reading about what Itten wrote about I should be reading what Itten wrote and I bought Itten’s famous book “The Art of Color” so I could actually read directly from the master. I was not disappointed. If this is not yet a required book in future semesters you should get a copy of this book to supplement your reading. It is a splendid book and a wonder to read, review, and reread. It should be in every artists’ collection. Sure, it is expensive but it is a fraction of the cost of tuition and you will likely find yourself going back and reading parts of this book over many years to come. The other thing I found useful was a color wheel. These are pretty cheap and found at most art stores and online. I also found that using some online color wheels to be very useful in determining if images would well-fit with the weekly assignment. http://colorschemedesigner.com/ http://ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html Marc Ullom is a great professor. I had him last semester for PH 601: Photography-Concept and really enjoyed the feedback and encouragement I saw him give to me and other students. He seemed even more attentive this semester and I greatly enjoyed his encouragement to play and experiment. I worked to create some very abstract images for this class. This was intended to push myself to do something completely new and it forced my attention on color and the relationships of color without having to bother with neither literal subjects nor narrative. This was so interesting that I’m considering continuing with this for my thesis. © 2010 David Weaver, All Rights Reserved · Proudly powered by WordPress & Green Park 2 by Cordobo.
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WORK AHEAD: A friendly reminder
September 1st, 2010This post is still valid! : – )
http://weaver.net/MFA/2010/01/working-ahead/
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