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PH 645: Experimental Contemporary Photography Reviewed

January 19th, 2011

These are photos from a class assignment.  They are double exposures shot on film.

I had David Arnold for this class.  I also had him for my History of Photography class which was a major reason I decided to take this class.  The professors really do make the classes and one of the best at AAU is David Arnold.

This class has so much different work to do that I found myself intentionally not doing art in exchange for learning about a new process.  Once I had a reasonable grasp on a particular experimental concept I would then find a way to incorporate that into my artwork.

There is a lot to learn in this class and it covers a lot of ground.  I started with cyanotype photograms and ended with extensive digital manipulations for my final project.  There is the use of film, alternative printing techniques and even some traditional darkroom work.  The other experimental class does substantially more darkroom work and while there is some overlap between the courses each course differs enough that you might want to consider taking both of them if you were really inspired by experimental work.

Without boasting, I’m a very experienced photographer and I’ve been involved in most aspects of field, so I am generally not as challenged with some assignments.  This is not true of this class.  I found myself playing a lot and making lots and lots of mistakes.  I also had a couple failures, but you have to in order to get better at the process and work.

This course is offered regularly, but it is often canceled due to lack of enrollment.   I can highly recommend this class and the instructor.  It is not easy, but why should it be?

I did get an A in it, but it wasn’t easy at all.  There is a lot of hard work in this class.

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No More Time this Term

November 2nd, 2010

I thought I would have more time this term, at least it seemed that way at the beginning of the semester.  What I didn’t plan on was my moonlighting job adding more hours and later in the evening hours which cuts into my shoot work for clients, nor did I take into account that there is a lot more prep work in creating images for my Thesis Project class tan I expected.

While I’m a big fan of getting work in early I found myself hustling to get some work posted to discussion boards by the submission date of 1-Nov.

It is crazy to do 3 classes and maintain a job, let alone a family.  I am planning on an intersession class in January 2011 to help me get through the program a bit faster.

The challenge here is to do the best possible work in the time alloted and to do consistently excellent work.

Tough but doable.

Last minute shooting doesn't always give you the best environment for the shot.

Last minute shooting doesn't always give you the best environment for the shot.

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REVIEW: PH 608: Lighting

June 15th, 2010
One of my final images in lighting.

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.

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REVIEW: PH 613: Color Theory for Photographers

June 15th, 2010
One of my final images in Color.

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.


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REVIEW: GS 625: History of Photography

June 15th, 2010

 

My take a photo inspired by Karl Blossfeldt.

My photo inspired by Modernist photographer Karl Blossfeldt.

This class kicked my ass.  I kicked it back harder.

I’ve now taken 5 courses as AAU.  Two classes last semester (Fall ’09) and three courses this semester (Spring’10).  This is my first GS class.  It was tough and challenging and fun and I learned a lot.  I learned a lot about history and re-learned and greatly improved my ability to write papers at a Master’s level.

The course is a comprehensive review of the history of photography from the early pre-photography developments that led to photography to both technological and historical influences that drove photography and photographic movements from the 1800’s to modern day. There are papers due almost every week, plus a midterm and final project and papers also due during those times as well.  If you suck at footnoting get the “Documenting Sources in MLA style: 2009 Update – A Hacker Handbooks Supplement, you should be able to find a copy online.  Also use a citation service.  I found http://www.bibme.org/ to be very useful.  Using the citations/references features in Word ’07 and greater is also highly useful.  I found myself spending almost as much time on citations as I did writing the body of the papers.

This is a required class and when you take it you should take David Arnold as your instructor.

I’m sure there are other qualified instructors at AAU. My experience in almost all the undergraduate and graduate courses, workshops and other seminars is the teacher makes the class. Online is different from in-person and this professor made me want to constantly participate and do additional non-required research and deepen my understanding of history and related photographers and subjects.  I wanted to read more, buy more books, study more artists and other photographers.  I started this course thinking “ oh well…this is required and I’ll have to read and can probably work hard enough to get an A”. I ended this course with “wow!  What great material, look at how much more I don’t know now that I’ve learned something about the history of photography, what an excellent course!

In my review of the course to the department I said something like, ‘when I teach I want to teach like this class is taught’.

As I strongly believe that instructors are the critical link between material and learning I am taking a course this Fall ’10 in PH645 Experimental Contemporary Photography being taught by David Arnold.  This is so outside my normal and fairly wide comfort zone.  I’m really looking forward to playing and learning a lot in that class this Fall!

BTW: I earned an A in this class, but it was a lot of work.  I probably spent 15-25 hours a week just on this course.

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The Demotivating Bad Class

June 15th, 2010
The lowest grade in my lighting class went to this image. :-)

The lowest grade in my lighting class went to this image. : -)

It was bound to happen.

I took a class and the experience was abysmal, dreadful, and appallingly bad.  It would be easy enough to pan a course and an instructor but that won’t do a good job explaining my perceptions during the semester.

Lighting is an elective course. It was my first elective course at AAU and I can’t recommend it.  My experience here gives it a solid D-minus.  Tamara Hubbard , Associate Director of Online photography MFA, and I had a dialog concerning issues surrounding both the course and the person assigned to teach it. Three points stood out from this discussion:

  1. I may have been over-qualified to take this course.
  2. The course is being revised.
  3. The instructor issues have been noted and I should additionally contact another Director to follow-up.

For the first point: I don’t agree. I am an experienced photographer but I only do a little studio work and I really wanted to take something that I knew I was good at but would greatly improved my skills and knowledge of the subject by taking this elective.  Other classes I’ve taken had students with a huge range of abilities from poor to excellent yet it seemed that most students that applied themselves did really good work and improved personally over the duration of the term.  The director did encourage me to contact her directly about future course suggestions which I find to be very commendable.

Second: So the course is being revised.  This means that I do not recommend the PH608: Lighting class I took in Spring 2010.  It also means I cannot make any judgments on any revised course until I see the new course material.

Third:  The MFA-Photography AAU folks do occasional online town hall meetings.  I haven’t attended one but one of my fellow students did and her takeaway was that if you have particular issues with a class then contact a director.  I didn’t want to be a whiny student so I contact a couple other students in my class, and I discovered that the issues I had were also held by some other students as well.  One of the students actually met face-to-face with one of the directors and did voice concerns about the course and instructor.  This made my follow up easier as all I had to do was validate how I and the other student felt and I could be contacted for additional information.

Being able to document and criticize (both positively and negatively) is very important when praising a course/instructor.  Being able to easily communicate that to the directors of the program speaks highly to the department’s desire to build and maintain a strong program.

This is my second Master’s.  I draw on my experience as an MBA student where I went into a class and didn’t like the instructor or the material and I would change my courses to reflect that.  As an online student I have to remind myself that I am the master of my schedule and education, therefore I need to be informed about my classes and take action when I feel there are serious problems with a class.

The worst thing about the lighting class wasn’t the waste of money, nor the waste of time – the worst aspect of that class was the incredible de-motivation felt by this student which drove me to do mediocre work in a class I was initially very excited about taking.

The best thing that came out of this class was learning that the department appears to really care about the program, the course, and the quality of the instructors.


[UPDATE 6/17/10 : I've learned that the person that taught my section is also teaching at least one Summer section - email me if you want to know the instructor (or go find another post). I have (for better or worse) suggested to a former classmate to drop that class or find another instructor  that is teaching it. It is that bad a class in my personal opinion]

[UPDATE 8/29/10 : I believe this instructor is still teaching the lighting class at AAU. My recommendation is that you do not take this class.  If you want to take it I would suggest contacting the Director and ask for a complete course listing for this class which will allow you to decide if if you REALLY want to take it.

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Posted in Courses, General Comments, PH 608: Lighting

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