Residency – Minneapolis Community and Technical College – John Johnston – 4hrs
This week in Lab the students made a contact sheet of their roll of film. A contact sheet is basically a print of all of your negatives as positives. This way we can look at the images to how well they were exposed and to decide which photos the students will print next week. Most students had shot a second roll of film and have been experimenting with shutter speed and aperture and how it affects the final image. Working with photo 1 students is always a lot of fun for me because there’s always a bit of forensic work that goes into figuring out where students are going wrong in the printing process.
Today the students were given their first assignment in lecture. Now that everyone seems to be getting a hold of how the camera functions, they can actually go out and create some work. The first assignment is one I’ve never heard of before but I think is very interesting. For the most part, students all have 25-30 negatives to a roll of film. So, this project is about using all 25 negatives to create one overall image. Whatever composition you want to make; you have to grid it out into 25 different negatives. So if I were to photograph the front of MCAD, I would mentally chart it out and photograph it 25 times in a grid formation. So typically you have to be pretty close to the subject and consistent where you line up the edges of the building. I think this is a great way to think about perspective and to get students to work slowly and carefully. It will be very interesting to see how many students successfully create the illusion of 1 image!