Christmas Break

Alright guys and gals. I know you've all been greatly anticipating our homework assignment for break but alas, it will probably let you down. More than anything, I want you guys to enjoy every moment of the holiday season and be appreciative of all the many blessings you each have!

With that said, here's what I'd like to see.

1. Upload 25 of your best photographs throughout the course of your break. The images should document your experience(s) and help give the rest of the class and myself a good visual portrayal of what kept you busy when we get back.

2. Read through the two previous articles posted on our blog and write a separate blog post of 2-3 paragraphs in response to each article on your blog. Your paragraphs should be 4-6 sentences, so all in all you'll be writing 2 DIFFERENT posts (3 including the 25 images) with a total of 8-12 paragraphs.

As always let me know if you have any questions and have a terrifically fantastic Christmas and New Years!

Good articles to read!

This is good little article to check out for the beginning photographer. When you get a couple minutes read through it here!

And this one here for compositional tips. Note one of the last tips in the article. Where have you heard that before?!

Fun Work | Week 10

Bonjour class,

This is gonna be a good week. Guess what's coming up?! CHRISTMAS! AHHHH! My favorite time of the year. Do you like Christmas? Do you have any special traditions? Do you hate Christmas? Why? Oh boy, we could spend hours and hours talking about Christmas.. But alas we have work to do.

Here's what's on the agenda for next week.

1. Take your camera outside for at least 30-60 minutes and snap away. Take portraits, close-ups, textures/backgrounds (ones you could use for compositing images), landscapes, stars, animals, architecture. In essence, whatever you'd like. I just want you to get out and shoot!

2. Make any image adjustments on the photos you like the best and upload to your blog. You should be uploading your best 7-14 best photographs. Keep in mind though that the images you upload should only showcase your best work.

3. Go and comment on each photograph of your classmates! Be specific. Find a couple things you especially like and something you think could be improved. I know I've hounded this in, but I'll say it again. Don't say, "I really like this..." or "This is really cool...", as standalone sentences. Why do you like it? What kind of emotion did they capture? What do you think of the composition? If it's beautiful, how is it gorgeous? Articulate, articulate, articulate.

And one more thing, PLEASE pay attention to your grammar. I think you guys know how to spell and use periods and commas by this point.

4. Have fun!

Fun Work | Post-Gluttony

Independent Project:

1. Create a 2-3 hour long project

2. Needs to pertain to photography, design, and art.

3. Cannot be doing your own project.

What is the project?

What are project goals / objectives

What kind of process is involved to complete project?

4. Present project to class NEXT WEEK!

iPhoto | Contact Sheet

If you're not able to make a contact sheet in Pixelmator, here is a tutorial for how you can do it in iPhoto.

http://iphoto.maccreate.com/2011/06/20/how-to-print-a-contact-sheet-in-iphoto11/

Fun Work | Thanksgiving

You guys have 12 whole days off! Lucky you. Fortunately for you I'm giving you just a little assignment to tide you over until we meet next:

1. Choose inanimate objects to shoot (2)

2. What is a contact sheet? Can you make it in Pixelmator?

3. Photograph chosen objects..... 75 TIMES!

4. Every photograph should be different (choose top 50 for EACH object).

5. Make 2 contact sheets w/ top 50 images.

6. On your blog in 2-3 paragraphs (4-6 sentences) white about this project. What did you like? What did you hate? Was it hard? How? What does it tell you about viewing the same object from a different perspective? How did you view the object at the end of shooting differently than when you began?

7. Present contact sheets/images to class next time we meet.

Again, if you have any questions or need to run anything by me please don't hesitate to shoot me an email or call.

jonny@verylongmedia.com

503.522.1961

this is not a joke I have to save my voice for my show.

so I can't talk

If you want to be cruel to me then You will MAKE me talk but I have to do

I have tal

Week 7 | Fun Work

Here's what's on the agenda for next week:

1. Utilizing pencil, ink, acryllic, watercoulor, dirt, grass, or any other tools you'd like -- make me 3 different self portraits. Not the same one repeated, 3 different ones. Think about angles and viewpoints from which a viewer will be looking at your pictures. *

2. If you have access to a scanner, scan your images into the computer and upload to your blog. I would prefer you do it this way but if you must, take a quality picture of each picture and upload the pictures.

*This goes beyond drawing stick figures. I'm not the greatest at all with this type of assignment, but I consciously make time to do projects like this because they greatly enhance our abilities as artists. Being able to physically make an image drastically helps when it comes to producing images through photography or design.

You should spend at bare minimum 1.5-2 hours on this assignment. Please use a different format for each image (i.e. paint, ink, pencil). Conceptualize beforehand how you want to create your images. DO NOT just jump right into it, sketch it out and brainstorm first.

Week 6 | Fun Work

I hope you had a good time this last week and learned at least a few valuable things. I'll continually ask you to step outside of your comfort zones when it comes to Photography. So much about shooting photographs is about meeting and interacting with people. Even landscape and fine art photographers have to possess the ability to talk with people they don't know in order to find the best scenes.

We're taking a break from the quizzes for a week but in return I'll be asking you to write a one page long essay on the photographer that I assign you. Since I mentioned landscape photography, that's the genre we will cover. The pairings are as follows:

Grant - Joe Cornish

Tienna - Marc Adamus

Caeden - Patrick Endres

Kalin - Gordon Wiltsie

Ellie - Ian Cameron

JJ - Charles Cramer

Use your researching skills and Mr. Google to look at the landscape work of the assigned photographer.

Write a one page (5-7 paragraph) essay that you'll post to your blog.

Choose ten of your favourite photographs (of your particular photographer) and save to a new folder on your Desktop. On your blog, write a short summary about the photographer - what sort of locations do they shoot in? Describe their style. Talk about the subjects they choose, the colours they choose to highlight, and the way they frame their images.

On the same post, upload each of those ten images to your blog and write a short description of what you like about each image.

As always, let me know if you have any questions what so ever!

Grant | Professional Model

One of our own is officially a model. Look for his face on billboards. Check him out here and here.

Nice job, sir Grant.

Week 5 | Fun Work

Hola!

I hope you're continuing to find inspiration and joy in some of the projects you are completing for this class. I really appreciate how hard it appears all of you are working in pushing yourselves. Please keep it up! As always, don't take the easy way out, always look for different perspectives and angles, whether it's with photography or design. Here's what I want from you for next week.

1. Make sure you know what each of the following terms are, there's a very good chance we'll be having a short written quiz:

Aperture

Ambient light

Aperture Priority

Candid Pictures

Composition

Cropping

Depth of Field

ISO

Shutter Speed

Shutter Priority

2. Take portraits 3 different people you don't know. Preferably complete strangers. If this isn't out of your comfort zone, terrific. If it is, now is the time to step outside of it! What do you want others to know about this person when they look at your portrait? How do you convey the emotion that you see behind the camera to viewers looking at the image? I really want each of you focusing on both creativity as well as the technical aspects. Is the image in focus? That would be the major technical aspect to consider. None of your final images should be blurry or out of focus.

3. Choose the single best portrait you took for each of these strangers and make basic image adjustments. Post these finished images to your blogs. If you really like any of the images you took, I'll help you make final adjustments and we can get them printed.

4. Choose one of the Pixelmator tutorials featured here and complete it. Upload your final piece to your blog and give a brief description of how you completed it.

Week 4 | Fun Work

Hello gals and guys. Sorry I'm getting you your assignment today (friday). Let me know if you have any questions at all!

Five Images of Fall

This week you are going to head outside and take some photographs. You are more than welcome and encouraged to take as many pictures as you possibly want. In fact, you should probably be taking anywhere in the 50-200 range. Most professional photographers live by this concept in some form or another: For every 250-300 images they shoot, they will only keep and use 3-5 of them. In other words, people want to see your BEST work, not ALL of your work. So keeping this in mind, go outside and shoot for a good 45-60 min. Your theme/focus for your shoot is accentuating the fall season. How can you effectively capture and showcase the changing season of fall in a specific, interesting, and unique way? Here's the shots I'd like for you to get:

1. One must be a closeup (CU)

2. One must be a medium shot (MS)

3. One must be a longshot (LS)

4. The remaining two are your choice.

5. Particular things to pay attention to: textures, color, lines, and reflections.

6. No portraits of people.

After you've taken your pictures here is what I want from you next.

1. Upload your images onto your computer and into a specific folder titled Week 4 - Fall.

2. Go through the photographs you shot.

3. Decide which five (no more, no less) you are going to keep.

4. Name those five, using the following naming convention: the file name of each photograph you're keeping should be YouLastName + the subject + the type of shot.

FOR EXAMPLE: if one of my images was a closeup of a pumpkin, I would name it

Long - pumpkin CU.jpg

5. Open each of those images in Pixelmator. Is it in focus? Does it have enough light? What would you do different next time? Remember to duplicate your master layer when you first open it up. You should never be working on the master layer, remember?

Go through the Basic Image Correction process. This would be things like cropping or rotating the image, modifying tonal values using adjustment layers (look on google or youtube for tutorials or find it in Pixelmator). Experiment! Keywords for you as you try to figure out what you might want to change. Highlights, mid tones, blacks, color balance, etc.

7. Make a folder on your desktop entitled Computer Class - Portfolio, and save each of your images using the above name to this folder. Make sure you save both a raw pixelmator file as well as a .jpeg file.

8. Upload each of your jpeg images to your blog with a 2-4 sentence summary for each image of your process from start to finish (shooting to editing), and what features you particularly like about each one.

Have a terrific time and let me know if you need help or want to let me know how mean you think I am. This should be FUN!

Project Help!

Here's a question Grant emailed me here earlier today with, I thought I'd share it and my response for your benefit!

Do you think you could help me out a little bit with this? Right now what I have so far is the silhouette of Caeden's face and I am working on trying to blend to make the skin tone look realisticish. I have tried to find help on the internet and I have had no luck. Do you think you could maybe give me some help by pushing me in the right direction of what to do next or maybe give me some keywords to look up on my good friend "Google".

Thanks a lot, any help is appreciated.

Sure thing, pal. Have you ever heard of this radical idea called..... Tracing? My recommendation would be to utilize the power of layers. What happens when you stack a transparent sheet over an image? You can see through it, right?! Use this same theory in Pixelmator and make sure you are drawing on the TRANSPARENT layer. I'll attach a screenshot to give you a visual idea of what I'm saying. In other words, Don't take your ability to trace for granted, it's not cheating. Just working smarter, not harder. Thanks for asking questions.

Jonny

Week 3 | Fun Work

Hello guys and gals. We're gonna have a good week. This is going to be a fun and hopefully challenging week for us. Our homework for the week will be based off of what we do in class today.

1. Email me (jonny@verylongmedia.com) so I have your email address.

2. Utilizing the image I've provided you with, re-create a replicate illustrated image in Pixelmator.

3. The following are what your document dimensions should be: 8.5 x 11 inches. 240 dpi.

I'm really making you sink or swim here. This most likely isn't a project that you can put off until Tuesday night and do it effectively. I need you to use at least 10 0f the different tools in the toolbar that you described this last week to complete your project.

Next week you will each have 10 minutes to present your art piece to the class. Prepare for this please. I want you to be able to articulate and describe your process and how you completed each step. I will provide a brief list of keywords of tools and things that I would strongly recommend you learn and use during this project to complete it. If you don't know the answer to something or aren't sure how to complete a particular step, use your resources. Your absolute best resource while you are at home is Mr. Google. I promise if you have a question pertaining to how to complete something in Pixelmator that it's most likely been asked and answered online. Use this!

a. Blend modes (multiply, overlay, lighten, etc.)

b. Lasso tool

c. Paint bucket

d. Erase tool

e. Crop tool

f. Hand tool

g. Zoom tool

Timelapse | Inspiration

My friends. Watch here to become inspired.

Fun Work | Week 2

As visual artists we have the unique privilege of viewing people, places, objects, shapes, animals, and such in unordinary ways. What others view as mundane, we might find beautiful and inspiring. We find the simplistic with the "complex" and discover the complexity of the "simple." In other words we look at things differently, which is awesome!

While we will have many goals as we tred along, my overall wish is that you will discover the amazingness of your own eye. Every individual is blessed with the ability to view things differently than anyone else can. Every individual see's things from a different perspective. More powerful than the most expensive technology you can buy, whether it's camera's, computers, software, etc., is your own eye.

Your assignment for next wednesday, Oct. 12 is as follows:

1. Make sure you are following the class blog here

2. Make sure you've personalized your blog as you wish.

3. On your blog, in 2-4 paragraphs, answer the following questions:

How do you view the world around you? What inspires you? Who inspires you? How do you see your personality coming through your photography? What are your hobbies? What genre of photography interests you the most and why (wedding, portraiture, landscape, wildlife, children, sports, etc.)?

4. Utilizing any type of camera you'd like, whether it's a phone camera, point and shoot, or DSLR, find and take 7 images that you believe will give insight into your personality and post them to your blog.

5. Watch all four of these video tutorials for an introduction to Pixelmator.

6. On your blog, please write out each of the tools located alongside the pixelmator toolbar accompanied by a brief description of what each tool does.

As always, If you have any questions during the week please don't hesitate to shoot me an email at jonny@verylongmedia.com

NEW SCHOOL YEAR!

Hello my friends. I know several of you and am extremely excited to have the opportunity to work with you. I think we have a couple new faces as well, which is tremendous! I've bailed on you for the first couple weeks of class as I've been finishing up a series of photo shoots throughout the Pacific Northwest. I'm so sorry for that. I hope in the meantime you've had a great time and pushed yourselves like only Heartlife students do.

We are going to have a great time here. Art, photography, design, creativity, etc is about turning the mundane into something beautiful. My goal for you this year is that you'll discover your own creative voices. Each of you are creative and artistic, no matter what you believe or what anyone else has ever told you. Like any other skill you learn, you must practice, practice, practice in order to improve and find out just good you are in this constantly moving world. I'm currently not a great hand artist/painter, stick figures are my specialty. I'm confident, however, that if I devote the time and have the desire to become better I can become a tremendous artist/painter.

The one request I have from you is that you always try before settling. If you are out taking photographs, and you find a beautiful subject in a gorgeous environment, vow to yourself that you'll take an extra two minutes walking around and viewing the scene from different angles before shooting. How is the subject portrayed differently by looking at it from different heights, angles, etc. Why will someone want to look at your piece over someone else who has shot the identical subject and scene?

Basically what I'm getting at is to KEEP AN OPEN MIND! Always be willing to adjust your views and opinions and learn from those around you. Your greatest resources are those sitting next to you in this room and myself. Ask questions, and when you run out of questions think of more and ask those.

Here's what I want for next week:

1. If you don't currently have a blog, create one here: Blogger

2. On that blog, in a new post write for me a 3-4 paragraph statement on what your creative interests are. Do you like birds, cars, people, flowers, textures, specific colors, backgrounds, sky's, beaches? There are millions of things to choose from. Tell me what you like and dislike. It's important to be able to articulate both. What things make you happy? What things make you sad/mad?

3. In that same post (not including the 3-4 paragraphs!), write for me what you hope to learn throughout this year. Are your interests more in Design? Photography? Light? Write out a list of three specific things you would like to focus on as projects. This is your opportunity to have input in our lesson planning for the year! BE SPECIFIC! Do you want to learn how to take portraits of people? Composite images? Do timelapse sequences? Landscapes? Cityscapes? Nightlife? Again, many many options out there for you to choose from.

Email me at jonny@verylongmedia.com if you have any questions what so ever! We're going to have a good time!

Editorial profile piece:

Hey Gang,

I hope you all enjoyed your mellow week of limited homework. Did any of you take any pictures for no other reason than to just take them? Please post to your blog if yes.

We spent last week taking creative portraits of each other. You were in pairs trying to capture anything and everything about your partner in images. We are going to use those images in our assignment for this week.

Here's what I'd like to see from you:

1. Upload the images you shot to your computer.

2. Once uploaded take 60 seconds to cycle through your images and immediately delete the pictures that you know you don't want to use.

3. Once you have your keeper shots, go through and narrow it down and edit your 6 best shots.

4. Now that you have 6 edited images, choose your best 3.

5. Utilizing these images and the information you gathered in class about your partner, write a one page profile piece on your partner. If you need help with learning more about what a profile piece is, there's this new thing that you've probably never heard of called Google where you can probably get more help.

6. Once you've finished your paper, upload your three images along with the text to your blog.

7. Please title your blog post Profile Assignment.

As always, if you have any questions or need any help at all please don't hesitate to email or call!

Action/Motion Assignment

My friends,

It's been a long week. Tiring and eventful, but good. We spent Wednesday talking and learning how to capture motion and action. I haven't really looked through any of the images you guys took yet because I want to give you an opportunity to edit your favorite images so we can look at them at their very best. Here's what I'd like to see:

1. I sent you a .Zip folder with all the images shot on Wed. Please download the folder.

2. Choose your 5 favorite images that you shot to edit.

3. In pixelmator I want you to do basic image edits/adjustments on four of your images. This could include things like, color correcting, exposure, contrast, levels, etc.

4. With your last image I want you to get creative and create a composited (multiple images stacked on top of each other using blend modes, opacity changes, etc.) piece. I'm leaving this wide open for interpretation so have fun and start to get comfortable with the blend modes in Pixelmator. This is where you would probably start bringing in some of those images in your folders that you started combining several weeks ago.

5. Upload your 5 images to your blog.

6. Do a short write-up on what you learned about blending modes and how you think you might be able to use them in the future. What type of projects would you like to do utilizing blend modes?

Travel Assignment:

You are all going to be having adventures here in the next few weeks. Here's what I'd like to have from you as you prepare:

LS - Long shot

MS - Medium shot

CU - Close up

MCU - Medium close up

ECU - Extreme close up

1. Shot List:

List at least 20 ideas for specific shots you can shoot in the places that you are traveling. For example. If I'm shooting a village in Ruwanda I might say "LS Village hut." Post to blog.

2. Places:

Make a list of the places you'll be traveling and post to blog.

3. People:

Make a shot list for each of the people you'll be traveling with

More to come...

Travel Photography Resources

1. Link.

2. Link.

3. Link.

4. Link.

5. Link.

6. Link.

Timelapse 002

Timelapse 001

Light Painting | Part II

More light painting from you guys!

Week 9:

As the Swedes would say, "Halla class!" (hello class).

Okay, you remember in week 6 when I had you make that folder with several sub-folders inside that? Click here for a reminder, read under number 3.

Here's what I'd like you to work on for the next several days.

1. Photograph at least 20 background images and place in your 'Background Photos" folder

2. Photograph at least 20 different textures and place in your 'Background Textures + Backdrops' folder.

3. Find or create at least 15 items to place in your 'color' folder

4. Find at least 25 pieces of photographic inspiration and place in your 'Pure Inspiration' folder

*Feel free to start filling any other folders at this point with content.

These folders are entirely yours. You put whatever content in them that you'd like. I really want you to start building your own little reference and resource library though. I promise you, it's VERY important. If you continue to be interested in photography/design this "library" of material will become invaluable to you. You could fill them with images you find, things you photograph, things you make and then scan, etc. Use your creativity! As always, have fun!

Blake makes his acting debut

You didn't think I'd forget, did you Blake?

Light Painting

Nice work lady and gents. Here's a few of your shots.

Week 8:

Bonjour class,

Have I told you all that I'm fans of yours yet? In case it was in question, I am. You have been working really hard the last few weeks and I'd like to reward you for that. So here's what I'd like to see for this week.

1. Take your camera out fora little while and snap away. Take portraits, close-ups, textures/backgrounds (ones you could use for compositing images), landscapes, stars, animals, architecture. In essence, whatever you'd like. I just want you to get out and shoot stuff.

2. Make any image adjustments on the photos you like the best and upload to your blog. I'm not going to give you a specific number of pictures. You could upload 2, 4, 9, 17, 30, or 90 (okay, maybe not 90 or even 30 for that matter c:). Keep in mind though that the images you upload should only showcase your best work.

3. Go and comment on a couple of your classmates work! Be specific. Find a couple things you especially like and something you think could be improved.

4. Have fun!

Week 7:

Has it really been 7 weeks already? Wow, crazy. Whether you guys realize it or not you have learned new skills and improved previous skills tremendously. I'm stoked to keep seeing your growth. Please keep it up, it excites me. I'd like to start having a more streamlined approach to where our out of class work is being done based on the work we do in class on Wednesdays. In other words, if we portraits in class, our homework will revolve around working on tutorials using those portraits in Pixelmator. Lets talk about this here next Wed and see what we can figure out. For this week, I want you to go through the below tutorials and have some fun. Really focus on learning the given tool you're using for a particular task in Pixelmator.

*With each of the tutorials, you are welcome to give them your own "flare" as you see fit. Be creative and have fun!

1. I'm a fan of typography, or in laymans terms, text. I like working with text and manipulating it. You should do. Follow through this tutorial here and start to get an idea the power of text. Text can be to a design what Audio is to a movie. It accentuates it and in many ways is as powerful and important as the primary component.

2. Find an image of your choice and add rain to it. I'd prefer you use a picture you've taken or if you want to take a new picture and upload it that's fine as well. Quick and simple. Follow along here.

3. This is more advanced and will start to show you how great compositing images can be, both in speaking of realistic as wel as unrealistic terms. Follow along here.

4. This is another tutorial where we will utilize text and composite that with an image. This is a really cool effect and one I think you'll like quite a lot. I'll provide a picture below for you to use or if you'd like you are welcome to use one of your own images. Follow along here.

5. Write a summary of what you learned this last week as well as your favorite techniques learned in Pixelmator based on the above tutorials. Did anything get you particular excited?

6. Lastly, go to your classmates blogs and comment like we discussed on each of their pieces of work. Two things you really liked and one thing that you think could maybe be improved.

Good luck! As always feel free to email or call if you have any questions or concerns.

Week 6:

And we come to another week. Crazy how time flies. I hope this post finds you well and in good spirits.

We began this past week looking at the world of studio portraiture, which I think is great fun. What did you guys think? Hopefully you didn't hate it as we will come back to it here on Wednesday and continue our look into lighting, subject positioning, etc.

So here's what I'd like to see:

1. Please write a two-three paragraph response to what you learned this last week. What did you find interesting, or not find interesting? Honestly, where does studio style photography fall onto your "like" meter? In other words, do you prefer it to say on location photography for example? What areas or concepts of studio photography are you especially jazzed about if so? (this could be some kind of technique you've seen somewhere but we haven't covered).

2. Using the below images make image adjustments as you see fit. To get you started, you should be looking at things like white balance, saturation, contrast, framing, highlights, shadows, etc. Each of you will ultimately have different images, which is fine. Pretend these are images that you are paid by a client to "touch up," what will you do and why? Be able to justify your corrections and decisions. Generally, with portraits like these, clients are paying for you to show them in their best light, which means we need to know our subjects. Seeming as though these pictures are of you, you should know the subjects pretty well! Think about what your parents like, would they pay for these images? Please post your the images to your blogs.

P.S. Just in case it was in question, all of these were in fact shot by you.

3. We briefly talked about having resource images, textures, folders so make your own folder on your desktop that we will start to fill with resource images and inspiration. It should look something like this.

Inside the "Pure Inspiration" folder, go ahead and make two different subfolders called "Design" and "Photography." We will talk about these more on Wednesday.

4. Lastly, I would like for you to spend at least 30 minutes in Pixelmator aside from this, however I'm leaving it up to you as to how you spend your time. Find a tutorial online that you really like or a technique you find and follow along. You are welcome to use whatever source image(s) you'd like. Thanks guys!

Week 5:

My wonderful class.

I'm sorry for the delay, once again, with getting this assignment up. Thanks for your patience. It's much appreciated. Again, you guys are continuing to do solid work and a show a dedication to continue to become artistic photographers/designers in your own right. I'm loving your enthusiasm with learning Pixelmator so we are going to continue to jump in head first with that. Here's what I'd like to see from you for Wednesday.

1. Follow this tutorial. Upon completion upload final image to your blog. Feel free if you so desire to give your own "flare" to it. Here are the images, go ahead and download to your own desktop to use.

2. Follow this tutorial with the image below. Upon completion upload both before and after images to your blog. Seeming as though we are using a different picture, steps 11-13 especially will require your own tweaking. Although the entire image in and of itself will be yours to retouch as you see fit. When you've gone through the basic retouching process with this tutorial go ahead and jump over to this one here to learn how to change her eye color.

3. Lastly, follow this tutorial. This will dive deeper into some specialized features in Pixelmator. I figured this would be one you guys might really enjoy and it will also give you the opportunity to use your creativity a little bit. Rather than utilizing the Beatles (whom I love) image, find a picture you like especially (maybe a picture you've taken yourself or one you've seen online) and use that instead to create the same effect, just with a different subject for your light painting.

4. Have fun! These should get you excited about the power of pixelmator and the potential for your own creative work. As always, feel free to email or call if you have any questions at all. See you Wed!

P.S. If you're still hungry for more and want to explore other tutorials, check out this link. If you do anything extra, please, please, PLEASE post it. I would love to see it all.

Week 4:

Wonderful day to you all. I hope you're weekend has been tremendous so far. Thanks again for making the most out of our hour together in class and for being so involved. We are cruising now and I think you guys are going to continue to get excited about what we're learning.

Here's what I'd like to see for this next week:

1. A one sentence summary of each tool and its function located in the tool palette of Pixelmator.

2. Watch this tutorial here following through with any image you'd like for an introduction to Pixelmator.

3. Walk through this tutorial here using your own image taken from your iSight (watch for more details). This tutorial will give you an introduction into some deeper features of Pixelmator. Post your final image to your blog.

4. Create a desktop wallpaper from scratch and post to blog. Click here for tutorial.

5. Click here to create an aurora borealis utilizing the tools in Pixelmator and post to blog.

Have fun! See you on Wednesday.

Week 3 : REVISED

My friends,

I apologize for my delay in getting this up. I know I said I'd have it up on Friday, and low and behold friday came and went. No excuses.

With that said, I think it's only fitting that I give you a little bit of a reduced assignment for the week. Just as a reminder, you all need to see Kevin to get Pixelmator installed on your computer by the start of class on Wednesday. We are going to be jumping into image retouch, so get excited! In the meantime, here is all I want to see from you for Wed:

Find 10 images you really like/find inspirational online and post them to your blog with a 1-2 sentence caption explaining why. I'm leaving this wide open as I recognize that you will all probably get inspired about different genres of photography, subjects, etc. Any appropriate images you find are fine by me. Landscape, portrait, wildlife, journalistic, abstract, etc. Whatever you like! Be articulate though. Try to really think about what it is you like about the images.

Think about composition, leading lines, color, time of day, focus, balance, and exposure... to name a few.

Check out this link here. I'd like you to try and incorporate some of this terminology in your short responses. Have fun! There is no wrong answer.

As always, if you have any questions please feel to email or call at anytime.

Week 2 Pictures

You guys are becoming quite talented!

Week 3:

Good afternoon!

I hope this last week has treated you well. It was wonderful going through the images you shot in class and continuing to get an idea of how you see things. I'll post some of them here later. Now that we have learned a little bit more about portraiture work, we should probably go into photo retouching. Here's what we will have in store for this week:

1. Download Pixelmator onto your computers if you have not already done so.

2. Watch KelbyTraining Portrait retouching tutorial in class.

3. Utilizing the Portraits you took during week 2, make basic image correction techniques we went over in class.

4. On your blogs, do a one paragraph writeup on what you learned about photo portrait retouching and post before and after images.

Week 2:

Hello wonderful class. I hope the last week has treated you well and you've found plenty of imagery surrounding you to get inspired. Two of you have Assignment 1 completed, thank you! I won't rule out the remaining two of you seeming as though you have until tomorrow afternoon. Please get those in so I, as well as your peers can provide feedback tomorrow during class.

I've been getting super excited about what we have in store for the next several months. Like we talked about I'm going to show you the doorway and encourage you to walk through it, but it's up to you to run, cartwheel, roll, or forage through. My goal, once again is to help you guys get excited about this stuff and discover how amazing everything is around us. Throughout the quarter I will provide structure for our week long goals and would ask that we all interact and communicate with each other to help hold one another accountable.

Things we will be covering this week:

Camera basics (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, auto modes, manual mode, etc.), importance of light (natural vs. artificial), composition (rule of thirds), depth of field, and portraiture.

Wednesday will be a brief overview of these things and we will then continue to discuss and practice these skills for the rest of our time together.

Assignment 2:

1. Write a one page report on a portrait photographer that you find inspiring. *I will provide a list of photographers to choose from (You're welcome to use another professional photographer if you find one).

Here are some questions to get you going:

Who is it? What have they done? What are they most famous for? How did they get started? What are your favorite elements of photography you admire in their work? Do they have a specific style? Do they prefer black and white or color, why? Please also list a link at the conclusion of your paper showcasing some of the photographers works.

2. Take and upload three portrait images. One extreme close up (head or tighter), one medium closeup (we can see subject from about the waist up), and one long shot (entire subject is in frame). They can be candid or posed, whichever you prefer. I'd like to see you incorporate what we talked about in class. Framing/composition, lighting, etc.

Really think about how you're shooting the individual. Are you portraying them their very best? What story are you trying to tell? What do you want us, as viewers to learn about this individual from each photograph. Be specific and intentional. Your camera is a paintbrush and your subject is part of your canvas. Artists are articulate and they explore different ways of showcasing their work. Don't automatically assume that the first time you look through your viewfinder that you will have the "right" shot. Look at different angles and perspectives!

*

Yousuf Karsh

Julia Margaret Cameron

Annie Leibovitz

Joe McNally

William Stillman

Francis Frith

Henri Cartier Bresson

Giovanni Crupi

Richard Avedon

Frederick Day

Jock Sturges

Nicholas Nixon

August Sanders

George Hurrell

Cecil Beaton

Arnie Leibelman

Edward Weston

Imogene Cunningham

Phillippe Halsman

Arnold Newman

Additional resources regarding portraiture photography:

6 tips for Great composition

Great article on portrait photography

Week 1:

Good afternoon!

In case you didn't catch it, my name is Jonny Long and I'll be learning alongside you over the next several months. I'm a photographer/filmmaker/creative enthusiast. As visual artists we have the unique privilege of viewing people, places, objects, shapes, animals, and such in unordinary ways. What others view as mundane, we might find beautiful and inspiring. We find the simplistic with the "complex" and discover the complexity of the "simple." In other words we look at things differently, which is awesome!

While we will have many goals as we tred along, my overall wish is that you will discover the amazingness of your own eye. Every individual is blessed with the ability to view things differently than anyone else can. Every individual see's things from a different perspective. More powerful than the most expensive technology you can buy, whether it's camera's, computers, software, etc., is your own eye.

Your assignment for next wednesday, Jan. 19 is as follows:

1. Make sure you are following the class blog here

2. Create your own blog and go through the design options we go over in class to personalize it as you wish.

3. On your blog, in 2-4 paragraphs, answer the following questions:

How do you view the world around you? What inspires you? Who inspires you? How do you see your personality coming through your photography? What are your hobbies? What genre of photography interests you the most and why (wedding, portraiture, landscape, wildlife, children, sports, etc.)?

4. Lastly, utilizing any type of camera you'd like, whether it's a phone camera, point and shoot, or DSLR, find and take 7 images that you believe will give insight into your personality and post them to your blog.

If you have any questions during the week please don't hesitate to shoot me an email at jonny@verylongmedia.com