Secrets

This assignment also makes me think about this OMD song titled Secrets:



For this assignment, you will create a series of four images in response to learning a classmate's personal secret through a random process.

This assignment is largely about empathy. It is very easy to become self absorbed and to focus on our own troubles. In this assignment, you will think about other people's issues rather than your own. In the process, you may discover that you have similar issues in your own life. 

You can respond to secret in anyway that you wish. You do not need to depict or re-enact the secret. You can interpret the secret very literally or very loosely. You might want to think of what situation led to the secret, how the secret changed their life, how they are living/dealing with the secret, what it would be like after the secret, etc. You may choose to think how you have dealt with a similar issue in your life or how you might deal with such an issue.

Also, feel free to choose whatever sex you want for the characters. For example, let's say a hypothetical secret is "I am ashamed of how my girlfriend dresses." You could choose to take a series about living with a poorly dressed boyfriend.

This resulting images are to be in black and white. You are to shoot them in color and make the conversion to black and white using PS, LR, or any other image editing applications.
Technically, the thing to remember is that the images need to have good separation of tone.
 Dodge and burn as needed. I don't want you taking out any elements using PS or LR. The real work is in the conceptualization and the shooting.

Please take this assignment seriously with the belief that the secret you received is sincere. Please be respectful of one another.

Please read this short NY Times article titled An Exercise in Empathy.

By next Monday, I want you to have at least 2 images shot for the assignment. 

Homework Due Monday, March 25th

1. Read the materials linked to the posting below about Black and White

2. Take 10 photographs which demonstrate creative use of Focal Length.

3. Edit those 10 photos to the best of your ability. Post these images to Flickr in a Set titled Creative Focal Length Color. Be sure to think through your choice of shutter speed and aperture for each shot as well.

4. Convert them Black and White. This will take time. After you convert them to B&W, you will likely have to re-edit the tones of the image. Post these images to Flickr in a Set titled Creative Focal Length B&W

It's Black, It's White, Woohoo

The first thing you should do when preparing to convert your image to black and white is to first make a very nice color version of the image. Of special importance is the color correction/determination of correct white balance. Most of the methods used to convert an image to black and white are based on assigning tone based on color. If there is a color cast, then this will make it harder to make targeted edits to tone based on color.

Here is the handout that I wrote up back in 2006. It is a little dated, but most of it still applies. It covers many of the techniques that I demonstrated in class. All that is missing is the conversion available via Camera Raw and the Black and White tools within Photoshop proper.

Additional reading on Converting images to Black and White - please read these online books available via the library by Wednesday

Mastering Digital Black and White: A Photographer’s Guide to High Quality Black-and-White Imaging and Printing Chapter 5, the Color to Black and White section which discusses the Calculations method of conversion.

Some tutorials on using the Dodge and Burn technique 


Why dodge and burn?

Non-Destructive Dodge and Burn in Photoshop

Here is an article about why you might want to Dodge and Burn.

Here is an article about using the Gradient Map method to convert an image to B&W. 

Here is an article about using the Gradient tool to make a sky darker.

Some articles on toning images

Here is an article demonstrating multiple ways to split tone an image.

Here is another about multiple ways to add a Sepia tone to an image.