SPRING 2009
Comfort is your enemy!
"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself."
Chinese Proverb
"Create like a God, Command like a King, and Work
like a slave" Brancusi
This class is about you, your interests, your passions,
your desires to make photographs. Many of us have been telling students for
years what we learned from Joseph Campbell. "I say, follow your bliss
and donÕt be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going
to be. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that
has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought
to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are – if you are
following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within
you, all the time."
"Be serious, be passionate, wake up!"—Susan Sontag
John M. Grzywacz-Gray
Photo Lab Phone 805.378.1442
John's office
805.378.1400 x1875
Fax: 805.378.1499
E-mail johngrzz@gmail.com please put
"student" in header
My web
Site: http://www.oocities.org/grzz4856
click on Links for useful class sites
Text book web site: http://www.prenhall.com/london/
Office Hours:
Monday: 5 pm until 6:00 pm
Tuesday: 4 pm to 6:00 pm
Wednesday: 4 pm until 6:00 pm
Other Hours are available by appointment.
ACCESS Information:
"If
you have a learning, attention, or physical disability that may require
classroom
or test accommodations, please let me know as soon as possible.
If
you have not already done so, please register with ACCESS. ACCESS is
just
to the right of the Campus Center Building or you can call them at
378-1461. Verification from ACCESS Is required
before any classroom or
testing accommodation
can be made."
Course objectives:
Demonstrate a complete
understanding of exposure, film development, digital workflow and printing.
Prepare and process prints on fiber
base papers
Explore the rudiments of 4x5 camera
work, Studio electronic flash lighting, Medium format camers.
Demonstrate your ability to express
yourself.
Explore contemporary fine art and
professional photography.
Explore experimental techniques.
Identify conceptual ideas in specific photographic works.
Demonstrate the ability to scan negatives.
Demonstrate the ability to make digital
prints.
The Class
This course will explore
digital and film processes as well as creative possibilities.
We will explore advanced technical topics based
on the Zone System of Exposure.
We will examine the role
of the computer and digital imaging.
The ideas we will
explore will be applicable to photographers practice their craft as
professionals, and fine artists.
We will look at work
created by photographers and try to enlarge our perception of what photography
is or can be.
Materials
You can choose to print digitally in our new digital lab.
If you have NO
preference use Ilford MultiGrade RC.
Film - T - Max 100 or 400 or
Tri-X or whatever
You will need at least
12 rolls of 36-exposure 35mm film
Mounting
Boards: You will
need archival or conservation mounting boards for preparing your final prints.
—Manila Folders. You will need Manila
folders for turning in Assignments. You will need to tape the edges shut so
that the folder is a pocket.
—Negative
Holders.
You will need negative holders to store your negatives safely. There are
several different kinds available from your local camera store. Pick the one
that is best for you.
You should have a clean Towel for every lab period.
Locks for Lockers ....
See Lab Staff and/or Steve Callis
Time required for
class:
Approximately 9 hours a week, 2
hours of lecture
3 hours of lab, 4 hours
of outside work ... (2 hours for every hour of lecture)
Grades
Effort is important. Do not try to figure out what I am looking for. I want you to listen to yourself. I want you to find your own voice, follow your own bent.
Your grade is based on:
Attendance, Participation in classroom discussions., Assignments, Final Portfolio
Each assignment must be
printed. A digital portfolio of your semesters work must be turned in at the
final.
Assignments are due
two weeks after they have been assigned.
You are encouraged to
work hard in this class. Every discipline requires a work ethic, your work rate
will determine how much you accomplish. You may occasionally choose or be
encouraged to go off on your own ... that is fine as long as you turn in the
work and even better if you put it up on the wall for a critique.
Completion of
Assignments
The most important issue
is to complete the assignment. You may not always do it to your satisfaction
... but complete it.
Final Critique
The final requires a
portfolio of five archivally processed and matted prints that make a cohesive
statement. In other words they all share some common concept / vision. You are
responsible for a presentation not less than 5 minutes and not more than 10
minutes.
Gallery Requirement:
You must attend 2
photography exhibitions and write a brief statement that describes your
response to the photographs. I am interested in an intellectual and emotional
response. Please, get from me, approval for the gallery visit in advance..
Assignment Next Week bring a print that represents
your best work to date.
It should represent the
best you have done to date ... by your standards. Develop criteria between now
and next week that you will use in evaluating photographs by yourself and
others. Please put it in written form and turn it in next week. Since this is
an image that you feel is representative of you and one that you feel
relatively close to ... write a paragraph or two about the image and be
prepared to read it to the rest of the class next week.
Assignment Prepare a
short self-promotion resume or biography
Prepare a resume or
short biography and bring it to your next class. Make it as visually interesting as you can, but it must be
no larger than 8.5 by 11 inches. Include a photograph of yourself ... the photo
will not be returned.
I am interested in the
following: Your Past Achievements, College Major, Goals, Music, literary, film,
activity and artistic preferences. What are you most passionate about? What do
you expect to learn from this class?
Assignment Bring in a paragraph or bullet points
that state as specifically as you can what you hope to get out of this class.
Week 1 introduction
and slides of previous student work
The
exposure meter, Assign: bring
Biography to next class, Shoot a roll of film on any topic of your choice,
Bring your favorite photo to class next
week for a friendly critique.
Week 2 - Process
first roll of film, make contact sheet and print.
The
Zone system and exposure, how it relates to digital. Critique,
Assign:
ISO speed and development test.
Week 3 - Printing
techniques, diffusion, multiple filter, flashing.
Lee Friedlander, continue
printing from first roll
Assign: No Peekee/Shoot
from the hip. 1 roll
Week 4- Lab - Introduction
to printing on the Ink Jet printer
DUE: Prints from first
roll
ASSIGN: A digital print
from a scan or digital image
Overview of Digital.
Week 5- Introduction
to Medium Format
ASSIGN:
Hassleblad 2 student teams, 1 roll of film minimum per team and 1 print each
from the team.
DUE:
ISO speed test / development
Week 6- LECTURE:
Inroduction to studio lighting.
DUE: No peekee
Week 7 Introduction
to the 4x5
ASSIGN: Team with
one or two other students to make a 4x5 photo.
Week 8 DUE Hassleblad
prints for critique
ASSIGN: Infrared
Week 9 ASSIGN: Architecture
- preferably a Ventura County Historical building or site. Use
35mm, or 4x5. Film or
Digital. Pick something close.
DUE:
Digital Print
Week 10- Lab demonstration
toners, potassium ferricyanide, archival processing.
DUE: Infrared
Week 11 -
Expansion and Compaction
Week 12 - Optional
assignment number one due
Week 13 - SPRING
Break
Week 14 - Portraiture
Week 15 - DUE second
optional assignment due
DEMO:
Matt Cutting and Presentation for Final, permanence issues for film and prints,
digital and film.
Week 16 - Space
Project
Week 17 - DUE: Space
Project
Week 18 - Final
Some quotes to
think about:
from Emmet Gowin
"As I worked, I soon realized
that I was not able to foresee the best pictures and often could not identify
the better negative until much later. This mean that in my future efforts
there would be an element dedicated to what canÕt be foreseen - to risk and
chance. (It turns out that the Ôunknown is more friendly than we think;Õ as
D. H. Lawrence said, ÔEven an artist knows that his work was never in his
mind, he could never have thought it before it happened.Õ Rarely am I tempted
to speak of originality.) I far prefer the formulation ÔI am the origin of
this work.Õ That simply means that I am responsible for it-that I accept the
consequences.
I had set out to describe
the world within my domain, to live a quality with things. Enrichment, I saw,
involves a willingness to accept a changing vision of the nature of things-which
is to say, reality. Often I had thought that things teach me what to do. Now
I would prefer to say: As things teach us what we already are, we gain a vision
of the world."
from Lasso
Moholy-Nagy
"The true function
of art is to be the graph of our time, an intuitive search for the missing
equilibrium among our emotional, intellectual, and social lives. Art is the
most intimate language of the senses, a direct linking of man to man."
"Photography is
a true expression of how one feels about life in it's entirety." - Ansel
Adams
"To see beneath the
surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are
latent in all things." - Ansel Adams
"To capture a
moment that people cannot always see." - Harry Callahan
"The creative
photographer sets free the human contents of objects; and imparts humanity to
the inhuman world." Clarence John Laughlin
"I photograph
to find out what something will look like photographed." - Gary Winogrand
"Photography is
a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about, but isn't attending
to." - Emmet Gowin
"...it is my
conviction that photographs are merely by - products of man's spiritual quest
toward fulfillment. Attempting to improve photography, while ignoring the
individual's life attitude, is as futile as trying to print a blank negative
created by the camera's malfunction. What is the 'malfunction' of contemporary
photographers? The answer comes to me ever clearer. They have been defeated by
the trivia, lethargy and valueless ness of everyday life. They are not aspiring
to greatness, because such aspirations seem to be a futile effort. The problem
with contemporary photography is that it has no heroes. This word does not
refer to any particular person rather to the fact the spirit of greatness has
been lost." - Bill Jay
"Photographers
have chosen to be artists. That presumes that they have 'moments of intensity'
that transcend the banal ordinariness of life. Yet here they sit wallowing in
trivia trying to convince people their childish pies are castles. Art is more
than that. Photography deserves better." - Bill Jay
"I call art
everything that takes us out of real life and tends to elevate us —The
one aim an artist could confess to should be that of producing great art. But
this postulates a nobility of spirit that at no period has been so difficult to
attain." Ozenfant
"And here is
the essence of humanistic photography. In order to make photographs that
transcend 'what is,' the photographer must make value judgments. In order to
make value judgments he must have an all-pervasive personal code of values or
ethics. In order to use this code of values he must make choices. In order to
make choices he must be aware of alternatives. In order to understand the
alternatives he must have a sure knowledge of, and be constantly involved in,
the nature of self. The humanistic photographer has a philosophy or attitude to
life based on his personal relationship with reality. This is the real subject
of his photographs, not the material objects as they exist; even though they
might appear to be of something, they are about the photographer as a
transmitter of messages through metaphors. ...The humanist acts out of
volition, towards change. Value judgments are essential to humanism..." -
Bill Jay
Fredrick Sommer once
wrote: "Reality is greater than our dreams yet it is within ourselves that
we find the clues to reality. Clues are essences and keys are stronger than the
doors they open. Life itself is not reality. We are the ones who put life into
stones and pebbles. If we did not dream reality would collapse."
Alfred Stieglitz once wrote: "What
may be the deepest meanings of the images shown are not always easily
recognizable at first glance. They emerge with increasing clarity only as we
experience them. They take on a reality to the degree that we are able to
penetrate the masks that hide us from ourselves."