Moved from comments on my first post

Dawn SnowdenOctober 31, 2015 at 1:15 PM

Hi my name is Dawn Snowden. I am in my third year at Albertus Magnus College and will be graduating with B.A. in Social Work. I like to try my hand at new things and I figured photography, why not? I am not a photographer by any stretch of the imagnination but I have a love of the arts in general!

I am a mother of five children, four biological and my niece who I adopted when she was eight. I work full time in accounting and finance. My life for the most part consists of work, and school and travelling back and forth to RI to take care of my children.

Aside from wanting to try something new, I decided to take this class because I am very attracted to the art of photography. I love to see a photograph that draws me in for any number of reasons. It could be an old black and white photo of a woman whose face tells her story and the story of the photo. It can be of the most beautiful places on earth or the most war torn ravaged places on earth. I love when a photograph actually does speak a thousand words. I feel the expression that can be captured in the moment a picture is taken can be emotional, fun, whimsical, sad, logical and illogical. I would really love to learn how to take the kinds of photos that stops people in their tracks and makes them want to know more!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone's photos and learning as much as I can. 

Self Portraits

What works best for the first assignment?

for next week, I'm asking you to photograph the built environment (rather than nature, say) for the first assignment... Think in terms of abstract geometry and especially light... where is the light?  Where is the focal point?

Some tips....

-Move in close, fill the frame.

-Eliminate sky...

-Find light... expressive light and geometry to fill the frame with..

-Don't photograph whole buildings from a distance... that's boring

-Do look for angles, shadows, reflections and most of all light!

Look at my video on editing for light.

Look at these examples using the search term, "Urban Geometry" on Google images

Take around 50 images then edit them to your best 6-8 and post here on the blog...

All work has an absolute deadline of Sunday evening (Nov 8th)

The colorful trees can tell that fall is blooming in CT.

Man's best friend put to worked.

 

New York, New York.

Wedding cake, 2013

Hartford, Bushnell park.

Hartford, State Capital.

James Celestine

Greetings everyone,

 

I'm James Celestine, a transferred student from East Hartford campus. I started attending AMC 2008. I received my Associate Degree of Science in 2011. However, I am working on my BA, and have six credits left, before I can move on to the master's program, so I'm a bit excited about that.

 I moved from Windsor, CT to West Haven, 2014, and I am a new AMC online studies. Actually, this in my first online class that I'm enrolled in since I started at AMC, in 2008. 

I look forward with meeting all of you, and thank you for helping me with this transition.

I will be using my IPhone to take out pictures, so if I need to make any adjustment, please let me know.

 

Thank you,

James Celestine

www.fotothing.com/raydesil

My Bio

Hi everyone!

My name is Taylor Samuels. I am a young mom (23) of two boys who are 6 and 4. I work at The Sound School, an aquaculture high school and regional vocational center, in New Haven, Connecticut as their Communications / Alumni Relations Liaison.  I am a Criminal Justice major at Albertus and will  be receiving my Bachelor's Degree this May!

Digital Photography I is an elective class for me, but I am very excited to be taking this class. Photography has always been something I enjoyed because you literally can capture moments or things in life that you more than likely will only experience that one moment. That's probably why I like taking candid pictures (although my family doesn't always enjoy it). :)

I am hoping this class will help me become better at photography; specifically at understanding my camera better and learning to shoot better images in manual mode (auto mode is great, but most pictures I take using it don't come out the way I want them to).

For this class I will be using a Canon Rebel XTi. I may use my Ipad's camera on occasion as well.

My Fotothing address is: http://www.fotothing.com/blackrose9109/

Brief Bio

Hello Everyone!
My name is Karen Jones and I am a senior looking to graduate in May of 2016. I am a divorced mother of three children and I currently work for the State of Ct. in the Dept. of Disability Services (DDS). I chose this class as an elective. I was having some issues with trying to log on but I think I have it now.  I need to get use to using this blog format because all I have ever used was elearning.
I have a good camera but for this class I would prefer to use the camera in my iPhone 6plus.

Hello, I am Olivia. I have my associates in general studies so that I could focus on my psychology, philosophy, and art educations alike. I am currently amidst my studies in the B.A. Art Therapy program. I waitress at a gourmet vegan restaurant and am also a floral designer with a quirky yet highly professional artesian florist.  It is of utmost importance to me to help people through artistic expression. I am continuously looking for ways to capture beauty, struggle, and triumph alike to connect human and natural experiences from person to person, tree to tree. I have always been drawn to photography but haven't given myself enough attention playing and learning the field through the lens. I am excited to delve in through this course. I do not have a camera at this point, just my good ol' iPhone. That will have to do for the time being.
Be well!

Hello,

I am Raymond Fenner and I am still trying to get the hang of using this sight. I will be using either my Sony A6000 or my Canon EOS t4i to be taking my photos.

Important

Please post your introduction here in the main body of the blog and not as a comment to my posts... that way more people will see it and it is a warm up to your image posts coming soon.  Click on the "new post" link at the top of the page and that will open the post editor.  If you are unsure how to post, please watch my video on how to post, linked in the upper right side

Michaela HarrisOctober 27, 2015 at 10:19 AM

My name is Michaela Harris. I was born and raised in Providence R.I. I moved to Connecticut in 2001. Since I moved here I have obtained my high school diploma and I just recently acquired my State of Connecticut Security Officer Identification card. Currently I am in my 3rd year here at Albertus. I am in the Criminal Justice program. I live in West Haven and I work for the West Haven School Department. I am going into the field of Criminal Justice because I want to make a difference, by working and helping young adults with regards to making better decisions once they have been placed into the juvenile justice system. I am taking this class because, I have always loved nature, and my hope with taking this class is to learn how to capture nature at its best.

Hello

I am Raymond Fenner, I currently in my senior year at Albertus Magnus who is working toward my B.A. in Human Services. I have always enjoyed the art of photography although I am not a photographer. I would like to learn the in's and out's of photography to try my hand at amateur photography.


(Re-posted for Raymond who put this in the comment section of my first post)

A word about Photoshop

Adobe has gone to a new model of renting their software by the month... The latest version of Photoshop is CC 2015... You can get the first month free then if you sign up for the paid service, and quit before the second month is up, your card is never charged.  

I mentioned CS 2 as being free... there are a couple of caveats... it won't work with Macs and I'm not sure if there are any issues with Windows 8 or 10 (probably not).  Hope that helps....

Welcome to the Digital Photography online class.  Digital Photography is a natural to offer as an online class because of the ease in creating and posting your work electronically.  I find eLearning to be cumbersome in general and have decided to publish the course syllabus on my own website, http://jnevins.com, and run the entire experience using the web, a blog, and a public hosting site.  eLearning currently does not have the capacity to hold the number of images you’ll be posting as part of this class.

Class runs from October 26th until Dec 16th. All work needs to be completed by then.

There are four elements we need to juggle in order for this to be a successful experience for everyone...

1.  The class syllabus... here are all the assignments and links to readings that you will need to work through the problems for each week of the class. The syllabus is found with this address:  jnevins.com/digitalphotographysyllabusonline.htm or click here.While you are at it, browse around the rest of my site to get to know me better.  I have posted a portfolio of my photography, links for finding galleries and museums online, my teaching philosophy and more. The assignment for each week is posted on it.  Read it carefully and work to incorporate the main idea into your work that week. The link for the syllabus is in the upper right hand side of the blog.

2.  The Class Blog.  This is where we will build a sense of community.  It is important to post examples of your work each week as well as comments about your images to accompany the images posted as well as comment on the work of others in the class... you can ask questions to me personally anytime via email, but here is a public place to offer suggestions, ask questions and just generally where we can create a class environment.  Blogger is very easy to post to...
Your grade is based on your posts to the blog and more importantly your portfolio of photographs, illustrating your understanding and completion of the assignment for each week.

 I have added you to the class blog … you need to respond to the link that Blogger.com sent you in order to become a member of the class blog. Once you are a member, you can post there.  I'd prefer to stay in contact with you via regular email. Please email me at jnevins@albertus.edu or  jnevins@jnevins.com. You may call me at home anytime (up until 9 pm)  if you would like to talk personally or to help solve a technical issue that would be harder via email. It is very important to get all technical issues solved and out of the way at the outset, in the first week.

3.  Photoshop CS2... This is available free with a lifetime serial number as Adobe no longer wants to officially "support" it.  You can do everything for class with this version.  http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/  Be sure to copy the serial number ad observe if you are downloading the Windows version or the Mac version. Taking the picture is just the first step!  You need to edit each picture you care about for light, focal point, contrast, color balance, etc.  I have videos linked in the upper right hand side of the blog to show you how. Note: the newer Macs have an operating system that won't work anymore with CS2.  You can still download a free version of the latest Photoshop at http://adobe.com/downloads for 30 days, then get another 30 days for free to take you through this class....To get the 2nd 30 days you need to sign up for the month to month billing at $9.99 then remember to quit just as the next 30 days is up...

This first week, we must iron out all of the technical issues to be sure that you are up to speed.  I have asked for you to post a creative self portrait and to tell us something about yourself.  This is an art course and its primary focus will be on your portfolio as the basis for your assessment.  Study the syllabus to get a sense of what I will be looking for.  Links I have posted to visual images and readings are an important component of the class... I'll be looking at how you are in dialog with the images and ideas linked in the syllabus as a component of your grade.  Also important is that I get a sense of your  spending time at the assignments and are growing in the medium of photography as the course unfolds. Posting your best one or two  images you are creating to the class blog about twice a week is vital to your success in this class.  Use the comment button to respond to your classmates posts.  One of the strong points of using this blog is the ability to post comments  as well.  I am expecting 7 images per week as the bare minimum… (6 that really fulfill the intent of the assignment and more like 10 would be a better number… this is digital!)

Any comments, suggestions, or observations as to how I can smooth the way for you as we get going will be welcome.  My goal is your success and your feeling that this was well worth your time.

Looking forward to launching this new class!

Best wishes,

Jerry