digital photo sketchbook course objectives VPA 380-17 SYLLABUS

SPRING 2012
Deborah Small Blog

GRAD STUDENT TA from SDSU Nancy diBenedetto
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LiveBooks

CSUSM STUDENT TA Eric Lopez: TA

VSAR 314 TUESDAYS 5-8:45 pm
ARTS 239
Office Hours: Tues 2:30-5:00, and by appointment
Telephone: 760-750-4151

Required texts:
Online subscription to www.lynda.com
$10/month for 3 months: total = @$33
access to 5 software programs for the class

You will create a personal blogsite, which ultimately is your electronic portfolio for this class, for your writing and for uploading and reflecting upon your photos. The class will use wordpress.com.

Storage:
An external harddrive:
You can check out your own hard-drive from arts 239 check-out area. This is no longer the best option!

Chad Huggins' Recommentation re External Hardrives:
While we have some hard drives to checkout, I would strongly advise that students purchase their own drives. Once we run out, we are out, and we have a limited number of 100GB drives which have quite a bit of wear and tear on them.

Also, students will be able to keep their purchased drive, instead of turning them in. From past experience, students end up purchasing a drive at some point anyway because we erase their drive at the end of the semester.

The best prices are online, and I'd recommend a triple interface drive that has a USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 connectors so that the drive can be used on any computer, Mac or PC.

Here's a link to a very good drive (the 500GB is an especially good deal): http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Locally, Fry's Electronics has the best hard drive prices. Here's a great deal on a 500GB triple interface drive:
http://www.frys.com/product/6310031?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

These are just recommendations; students can search (online or in store) for a Firewire 800/USB 2.0 drive and they will find great deals.

If students are solely going to use their drives for photo storage, than they could use a USB 2.0 drive without Firewire. These drives are great for photo editing (faster burst/transfer rate for photos than Firewire). But, if they want to do any video editing on their drive, they'll need one with a Firewire port also.

Please encourage your students to purchase their own hard drive; it is a valuable tool that they will be able to use while in school and after they graduate.

Thanks, and please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Chad Huggins
Technical Director
Visual & Performing Arts Department
cehuggin@csusm.edu

ALWAYS back-up your work. Systems crash when least expected. It's a good idea to make two backups on different media, as storage media are occasionally unstable. This is an important habit to develop when working with any digital media.

Equipment Check-out
Use your own digital cameras, or check out our terrific Canon cameras from ARTS 239, as well as lenses, tripods, pano tripods, lighting, etc.

Still cameras can be checked out starting the second week of the semester. We will spend the second week working with the cameras to familiarize you with them, but you must also spend time with the manuals. Albert Rascon, director of check-out, will go over check-out times and rules.

Lab Access
Arts 239 is open so you can do your homework assignments. Hours are posted on the door. I will also send everyone's name to public safety, and you can call using the phone outside the lab and they will come to let you in. Labs are open 24/7, except when a class is in session. Please never let anyone in if you don't recognize them. All software is also available on computers in the library on the 2nd floor.

Digital Photo Sketchbook will be an upper-division required course for the new DAMA major within the Visual and Performing Arts Department in FALL 2013

Class Description:
Digital Photo Sketchbook investigates a broad range of artistic practices and contemporary artists who use digital media as a tool for contemporary photographic practices. Students will experiment with different conceptual approaches to art making and develop aesthetic strategies for engaging audiences. Students will learn to use digital still cameras and mobile devices for their experimental work. Projects may include alternative space and online exhibitions of their photographs, blogs, and the production on an online-published portfolio/book of the strongest of their of experimental works. The class will combine lectures, screenings, group discussions, research, presentations, and photography/writing projects.

Students will work with different experimental approaches to art making and develop aesthetic strategies for engaging audiences. Students will learn to use digital still cameras and to work with editing tools including Lightroom 3 to produce individual and collaborative weekly projects. Each week, students will be assigned a project, or sketch, to help kick-start their creativity and/or break out of their creative comfort zones.

For one week students will experiment shooting using aperture priority mode and shallow depth of field, another week shutter priority and motion blur. You will shoot HDR images and composite them in Photoshop and stitch together panoramic photos. You will shoot at what photographers term the magic hour: sunrise and sunset, when the quality of light is very different, or magic. You will assemble a grid of photos shot with their cell phones and unified by post-production lightroom filter treatments.    
                    
Students will experiment in post-production in Lightroom to create various series of photographs: black and white, cross-processed, and desaturated. In addition you will learn to use the cutting-edge plug-in Color Efex Pro and onOnesoftware’s Photoframe to further enhance their images. Students will explore ways to combine their text and images in a provocative and compelling manner, then will produce a mid-term project that is the culmination of their experimentation.

Assessment: Students will be assessed through regular responses to the readings, screenings, lectures, midterm project, final project proposal and their final project culmination.

Learning Outcomes
LEARNING OUTCOME A: Learning digital languages:

Cameras: In this class, students will learn to use DSLR cameras, mobile devices and throwaway cameras to create weekly photographic sketches, a mid-term and final project, as well as an on-going blog.

Software: You will become sophisticated users of Adobe Lightroom 3.0, photo imaging and organizing software as well as Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit and enhance your photographs, and you will learn the use of digital imaging tools including scanners and BookSmart, the book publishing software at blurb.com. Learning will take place via classroom lectures, demonstrations, online tutorials at lynda.com, and discussions and critiques of the weekly projects that you will complete for the class.  

Printing: You will learn to prepare your images for printing, and use CSUSM's hi-end HP printer on the 2nd floor of the Kellogg Library, and you will research and use the commercial printing capabilities of online printers, or COSTCO, printer of choice!

LEARNING OUTCOME B: Critically analyze the artwork of others and your own
Through classroom lectures, discussion, screenings, and web research, you will explore contemporary digital artists and photographers, and their traditional and experimental uses of digital media. By viewing and discussing a broad range of artistic practices, you will learn how art making is a means to discover and develop your ideas about the world and to extend the power, clarity, and range of your voice and vision.

Contemporary Photographers: You will visit 2 of 3 photography exhibitions and write @250 words/one page about one artist from each exhibition on your blogs.

1. Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego La Jolla: JOHN BALDESSARI exhibition, opens Feb 4; more info to come

2. MOPA in Balboa Park: For those of you who haven't seen this exhibit, you need to head down to Balboa Park by Saturday, Feb 4 to see this great exhibition.
In terms of the class, this is the most important exhibition
See also Prix Pictet. Some of you have seen this exhibition. Those of you who have not, you're in for a treat. YOU MUST ATTEND SOON. EXHIBITION CLOSES FEB 5.

Infinite Balance: Artists and the Environment; October 11, 2011 - February 5, 2012
Infinite Balance is the first US presentation of artists shortlisted for the Prix Pictet, the world's top prize for photography and sustainability. The exhibition will showcase noted contemporary photographers from across the globe, including:

Christian Als
Benoit Aquin **
Sammy Baloji
Edward Burtynsky
Thomas Joshua Cooper
Susan Derges
Mitch Epstein **
Andreas Gursky
Naoya Hatakeyama
Chris Jordan
Nadav Kander **
Yao Lu
David Maisel
Edgar Martins
Michael Wolf

The exhibition brings together three years of internationally-acclaimed and award-winning photography, all set on addressing the issues of our changing world and sustainability. Infinite Balance will display works from the three themes that defined each year of the Prix Pictet, including Water, Earth and Growth

3. The Ordover Gallery at the
San Diego Natural History Museum
Best of Nature Show

January 10, 2012 through May 13, 2012
San Diego Natural History Museum, 4th Floor
1788 El Prado, Balboa Park
(858) 720-1121

LEARNING OUTCOME C: Using Digital Language and Tools/Creating Art Projects
You will create four projects over the semester:
Projects:
1. Blog: You will use your blog site for all thoughts, ideas, research, etc, on your project. This is the place for you to develop your ideas throughout the semester and to post your on-going projects and experiments. We will spend lots of time on developing your blogs, as this is your online portfolio

2. Weekly Photo Experiments uploaded to your blog for viewing online

3. Triptychs/Grid project: 3 prints or 3 images printed at Costco or elsewhere: minimum size of 16"" x 20"

4. Final Project: Series of large-scale photographs of your best work for the semester

Blog site: Throughout the semester you will keep a daily/weekly personal BLOG, aka an electronic portfolio, of your ideas, research, links drawings, photographs, etc. which will act a source for your creative process. You will write posts on all of the class presentations on your blog. I frequently will ask you to "freewrite" about the images and videos we are looking at in class, and then to share those thoughts with others after posting what you have written. In addition to the blog, you also will upload your photos on a photo-sharing site such as Flickr, and link your blog to Flickr and/or Facebook

Assessment:
Attendance
This course is conducted as a workshop: all students must participate actively and consistently. Much of the class will be devoted to the work of other artists and to the development and discussion of your projects. Part of your final evaluation will focus on your ability to respond thoughtfully to other students' artwork and your ability to work collaboratively with each other. For this reason, it is essential that you attend class regularly. I will take attendance at the beginning and at the end of each class. Class attendance and participation is mandatory!!! Two unexcused absences will result in lowering your final grade. Classroom Participation in discussions and helpful collaboration with your peers will account for 15% of your final grade.

Blogsite/Writing
The course includes the Visual and Performing Arts Department's Arts Events Attendance Requirement. You are required to ATTEND 2 exhibitions. On your blogsite, you will write an approximately one-page (250 words) narrative reflection about the work of one photographer from each exhibition.

You also will write about 2 photographers whose work inspires you. All of your writing should be in the form of a 1st person narrative about your reaction and relationship to the work or the online site. Again, each entry should be @ 250 words, or the equivalent of a page in Word.

Throughout the semester, you will use your blog to reflect upon and write about the artists we view in class and your ideas for your art projects, and your art process, etc. I am interested in the quality of YOUR think and reflections, your ability to make comparisons among the various artists we view.

My hope is that at the end of the semester, you will have a blog site you are proud of, and that can be used and/or expanded for a graduate school portfolio, job application in the industry, etc.

Projects
I am interested in the quality of your images; that is, your ability to perform key image edits and enhancements that we will cover. You will also be evaluated on the content of your images, the coherence and originality of your ideas.

Grading
30% Blog
25% Weekly Sketches
10% Triptychs
20% Final Project
15% Participation