Thursday, October 30, 2014

Attendance and Posting

Hi Everyone,

As you probably know, I am required to take attendance twice per week.  I use posts to the blog as the evidence you are participating in class.  The college requires me to do this and if a student misses 4 attendance checks, they are administratively withdrawn from the class.  It is a strict policy to help avoid future issues with student loan default, etc.

I like to see your work posted by midnight on Sunday for the week's work. This week that means a short bio and inventive self portrait and evidence of comments on other students posts. If I see comments but no new work in a week, that would be 1 absence out of 2.

Remember that you can come to see me at school or call me at home if you need help getting started.

The expectation is that you will go shooting every week, about 50-100 shots, then edit them down to your best 5-10 images that are edited for focal point and light.  Post your work here.  Get into the rhythm and you will learn much along the way.

For next week, I'd like you to shoot in an urban or town environment, moving in close and looking for interesting light and geometry.

Best Wishes......


Sunday, October 26, 2014

Welcome to Digital Photography I

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 27 until December 16 . 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.

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 is the preferred editing software.  You can get 2 months free (the duration of the class)... the latest version is Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud) and is available here. If you have used up your Photoshop trial from another class you can use  Picasa3 software that is free from Google.  This is a fairly comprehensive image editing and organizing program.  It makes finding, opening, editing, posting to the blog, printing, emailing, etc.... your photographs extremely easy and there isn't the steep learning curve associated with Adobe Photoshop CC. Photoshop can also be licensed for $9.99/month for a year.  If you have Photoshop and enjoy using it then by all means continue to use it.  You will do just fine with Picasa3 though.

This first week, we must iron out all of the technical issues to be sure that everyone is 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.   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