Final Project Rubric

Your art making techniques and use of media/Photoshop tools is proficient ___ /20

Your imagery/subject is original, complex, and clearly shows a connection to the over all theme and concepts of the project ___ / 20

Your use and application of the elements and principles is strong and deliberate ___ / 20

You created a dyanmic composition(s) by considering the positive and negative space, breaking the picture plane, point of view, and placement of images. ___ / 20

Total Points ___ / 80

Graphic Design Final Project

For the last Graphic Design project, you will apply some of the concepts and techniques you’ve learned and practiced throughout the year. Take a minute to read this brief list of things we’ve done this year:

·         Photoshop techniques – filters, image adjustments, magic wand, clone stamp, color, brightness and contrast, transform, etc

·         Working with text, text-as-image

·         Combining text and image

·         Changing and manipulating hand-drawn images in Photoshop

·         Staged photography, high contrast lighting

·         Digital collage, cutting parts of images to create a new images 

·         Appropriating images

·         Different angles and compositions when taking pictures

·         Enhancing and manipulating photographs in Photoshop

THE PROJECT CHOICES

·         Design a digital work of art illustrating an important milestone or event in your life not including a typical event such as a birthday, first day of high school or getting your driver’s license. Try to think of something important that is not normally recognized and then visually convey this in a work of art.  

·         Create a series of 6-8 photographs that tell a story. The goal is to convey a narrative entirely with pictures. You can stage the photographs and ask your friends and family to be in the pictures. Think about way that the setting, backgrounds, action and emotion of the people in the pictures an help tell the story.

·         Choose and research a social or political topic that interests you. Create two pieces utilizing both text and image. You may take your own pictures, find pictures or use a combination of both. The pieces should be visually different but fall under the same concept or issue.

·         Create 2 digital collages that visually convey opposite ideas such as old and new, past and present, love and hate, etc. Develop your concept and begin looking for images on-line that could represent your ideas and create a visual paradox.

Before getting started on your project, you must complete a project proposal consisting of 3-5 sentences explaining your ideas and plans for the project. This can be written on a scrap sheet of paper and handed in to Ms. Boban.

There will be no Graphic Design final exam. Instead, this project will serve as the final.

The Eccentric Figure- Creating 3 Images

Now that you have taken a bunch of images of your figure, it is time to edit, manipulate and experiment in Photoshop. You may crop, zoom-in, adjust colors, increase contrast, create a background and see what happens when you apply filters. It is your time to play and become familiar with Photoshop again by making changes to 2 of your images.

• Each image should be a different view or should show a different part of your figure
• 1 image-  no adjustments or cropping
• 2 images- play in Photoshop
• post all 3 images on your blog (no words or statement necessary)

The Eccentric Figure

The focus of this project is to create a unique and contemporary representation of the figure using photography. Utilizing Daniel Gordon’s photographic technique in which he creates sculptural collages of eccentric and abstracted figures, you will create your own figures utilizing found and taken photographs. Your constructed figure will then be photographed using lamps to create shadows and high contrast in the images.

Getting started:

1.       Gather at least 30 pictures depicting people

·    Collect as least 10 pictures of humans on the internet- get a range of faces and different body parts.

·    Collect as least 10 pictures from magazines

·    Take at least 10 pictures of people with your camera- you can photograph, yourself, friends, family, etc.

2.   Print all of these images in color

3.   Construct your figure using parts or pieces from at least 10 of the pictures (you can always use more). Although you are working with 2D images, build the figure to stand and have dimension.

4.   Plan your background. Will you create the background by hand? Find images on –line? Or use your own photograph?

5.   Photograph the figure using lamps to create high contrast and shadows in your images.

Photographs by Daniel Gordon

Photography Vocabulary

Candid Photography
focuses on spontaneity rather than technique, on the immersion of a camera within events rather than focusing on setting up a staged situation or on preparing a lengthy camera setup.

Arthur Fellig, WeeGee

Accident 42nd Street at Third Avenue, 1942

Lovers with 3D glasses at the Palace Theater, 1943

Summer, the Lower East Side, 1943

Photojournalism
journalism that tells a story through pictures, instead of presenting news material through editing and writing . Photojournalists are thought to take pictures that are objective and neutrally charged with no specific underlying opinion.

Dorothea Lange
FSA Photographer

Migrant Mother, 1936

Documentary Photography
refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people.

Stephen Shore

U.S. 2, Ironwood, Michigan, July 9, 19731973 - 2002

Ginger Shore, Causeway Inn, Tampa, Florida, Nov. 17, 19771977-2004

Wolf Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 10/28/75

Street Photography
a type of docmentary photography that features subjects in candid situationswithin public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, polictical settings and other settings.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/triangle-fire-a-frontier-in-photojournalism/

Here is a short list of documentary photographers that you may research for your report.

Documentary Photographers

FSA (Farm Security Administration) 1930’s

Walker Evans

Dorothea Lange

Russell Lee

John Vachon

Marion Post Wolcott

Robert Frank

Gerry Winogrand

Lee Friedlander

Diane Arbus

Martha Rosler

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz

Joel Meyerowitz

Berenice Abbott

Jim Goldberg

Nan Goldin

Lauren Greenfield

Lewis Hine

Mary Ellen Mark

Steve McCurry

James Nachtwev

Gordon Parks

Eugene Richards

Jim Richardson

W. Eugene Smith

Peter Sekaer

Sally Mann

Daniel Lorenzetti

Hey, Remember These? Interaction of Text & Image

Time for You to Blog!

In an effort to see all the images you create in our digital photography unit, you will create a blog specifically for Graphic Design to show your artwork. A blog is a way for you to share your artwork with friends and other people. It's also a way for you to organize your work, see improvements and build a portfolio. You will keep and update your blog at different points in the semester when assignments are due and this will be the way that you turn in your assignments from now on.

Here are two blog sites I have used:

blogger.com - very basic, need to set up a gmail account to get started

tumblr.com- more design options, easy to use

Your assignment today is to finish editting your 7 images. Utilize Brightness/Contrast, Levels, and Curves to achieve a range of values. You may also experiment to achieve natural-looking colors using Color Balance. When you have made your changes to your images, save them as jpegs.

Then post your pictures on your blog with the title 7 Views of Jones as the title. You may give titles to your individual images if you want.