New Leslie Alsheimer Book on Black and White Photography and Photoshop CS4

Two years ago I recommended Alsheimer's wonderful and thorough book for perfecting black and white digital photography, enhancing in Photoshop, while also managing your photos with Lightroom.  You can read the original review here.

There is now an updated edition for CS4 and the latest Lightroom. If you think there can't be much you can do with creating digital black and white images, you need to read this book.  If you have a gazillion photos on your hard drive, but haven't tried Lightroom yet, it's time you do (and read this book). I love Lightroom not just because of it's organizational abilities, but it's sophisticated photo adjustments (called aptly, "developing") are often all I need. Asheimer's insights into the art of digital black and white photography should lead you to some exquisite images.

Paraphrasing Alsheimer, you will need to awaken your inner geek for some of the content, but she does a great job of making you feel at ease if you don't quite get it the first time. There are chapters that I have to reread because I don't always remember all the technical info. But, her style of writing is very comfortable and refreshing, and the book is very well edited and designed, so I never feel overwhelmed or bored reading it.

Photography Project Ideas

Digital-Photography-School.com has a forum where folks propose assignment ideas, like "Ghetto Lighting" (using everyday lighting like a desk lamp or flashlight), minimalism, eyes, rivers, shadows, self portraits, feet, etc.

At the end of a school year I asked students to type me a little note about what they liked/didn't like about the class. I only had handful of students take the time to do so. One said there were too many projects to complete, and another said she wished I had more assignments because when she finished early she was bored. So, I think I'll make a folder of extra lesson ideas for "If you Finish Early"... or something like that. I'll get some of the ideas from this website.

One of the assignments was "From the Hip". The most exciting one was actually, "Above the Head". I'll think I'll "steal" that idea. It forces students to try different angles and adds some mystery, since you can't see your LCD or viewfinder. Maybe I'll make it one of the steps in an "Overhead Point of View" assignment. Sounds like fun to me.

Also, check out their Digital Photography Tips section with topics like: 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits.

How to Start a Digital Photography Class

One reader left a comment asking for helpful hints for starting a digital photography and video class.

I also had to start the digital photography class for our county and I was feeling lost until I purchased John Hedgecoe's Photography Basics and his New Manual of Photography (mentioned earlier in this blog "Essential Photography Books"). I basically had my students do projects based on finding shapes, line, pattern, texture, light direction etc. as he suggests in his books. He also covers topics, like flowers, portraits, etc. Then I would add project ideas that I would get by reading other books and keeping up with online sites. (I've mentioned several in earlier entries in this blog.) John Hedgecoe also wrote a great book on filmmaking that I had in college, but I haven't checked if it is still in print, or if he has a video version. I only teach one unit on video using iMovie and I mention good video examples for a starting point in an earlier entry.

I think the key is to remember that you are approaching digital photography and video as art instruction. There are so many digital photographers and Photoshop experts who do not have a background in art and you can tell from their writing that they approach it as a technology challenge, not an art challenge. In my blog I try to focus on the ones who approach it as an artist. So, be careful what books you buy and what websites you read. Remember to cover the art elements and principles of design as well as the concept and purpose of expression. I make the technology part secondary, and they learn it as they go, not all at once.

I always start the year with a History of Photography lecture based on http://masters-of-photography.com (the dashes are important because there is another site without them). That site not only has examples but great articles about each photographer explaining their approach and motivation. It helped me remember a lot from college history of photography classes as well (a long time ago). The students love that lecture because they feel like peeping toms to the past. And, of course, if you have to justify that you tie other subjects into your art classes, well, this one is easy since so much of our nation's history is documented in these photos. Since I love history, I ask them to tell me what they know about the subject of the Dust Bowl, the Industrial Revolution, etc. that they see evidence of in the photos.

I try to introduce visual ideas during the lecture. For example, looking at Dorthea Lange, tell her story but also ask questions: "Did she ask her subjects to smile?" "What angle to the subject was she when she took this?" "What would have happened if she had stood 10 feet to the left? The diagonal line would have become horizontal and that is no where near as interesting." etc. This lecture is important because it helps make the students more comfortable with what I am expecting, before they ever have to turn in a project. Before I give them their first assignment, they already have a sense of the big idea of photography as an art form, that it is as much about the composition and lighting as it is about the subject, and that there is a boring way to represent the subject and a more intriguing way. It helps them understand the difference between snapshots and photography as an art form.

I highly recommend buying the two Hedgecoe books . They made my life a lot easier when I was asked to write the digital photography curriculum and my last photography class had been in the 70s.

Also, my first digital photography shooting projects of the year are: Photographing a Subject from Several Angles, and Shadows as the Subject (this one helps them think abstractly about big shapes instead of the subject). When school starts up again, I will show student examples of these early projects.

Focal Press Book: Black and White in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom

This is now on my list of highly recommended books for digital photography educators. Leslie Alsheimer has a wonderful, comforting, sometimes lighthearted tone to her writing. Her ability to communicate shows that she is an experienced teacher. She teaches digital photography workshops in Santa Fe. And she is a very inspiring photographer as well. She obviously took great care in preparing every chapter and choosing every photo. This is a book by an artist, not just someone who has expensive equipment and likes to take photos and work in Photoshop.

I have not only improved the quality of my own photography after reading this book, but I find myself remembering many of her tips when the time comes to approach a subject with my students. If you are an intermediate to advanced user of Photoshop, you will still find new ideas here. I especially appreciate that she starts right off by discussing workflow instead of making it an afterthought.

I had trouble putting the book down. And when I was done, I realized I had learned as much about color digital photography as black and white. You don't necessarily need the CS3 version to use this information, and Lightroom is a small part of the process.

By the way, I love Lightroom. How in the world did I manage all my photos before?

Teens Take Over the Commercial Photography World

The commercial photography industry should just hire our students. I just brought in some low-end studio lights (all I had were two) and some black fabric for our backdrop. All I did was demonstrate the effects of aiming the lights different ways, tell them to use a tripod, suggested the occasional tissue paper filter and showed them how to use the reflector. They took to the job like pros, bossing each other around. "OK, look sad...no like your sister just died...no, like you're a drug addict whose whole family died... Great. OK, now, flirt with the camera..." Where are they learning this stuff? Must be a reality show. They even put on airs and talked with accents.

Here are just a few student examples. If you want to buy some studio lights and backdrop holder, look at websites like BHphoto, or maybe ebay. You don't need the expensive stuff, just the basic: lights with soft light filter, backdrop holder and a reflector is nice (or you can make one out of aluminum foil). Does anyone else have any studio style shots to share with us?

Sequential Art Project

My digital photography students have enjoyed a sequential art project where they turned a story idea into photos, the photos into comic-book style art and then created a few pages of a comic book. Above is an example of a frame I did. The steps are pretty easy:

1. Open a photo in Photoshop and adjust it in Image>Adjustment>Levels so that you have no more than about 15% as shadow areas, paying particular attention to reducing dark shadows in key areas, like faces. (Unless you are going for the dark, mysterious, detective style of comic art).
2. Unlock the background layer.
3. Filter>Sketch>Stamp (make sure the default colors are black and white).
4. Select>Color Range. Choose the white. Then hit delete to make all the white areas transparent.
5. Make a new layer UNDER the stamp layer.
6. Paint on the bottom layer, so that the color shows under the black and transparent stamp image.
7. Add your talk bubbles on separate layers so you can move, flip or scale them. (Talk Bubbles are hiding in the library menu for freeform shapes: choose the shape tool, in the top toolbar choose the freeform shape, choose the arrow at the top for the library of more shapes you can add, find TalkBubbles). Type your dialog using a comic-book style font.

(Some students experimented with other filters to create a slightly different illustration style.)

My students started with a story board sketch. After the above steps they placed them on a new page and added black boxes behind each frame (to look like black borders) and made a title frame.

This idea has so much potential. It's a way to add story-telling into your curriculum. The original idea actually came from an English teacher at my school who had attended a workshop on incorporating sequential art making as a form of storytelling.

Comic Life is a sequential art-making software that has layout templates, style filters, comic-style fonts, i.e. short cut software perfect for this project. This software came free with iMacs for awhile (not sure about this year's iMacs), but is very inexpensive to purchase: http://plasq.com/comiclife So, if you are collaborating with an English teacher who doesn't know much about Photoshop, Comic Life may be the perfect answer.

Solarizing Digital Photos

This is one of the easiest projects to do. I throw it in between a couple very difficult projects to give my students a breather. There always a few that say, "Of all the projects we've done this one is my favorite!" And then I think something like, "But, I put a lot more work into some of the other projects." You could also do it near the beginning of the year, but you might be glad to have something easy and fun to do in the middle of the winter blahs.

These examples were done by two of my students. I included two versions of the eye so you can see the differences determined by what blending mode you choose. The top eye photo started with normal, natural colors, but this process shifted the colors and added interesting textures in the shadow areas.

Its so easy I can tell you how to do it right here:
1. Choose a well-composed color digital photo and open it in Photoshop.
2. Copy the layer and name the top layer "Solarize" (On the Layers palette, drag your layer over the little icon to the left of the little trash can.)
3. Filter>Stylize>Solarize (make sure the fill and opacity are at 100%)
4. Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and play with the sliders to get interesting effects.
5. Now play with the Blending Mode choices (on the Layers palette) to blend the two layers together in interesting ways. It's ok if you think "normal" is actually the best one.

Have your students do it to two different photos so that they remember the steps.

If you were not at my workshop and would like the handout with all the visuals (example and screenshots), email me.

Not Cheesy

Last week, one of my students was looking through one of the many Photoshop wow-'em books I have in the classroom. We have actually done some of the projects. The student said, "You know Mrs. Pfeiffer, a lot of these examples are really cheesy. They actually aren't very good." She wasn't trying to make herself look superior, she was just giving me her honest opinion. I wanted to say, "Yea, sometimes I think you don't need much actual art training to publish a book on making art on the computer, these days." But, I just said something like, "Yea, I bet you can do better than him..."

So, today I went into Barnes and Noble and just as I was about to give up finding a truly inspiring book, I found this: Creative Photoshop: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques, by Derek Lea. I would say as a whole, it is for advanced students who have taken 2D art classes as well, but you can teach parts of his involved projects to beginners. I find it very inspiring and I suspect it is very appealing to hip young visual culturally literate teens and college students. My 14-year-old has already spied it and said "OH COOL!" and is actually sitting down and really studying it. I haven't shown it to my 20-year-old who is majoring in Communications Design in college. I think he'll say the same thing...or maybe "Awesome". Three-quarters of the book is more appropriate for a computer graphics, or advanced 2D class than for digital photography, because it is mostly illustration, but some of it does involve photography.

Derek Lea is a popular illustrator, not just a computer nerd who likes Photoshop, so this is real eye candy. Here's a link to the book in the Amazon-run bookstore I arranged for us:

Layers Project

This is always a favorite project with my students because there are always surprises and many creative possibilities.

In Photoshop, the student copies the layer and then applies a different filter to each layer. Then he uses the blending modes to find the best blend. He adds a new empty layer for some Photoshop brushes (I suggest a new layer for each brush). I require that the students do the project twice (with two different images, of course) so that they really explore the possibilities. Also, when learning Photoshop, I've found that doing a project twice makes the process stick in your long-term memory better and, of course, pushes the level of quality up, since during the second attempt they are more fluent and fluid.

If you are on my email list, I will be sending you the handout for this.