Photography Challenge
I really like what you all are doing with the photography challenge! Your images show creativity, great imagination and good photographic composition. Many of you are going outside of the theme and prompting ideas for other themes - meaning that you're helping form what we're doing, which is awesome. There is something missing from this exercise and that is taking it to the next level. We are a small community of artists - we need to learn from one another. That means we need to share and discuss our work. That is why I wanted you to send me your images so that we can have a weekly conversation about what you're learning and discovering in photography. The only way we can have this discussion is to bring all of our images together so we can see and discuss the work. I'm going to try another way of getting that to happen on Monday during class. This week's theme is texture. Think fabrics, exteriors of buildings, animal fur or skin, tree bark, etc. - there are many possibilities - be creative. Make sure that your photos are shot before end of class on Friday and submitted. Fototime Site and Underclass Portraits Congratulations to everyone who helped shoot photos of our 9th through 11th grade students. I keep getting positive comments from others in the school who see what you're doing with these photos. You can tell that students outside our program are impressed with your work. I'm happy to tell you that the CAT Pickering Fototime web site is now open for business. When I look at the photos on these web pages I'm amazed and proud of what my students can do. Weekly Photo Challenge - this week's theme is framing. Research this theme by web searching the terms framing and photography. Photography School's website has some decent samples of what others have done. Your job is to take your own photo using the concept of framing and submit it to the instructor by this coming Friday - October 1st, 2010. Last week's theme entries can be found in the Student Sample Work page of our site. If you haven't submitted your circles entry please do so immediately.
Underclass Portrait Makeup and Retakes - this week we'll be trying to tie up all loose ends from last week's work. Congratulations to everyone who helped with taking portraits and managing the database we have created. Both parts were done with great care and expertise. You folks rock - these are the best portraits we've ever done and your dedication showed up big! Firstly - this week begins the big push to get a good portrait of every student attending CAT Pickering. Make sure that we are critiquing each image we shoot and don't hesitate to take more than one shot if necessary.
Second - I want to make sure all of you get a chance to take photos throughout the school year and I don't necessarily want them to always be taken with the yearbook in mind. This week we're going to start having a picture of the week assignment that follows a particular theme. This week's theme is circles. Every graphics student is responsible for taking one good presentable image that uses circles in its composition. For ideas, look at the entries in the Photography School website. Training Magazine surveyed over 1,000 workers on their feelings about their jobs and the results were interesting. Here is a segment of their findings:
No Retirement--Ever? Nearly two-thirds of working Americans seriously doubt they'll be able to ever retire, and while they are satisfied with their work, many fear taking time off from their jobs and feel disconnected from their companies, according to the StrategyOne Labor Day Public Opinion Survey of 1,043 Americans, including 613 who work either full- or part-time. Results include: The vast majority of 613 employed Americans who were surveyed describe themselves as satisfied with their jobs (82 percent) and report they get satisfaction from their work (80 percent). About three out of four (72 percent) also said they enjoy where they work and look forward to coming to work every day. An equally high percentages of workers said they feel respected by their bosses (83 percent) and feel their boss respects their work (82 percent). Co-workers also got high marks, with three out of four Americans (74 percent) saying their colleagues are among the best things about where they work. Some 64 percent believe that realistically they won't ever be able to stop working and retire. Almost half (46 percent) of workers have had their wages or salaries reduced over the last couple of years, and a similar segment are concerned about losing their jobs (44 percent) or having their hours cut back (48 percent). About four in 10 workers (37 percent) described themselves as underemployed and said they are not working as many hours as they would like because there is not enough work available at their current jobs. A similar percentage of workers (40 percent) said their bosses expect them to work extra hours without raises or additional compensation. The vast majority of the workforce (78 percent) described itself as working to live--compared to 22 percent who said work is their top priority in life. One-quarter of workers (26 percent) said they fear being fired if they take a day off, although nearly half strongly disagreed with that suggestion. Almost 82 percent of workers said they communicate well with their bosses, but 44 percent said their companies put corporate "values" on the wall that are mostly meaningless to them. What are your thoughts on this survey? What numbers surprise you? Do you think any of the findings may be incorrect or maybe misleading? Do you see any of these statistics changing with your generation - how so? Google email, docs and sites is now available for you to use. This collection of tools is really quite useful as it will allow you to collaborate on notes, contacting your teachers and just helping you stay organized this year. Here are the details for accessing your Google CAT Pickering accounts:
Students access the Google Site by pointing their browser to the appropriate link: http://mail.students.cciu.org http://calendar.students.cciu.org http://docs.students.cciu.org They will log in following this standard: Username: FirstnameLastname [note: use the names as they appear in PowerSchool with no spaces] Password: same password that students use to log into their laptops, PowerSchool and Moodle. If you're having a tough time trying to get something to work on your computer, I just found an awesome tool that will help you explain your dilemma to me. It's called Show Me What's Wrong and it allows you to make a recording of your computer so you can ask someone's advice on a problem. Below is a screen capture that will launch the site:
I'm excited to see all of our returning students and to meet our new students. There have been a few changes to our lab over the summer. We have a new screen printing conveyor dryer. Our in-lab photo studio is in its first year and we have quite an array of new photographic equipment - two new digital cameras, several new backdrops, new lighting stands, a reflection board two new portrait lenses and a few technique books for us to try to learn from. My expectation is that our portrait images will continue to get better this year.
I have tried to revise our class site as well. There is now a forum page that I will be asking you to contribute towards two or three times a week. Feel free to use this space as a way to share anything that you find relating to our class. You can start your own threads - keep them business related as much as possible or use the off-topic area. The calendar page is more complete and I will post due dates for all assignments out to this calendar. One area that will be changing quite a bit is our links page - I'm going to be asking all of you to start using a web-based linking system called Diigo. Diigo is a social bookmarking site and it serves a number of purposes. It allows us to save our links to sets - so you as a Diigo user could save your links for every class or special interest you might have. It also allows you to join groups. The link above will lead you to our group page - but I strongly encourage you to set up all of your links using Diigo. This way if you have a computer problem or hard drive explosion - all of your links will be safely residing in Diigo. It's also a great way to find links about topics that interest you. Like Facebook or Twitter you can follow people with the same interests as you. My reason for changing from a basic list to this is that it saves a lot of time. You'll love Diigo once you get used to it. I have one really cool project for all of us to work on this year. That strange looking square above my head on the right is called a QR Code (QR=Quick Response). They are very popular in Japan and Europe and are just starting to surface in the U.S. These codes are similar to UPC codes you see on every product at a grocery store, only they are capable of holding a lot more information. They can be used to launch a variety of media - they can launch a web page, a YouTube video, a song in iTunes or just to send a simple text message with your contact information. The codes can be read with any smart phone or a laptop with a media cam. One goal I have for this year is to create a tour of CAT Pickering's CTE labs using QR Codes. When someone visits our building they will be able to launch a movie about any lab that has the QR code in their window. I look forward to a great year - I have only one request and that is you show up every day willing and hungry to learn. Do me and yourselves a favor - get enough sleep to be energized when you're in our room! WOW! - you guys really impressed me with the sites that you shared! I recently asked you to show me the sites you use when you don't have access to CS4's Photoshop and Illustrator and the list of sites is interesting and for some tasks they make a lot of sense. I really think this is the way of the future - that software won't sit on your computer - but it will be part of how the web works. Here is the list that we came up with - please let me know if I have missed anyone's:
Today's assignment is a new design for the class of 2014 9th grade exploratory shirt. The design must have a couple of elements. They are as follows:
All designs should be executed in Adobe Illustrator on a landscape format letter-sized document. Our plan is to print either a one or two-side shirt, so the design can be broken into two parts if you wish. Please post your design to your notebook page at the end of the class and make sure to save your work at regular intervals. I'm sorry to not be there today - a slight health setback last night has me unable to drive. Today I want you to design a potential masthead for your portfolio site. We'll be using the tutorial link below as a basis for our design. Feel free to deviate from the tutorial if you think that it will help your design. The look we're going for in this design is a grunge look that looks clean. Click here to view the tutorial. When you are complete please post the finished art to your class notebook page. Heads up - the document size should be 1024 x 768 pixels! I've also attached a sample build file if you have problems with the tutorial. Remember that alt-click is option-click on the Mac. You will need the file below to use as a basic texture:
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Mr. TuckerMr. Tucker is in his 23rd year as the instructor for the Graphic Arts program. Prior to his teaching career he worked in the flexography industry for ten years and in quick printing for ten years. NEED HELP?Weebly Student Log-in Link
PHYS. ED. DAY
AM - Thursdays - 1 PM - Thursdays - 7 HEALTH DAY PM - Mondays - 7 Lake Photo
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