Period 1
Good morning class, welcome to the last Friday of the school year! As we swing into the weekend, I'd like to remind you to turn in your white balance photos if you haven't yet don so. The final thing to work on, the last assignment for the class, is bohke. Those significantly blurry background but focused foreground photos. While they aren't due until Tuesday, it never hurts to get rolling on them and get them done! Hope you have a fantastic weekend!


Period 4
Good afternoon photographers! Hope your Friday is off to a fantastic start. Nothing new for you today. Hope you are getting some great night photos! If you have any questions about the project, please don't hesitate to reach out! Have a wonderful Friday and enjoy the last weekend of the school year!


Period 5
Good afternoon Graphics class! Hope you're enjoying the final Friday of the school year! Unfortunately, even though it is Friday, I do have a video for you. This will explain how to bring the different elements of your project together to complete your poster. It's not tough to do, but I though I'd show you how just in case you weren't sure.  Take a look at the video and give it a try! Have a great weekend!

Period 1
Hello everyone, hope your day is off to a great start. Today I have a super short video for you to watch. It's a lesson on on more variable that you have on your side for exposure. The great thing about this one is that you really don't have to know anything about exposure to use it! And all cameras and camera apps have it! It's available in most camera apps on smart phones too. It's super easy to use in Lightroom in Auto mode, but it's also available in the pro mode too. You would start by making sure the exposure lock is unlocked (see exposure lock at right and then you can touch an area of the photo and drag your finger left or right on the above the selected area. Much easier in Auto mode though! Anyway, you  don't have to do anything with this to get credit, just thought I should share it with you! Have a great day!


Period 4
Good afternoon photographers! Nothing new for you today. I'm giving you time off. Instead, as it gets dark, you can take your camera out and play! Get some cool shots and have fun! Let me know if you have questions or problems! Hope you have a great day!


Period 5
Good afternoon everyone. Yesterday I told you to work on your logos. Today is simply a work day to finish your vectoring or add type. Tomorrow I will show you how to put everything together for your poster. If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out! Have a great day!

Period 1
Good morning everyone. Happy hump day! Hope it's been a good one so far. I'm not planning to mess it up by having you read or watch a video for my class! Today is just another work day for you to use to catch up back work or take those white balance photos that are due tomorrow. The last assignment for the class is to take some bohke shots. What are bohke shots? This site has some great examples! You don't have to read the info, but check out the shots. How do you do this? Take a look at the setting highlighted in yellow above. It's labeled as manual focus because aperture sets the area around which you focus. This is a really popular shooting style. I think you'll really like using this. I would like you to take 10 photos with a focused foreground and blurry background. A lot of times photographers will use this in shots of flowers, insects, and small things. Give it a try! It's not due until next Tuesday, but I'm giving you plenty of time to take the pictures and experiment. This is your last assignment!


Period 4
Hello all. Hope your having a great Wednesday. Yesterday I gave you a bunch of links to check out in preparation of our night photos. Today I am giving you more time to read or complete old assignments that you are behind on. Nothing new today, just plenty of time to get caught up and plan for your night photos. Have a great day!


Period 5
Good afternoon everyone. Hope your day has been great so far. The last few days we have focused on the picture of the product that your trying to sell. We took the photo, learned to upload it to Drive and make a selection of the photo. By now, hopefully you have turned the selection into a cutout. If so, that's all that you need to do with it for now. The next thing to do is vector the logo. The Mountain Dew logo if your selling Mountain Dew, the Cheeto's logo if your selling Cheeto's, whatever the product is, use Gravit and vector out the logo to go on your ad. Everyone's product should have a logo, even if it's just a unique type like Samsung's name without the line in the A.

So what are we doing today? Making that logo out of shapes, type, the pen tool... any of these tools that you have at your disposal. Take your time and make it look legit though! Just so you know, this poster ad is the last project for the course! It brings together everything that you have learned in the course, so take your time and make it your best work yet! Have a great day everyone!

 Period 1
Good morning! Hope you all had a great, long Memorial Day weekend! Man, was it nice to have some summer weather to enjoy the holiday. We're really coming down the home stretch now ladies and gentlemen! Just 5 more days (not including today). We really don't have a lot to do. Infact, we don't have any new Pixlr work to do. We have the white balance photos that I assigned on Friday (due Thursday) and one more picture taking assignment that I will introduce tomorrow (due Tuesday). That's it! Now the beauty of this plan is that it gives those of you that have a lot to do time to catch up on those missing assignments. Those of you that have everything done, you'll just have to take the pictures and your done with the class! Just think, one week from today we'll be saying goodbye and hopefully, if all goes well, see each other in person in the fall. So for today, nothing new. Just take those white balance photos and catch up on any back work that you may have. Hope you have a great day!


Period 4
Good morning camera geeks! Hope you had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend! Dang is it nice to actually feel like summer time when you step outside! Hope you had a chance to get out and enjoy some time in the sun! So our class is a little bit smaller now with the Seniors gone... course it doesn't feel much different since we can't be together anyway! The rest of us finish one week from today! One more week guys! First we have to complete the course though. There isn't much left to do. We are going to get into one of my favorite things to experiment with... night photography! This is a tricky one, particularly if your shooting on a smart phone. I have a bunch of links for you to check out. These will give you a good starting point for taking pictures at night.  This  link will discuss getting good exposure at night time.To learn about getting good focus at night time, read this link. If light trails in night photos sounds appealing to you, you can get some good info on how to do it by checking out this resource. Do you want to photograph the night sky... here you go. Want to get cool pics around Manchester or other well lit nightscapes? Check this out. Finally, one of the cooler things that you can do in night photos, light painting. I know this is a lot to read, but it covers a lot of the cool things that you can do in night shots and sets you up to get going in an area of photography that is more unique to shoot in. Please take today and read a few or all of these links if they all interest you. That's all I have for today! Hope you have a terrific day!


Period 5
Good afternoon everyone. Hope you had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend. I know, after the long weekend it's tough to get back into doing school work, especially when it's actually feeling and looking like summer outside! But... we are finished one week from today! That's it! And the only thing that we have to do yet for the class is complete your poster! So there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. On Friday I showed you how to make a selection. I even had you practice with the tools and do a practice selection. That's due today and you can turn it in here. If you have that completed, you can start making a cutout of your product. You don't have to turn that in separately on Schoology or anything, but you'll need to do it for your poster. That's all for today. Hope you have a great day!

Period 1
Happy Friday everyone! Just one more Friday left in the school year. Today I would like to talk a little bit about white balance. I have a lesson that I have made here for you to watch. It describes what white balance is, how it effects your shot and even how it can be used as a digital filter. This leads us right into your next photo assignment. I would like you to use white balance as a photo. Since white balance changes all the colors in a photo, you can use it as a photo filter to set a tone too. You saw some examples of this in the video that I linked above. How can I go about changing the white balance? Well, I really like Lightroom's app for any mobile shooting, so I'll show you with that. First take a look and the examples from past students just below.

So how do I do this magic in Lightroom? When you open the camera section of the app, you will see a pull down menu at the bottom left, just to the left of the shutter button. Click on the pull down and choose Professional. The screen shot on the left show an example of this. Professional will give you a bunch of options to change. One of these is AWB, meaning that currently the app is set to automatically choose a white balance hence the AWB symbol. Touch AWB and you'll see a bunch of crazy looking symbols show up at the bottom of the photo, just above the shutter, aperture and white balance icons. Touch any of these icons and you'll see the white balance change and all of the colors in the image change too. An example of these icon can be seen in the screenshot below.

Now that you know how to change white balance, I want you to experiment with these. Ideally, use a cool, cold filter on a sad, serious photo and a warming filter on a happy, fun photo. Play around with it and see what you can do! I would like you to turn in just 4 photos this time but be thoughtful about the filter and subject matter that you choose. That's all today. Enjoy the weekend and get away from screen for a little!


Period 4
Good morning and happy Friday! Last day of class for seniors too! There is nothing new for you today. I would just like you to upload your monochrome and color photos to Schoology today. As you upload these, take a look at the difference in the two. Notice again how bright colors look in the monochrome version. I truly believe that if you can master seeing the contrast that would be present in monochrome you will even be a better photographer when shooting color shots too. Seniors, it's been a pleasure to have you in class and see your work and have you in class again. I just wish it would have been under different conditions. Have a great week off and maybe I'll see you at some of the pick up events. Hope you all have a great Friday and an amazing Memorial Day Weekend!


Period 5
Hello and happy Friday everyone! It's Friday, the county opens up a little more today, and Memorial Day weekend! Things are looking up! So we talked yesterday about capturing and uploading photos for the poster. The next step is to take the photo and make a cutout of the object in the photo you shot. I have a video that describes the process, but I made it for my photography class. So if you hear me talk about a prop or something that doesn't make much sense for your project, its probably because I'm talking about something that doesn't apply to you! Before we get to the video, you'll need to use a website called Pixlr. It's free, it's easy to use and it's all described here. I would like you experiment with a practice photo first to get the hang of the tools before you go on to your actual photo. Once you've completed a practice selection and made a cutout of it, please upload it to Schoology to get credit for it. The video is in two parts. The first is here followed by the second part here. Watch the videos, try what it's telling you get a good practice cutout done, turn it in and step away from the Chromebook for three days! Have a great day and an awesome Memorial day weekend everyone!!!

Period 1
Good morning everyone. Hope all is well today. By the end of the day today your motion blur photos are due. Remember that these are photos with something blurred from movement while the rest of the shot is in focus. There is a lot of freedom in this assignment though as you can shoot anything school appropriate that is moving! Nothing new for today, just get those photos! Have a great day!


Period 4
Hello photographers. Hope your having a good day. I don't have anything new to introduce today so that you can use this time to shoot your gray scale and color photos. They aren't due until Friday night, so you have plenty of time to get creative and experiment with getting good contrast. Compose 10 photos and shoot a color and gray scale shot of each. Have a good one!


Period 5
Good morning everyone. Hope you are having a great day so far. Now that we have completed your planning for your poster it's time to start to actually create the elements that will go on the poster. We will start by taking the photo. To do this, obviously you will need the item (cookie, controller, DVD, etc.) and a spot where there is good lighting. Try to avoid having to use the cameras flash to get enough light as it will wash out the item and look less appealing. Maybe near a window, by some lights, even moving lights around temporarily can help you to get good light for your shot. Another bit of advice for you is to place the item on a solid colored surface and background. See, we will be selecting your item from the photo and making a cutout of it. A what?!? Take a look at the examples below:

 The photo on the left is my original shot. I then went into Photoshop, selected Derrick Williams, and cut him out so that he could be by himself in a file. This way he could go on my poster without seeing the background. If you scroll down through the blog, back to Tuesday's post you will see a slideshow of examples. There are cutouts of Mistos and Blendini's from Rita's, Orchid shoes, and Asic's track shoes. If the background is a simple one color background (that isn't the same color as the item) it will be much easier to make the selection. So there's my advise for you. Take a picture with a simple, one color background and good lighting.

Once you have the photo, do not email it to yourself! This will lower the resolution as email compresses it. If you have have Google Drive installed on your phone, select the picture from your camera roll, and upload the shot to Google Drive. If you use iOS, this video will show you how to do this. If you are on the good team, team Android, this video will show you how to upload the photo to drive. That's all for today. Let me know if you have any questions!

 Period 1
Good morning photographers. Nothing new for you today, just more time to work on your motion blur photos. Remember that you need to have 10 photos. While there should be some blur in the shot, there also has to be part of the image in focus. Just play with the shutter speed and use a moving subject like the photo to the left. If you are having trouble, email me! While they aren't due until the end of the day tomorrow, don't wait until the last minute! If you try today and have trouble, email me and I'll try to help. If you wait until the last minute there's no time for help! Have a great day!


Period 4
Good afternoon everyone. Happy hump day! Hope it's been a good one so far. Yesterday we talked about shooting gray scale shots. We discussed that when shooting for grayscale bright colors aren't important, it's strong contrast. It's difficult to see strong contrast just when looking at things so this is where camera gray scale comes in. I would use it to see contrast. After awhile of shooting your eyes will look at subjects and just naturally see the the contrast even though your looking at it in color. Now that we have talked about shooting in grayscale, I would like you to shoot some gray scale photos. I actually want you to shoot in both color and grayscale. This way you can see for yourself the difference between color and gray scale, just like the room with the bright red curtain in the video from yesterday. So set up for 10 photos, but I want you to shoot a color and gray scale shot of each photo. for a total of 20 pictures. You have time to get these shots though as they are not due until Friday. Seniors, this will be the last project that you have to do! Have a great day today!


Period 5
Good afternoon class. Hope all is well today. Yesterday we worked on thumbnails for your poster. Today I would like you take your favorite thumbnail and develop it into a rough. This should be full size... the size of a sheet of computer paper. It should have more detail as everything that you'll have on the poster should be on the rough. Take your time and make it look the way you want it to as it will be your blueprint for building the file in Gravit. Don't forget the it has to include a photo of the product so keep this in mind as you build the rough. Let me know if you have any questions! Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!

BTW... If you missed it yesterday, I made a slide show of some more poster ads that former students have made. Check them out below.

Period 1
Good morning guys. Hope all is well and that your morning is off to a good start. Today I have a photo challenge for you. This one is a little more challenging because you'll have to do some experimenting and thinking about what you can do for the shot. I want you to use motion blur. This means using a slow shutter speed and something in motion. The photo shouldn't just be a blurry mess though! Something should be in focus. You could do this by panning, or by having a still subject while others are moving. It makes for some really cool pictures. Even if you just use cars driving by, you can make this work! So the camera app that you installed and played with yesterday will be necessary for this. As I said earlier, you'll have to slow down the shutter speed. I can't tell you what shutter to use as that depends on the light where you're shooting. This is what I mean when I say this will require some experimenting. Something should be in focus, something should be blurred and the photos shouldn't be too light or dark in exposure either. Since I'm giving you a challenge, I'm going to give you extra time to take these pictures! Don't wait until the last minute though! My idea is to give you time to take take photos and experiment but also to email me if you have questions! If you wait until the last minute to take your photos, you won't have time to reach out if you are having trouble! So, these photos are not due until the end of the day Thursday. That's all that I have for today.


Period 4
Good afternoon everyone. Hope your having a great day so far. Today we are going to bet into black and white photography. You may have strong feelings one way or the other about monochrome shots, but no matter which side of the fence you're on, we're going to explore it more today. This video will walk you through it. For today, simply watch the video. That's all for today! Hope it's an excellent day!


Period 5
Good afternoon designers. Hope all is well today. Now that you know the underlying concepts behind design, you are going to make your own design! Of what you may be wondering. You are going to make a poster to advertise a physical product; something that you have at your house and can take a picture of. I'm not asking you to go by a new PS4 so that you can take a picture of it and use it for your project... although maybe that's a way to have your parents get you one! No, the goal is to advertise something that you have and is available to you . We are going to include a photo on your poster so please make sure that it is something that you have access to. For this project everything on your poster must be yours! By that I mean you can't pull the logo, photo, background etc. from the web and throw it on your poster! The logo has to be vectored by you. We will include a photo... taken by you. Anything on the poster is created by you. I have added a slideshow of some ads that students have made in the past at the bottom of this post. Check them out!

Today we will get started by choosing a product (remember that we're in school, sort of, so it has to be appropriate) for you to make a poster for. Make sure it's something that you have around the house, and preferably in good condition. No one wants to buy a TV with a shattered screen! Then let the brainstorming begin! If you are advertising The Office box set, brainstorm things from the show that would make sense to use on a poster. Like what? A huge stack of paper, a water cooler, coffee mug, desk plate like they use in the intro, paperclips, cork board with push pins and paper, desk chair... you get the idea right? Once you've created that list, start to draw some thumbnails. Once you've completed 4 of them, take a picture of them and upload it here. That's all for today, hope you have a great day!

Period 1
Good morning everyone. Hope you enjoyed the weekend. When we left off Thursday I had you reading some more about shutter and aperture and answering two brief questions about them on Schoology. Today we are going to start to experiment with this exposure stuff. You hopefully now feel pretty familiar with the exposure pyramid. You should know what shutter, aperture and ISO are and how they contribute to exposure. Now it's time to step away from auto mode and make use of these. What I would like you to do today is find and experiment with a smartphone camera app that allows you to change aperture, shutter and ISO. One that works on both Android and iOS is Adobe's Lightroom. It is also a photo editor, but The most important feature for us is the camera app that allows yo to experiment with the exposure parameters. Now of course there are others, some free, some paid. I could care less what you choose to use. Just install the app, experiment by snapping some pictures with it and see what you think. I don't have anything that I need you to do on Schoology for this. You're on the honor system again! Have a great day!


Period 4
Good afternoon photographers. Big week for some of you... the last week of your tenuire at Northeastern! I'm so sorry we can't be celebrating this together. This marking period has been such a bummer. I'm sorry that your year has gone down this way. Let's think of the positives here though. The last week of your senior year! Today is the last day to take and turn in your motion photos. With that in mind, we aren't going to do anything new today so you can complete the pictures if you have not yet. Have a great day!


Period 5
Good afternoon everyone. Hope you had a great weekend and had a chance to enjoy the weather Friday and Saturday. It was nice to actually feel like summer is approaching! On Friday I assigned an ad critique that's due today. If you would prefer to simply type it out, great! Just make sure that it's at least 12 sentences, explains how it uses each of the 6 principles, and whether or not they used it well. There is no right or wrong as long as you explain your stance. I also gave you the option to make a video instead. Same criteria applies but make sure it's at least 2 minutes. When it's complete, upload it here. That's it for today! Have a good one!

 Period 1
Good morning. Today we are going to continue on in our exploration of exposure. Yesterday you read about the Exposure Pyramid and ISO. Today we are going to dive deeper into aperture and shutter. Once you're done reading, I have a simple question that I would like you to answer on Schoology to earn credit for the day. Don't forget that tomorrow is Friday so your Positivity photos are due tomorrow. Other than turning them in I'm giving you Friday off! No new lessons, I'm not even assigning a new photo project at this time. I have been hammering you with reading so I'm going to take it easy on you and give you off Friday! Get outside and enjoy the nice weather. We'll talk again Monday!


Period 4
Hello everyone. I am giving you today to work on completing your Triptych. Just make sure that you turn it in on Schoology by the end of the day. I can't wait to see what you have come up with! Tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous so I'm going to give you the day to get outside away from your Chromebooks and take some pictures. Of what you ask... I want you to use motion blur. This means using a slow shutter speed and something in motion. The photo shouldn't just be a blurry mess though! Something should be in focus. You could do this by panning, or by having a still subject while others are moving. It makes for some really cool pictures. Even if you just use cars driving by, you can make this work! That's it for today and tomorrow! Enjoy some well deserved weather and time away from the screen! Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday!


Period 5
Good afternoon class. Hope you're Thursday has been good. Yesterday I had you watch two videos on how advertisements had used the 6 Principles of Design. Not the most enthralling thing you've ever seen I'm sure, but it's going to be helpful for our next assignment. I would like you to find an ad. It could be from the newspaper, a magazine, or online. It will work best if it's a full page print ad though because there is more to talk about that way than if there is a small web ad that exists on the side of an article. As you look you your ad, try to find one that you think uses the P.O.D.'s pretty well. Once you have found that add, I would like you to do the same thing that I have done in both the Listerine and Chips Ahoy videos. Explain how they have used each principle and whether or not you think it is well used. There is no wrong answer as long as you explain why you think what you think. How will you do this? I like to use Screencast-o-matic. They have an app for Chromebooks that is dead simple to use. Here's a video the company made on using it. Ignore their method of install as you will have to go get the app like you would any Chromebook app. their method of installing There are other apps that you can use if you'd rather. Don't like the video option? That's cool. You can write it up instead. If it's video I expect it to take at least 2 minutes to explain everything (probably more though actually). If it's written I expect something at least 12 sentences in length. I'm fine either way! I'm giving you plenty of time to do this (partially so that you can take tomorrow off, get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather) as it's not due until the end of Monday. Let me know if you have any questions!