Period 1
Happy Hump Day all! Hope it's off to a good start for you. Yesterday you watched a video by me talking about exposure. I explained the three main contributors to exposure: aperture, shutter and ISO. I discussed what each do, and even how the effect your shot. It's important to understand that each time you touch a subject on the screen in your smartphones camera app it not only focuses on that spot, but it chooses these the correct stop for each of these three parameters. It does this all super quick and rather efficiently as your pictures are usually quite great without you doing any more to the shot. It's quite remarkable actually! I would like to dig a little deeper into this tripod of parameters. I'd like you to read this article about the Exposure Triangle. There are a few metaphors in the article that may help you to remember what each component does and how it effects your shot. I would like to to slowly dig a little deeper into ISO with this article. My hope is that if my examples and explanation in my video yesterday don't make a lot of sense, maybe the articles will. I find sometimes things don't make sense when explained one way, but if said another way by someone else it suddenly clicks. If nothing more it will help to reinforce the concept! After reading, I'd like you to go on to Schoology and tell me which on the three metaphors for exposure components you prefer and why.That's it for today. Enjoy the rest of the day!


Period 4
Good morning everyone. Hope your Hump Day is going well. Today we are going to start to put your triptych together in Pixlr. The first step is to make sure each of your photos are the same aspect ratio and orientation. Chances are that since they were all shot with the same device they are the same aspect ratio, but you may not have shot them at the same orientation. This video will walk you through the process of adjusting these in Pixlr. After that's done, the next thing is to put all of the photos together. This video will explain how to go about this. It's not too difficult and the video will really make it easy. Your completed triptych is due by the end of the day tomorrow so you have some time to perfect it. 


Period 5
Good morning everyone. Yesterday we went over the Principles of Design. These size principles will help you to make make your designs more legit and effective. Now that you know what these principles are, I'd like you to watch these two videos in which I analyze how two separate ads use the P.O.D.'s in their design. Once you click on the link you'll be prompted to enter a password. The site's password is thunder in all lowercase letters. You'll see two videos. One about a Listerine ad and the other about a Chips Ahoy cookie. Please watch these two critiques. I'm not giving you a task to complete when you're done. You're on the honor system! That's all for today. Have a great day!

Period 1
Good morning class. Hope things are good today. We've focused a lot on building photos and editing them. What we haven't talked about is how to the camera makes all the magic happen. I have a video that I made for you to watch today. It is in 2 parts and the second is here. Now I have to warn you that it's a bit long and toward the end it gets a little heavy when we start to mix it all three components together, but this is just a starting point. We will dive deeper into these throughout the week as we try to wrap your head around the concept exposure and the three legs of it's tripod. Once you've watched the video, I would like you to go to Schoology and find the Exposure Basics Video assignment. There I would like you to tell me what each of the three components of exposure are and how each effect your shot. Pretty easy way to earn 5 points! Have a great day everyone!


Period 4
Hello camera geeks. Happy Tuesday to you. Nothing new for you today in terms of lessons or or assignments. Yesterday I introduced the triptych assignment and asked you to take some pictures and gave you 2 days to take them. Today is the second day so tomorrow we will use them in your triptych. Try to have your photos taken and ready for tomorrow! Have a great day guys!


Period 5
Good morning everyone. Hope all is well. Today we are going to move on from type. I hope you feel like you know a lot more about type than you did at the start of the class. We aren't going to just forget about all of that info, as it's pertinent  to any time we use type! However we are going to get into some new territory today. We are going talk about layout and design and the principles behind what makes a good design. Often when we look at an ad, poster, or album cover we know if something looks good. We know that it's well designed, or is a little jenky looking, but aside from just liking the band or the colors, you might not know what it is that really makes it look good. There are underlying rules that will help to make a design more appealing. That's what we are going to learn about today. These concepts aren't really complex, certainly nothing like trig or calculus concepts, but they are very helpful to design. Please watch this video. It's nothing fancy, but it discusses 6 principles behind good design. When your done, simply go onto Schoology and look for the POD Video assignment. In it, I would simply like you to tell me which of the 6 principles is most interesting to you and why. That's all for today, make it another great one!

Period 1
Good morning everyone. Hope you had a fantastic weekend and that all is well at home. I was just planning ahead and realized that we only have 16 more school days together! That's crazy isn't it? But looking back at what we've done, you have really learned a lot already! Certainly not as much as we would have if we were meeting face to face for 80 minutes a day, but I'm really proud of you for what you've accomplished... especially for doing it through an entirely new style of learning that none of us asked for! We're really making it happen. If we were at school I'd have brought in donuts for all of you today to celebrate the fact, but you'll have to settle for a digital pat on the back!

Anyway, today is simply a work day. You can work on work on completing your color for emphasis project today. It's due today so when you've completed it, upload it to Schoology so you can receive credit for it. Remember that the more legit the selection is, the more legit the project will be and the better the grade it will earn! If you have problems with it, just email me! Have a great day y'all!


Period 4
Good morning everyone. Hope you had a fantastic weekend and that all is well at home. I was just planning ahead and realized that we only have 16 more school days together! That's crazy isn't it? But looking back at what we've done, you have really learned a lot already! Certainly not as much as we would have if we were meeting face to face for 80 minutes a day, but I'm really proud of you for what you've accomplished... especially for doing it through an entirely new style of learning that none of us asked for! We're really making it happen. If we were at school I'd have brought in donuts for all of you today to celebrate the fact, but you'll have to settle for a digital pat on the back!

But as for today, we are going into some new territory. We are going to make a triptych. It's a funny name, but Triptych's (three images side by side) are a common project for photographers. Often you'll see them in matted form, but for this project it will be done in Photoshop (or Pixlr). It looks the best when all of the photos are the same aspect ratio and orientation, so I would recommend cropping and resizing as necessary first. You can see in the example that they all the same aspect ratio and it makes it much more unified and clean. This isn't just going to be any type of triptych though, I want you to take pictures of things that form letters and then make a word from them. Check out the example below.

You can do it with any objects that clearly look like letters. The word that you make should be at least 4 letters... and keep it clean! When you take your pictures, just make sure that the background is pretty simple so that it's clear to see the letter. I'm going to give you today and tomorrow to take the photos. Be creative, have fun and get some good shots. Wednesday we will start to build the triptych in Pixlr. Have a great day!


Period 5
Good morning everyone. Hope you had a fantastic weekend and that all is well at home. I was just planning ahead and realized that we only have 16 more school days together! That's crazy isn't it? But looking back at what we've done, you have really learned a lot already! Certainly not as much as we would have if we were meeting face to face for 80 minutes a day, but I'm really proud of you for what you've accomplished... especially for doing it through an entirely new style of learning that none of us asked for! We're really making it happen. If we were at school I'd have brought in donuts for all of you today to celebrate the fact, but you'll have to settle for a digital pat on the back!

Back to today. Today is a work day. You have time to complete your personification of a word. It should be done in Gravit with type and possibly a little bit of graphic that you create not just something that you pull from the web. Once completed, upload the Gravit file to Schoology. Hope you have a great day today!

Period 1
Happy Friday everyone! Hope all is going well at your home and with your families today. Today your depth of field (foreground, subject, background) photos are due. Please upload all ten to Schoology here. We also have the Color for Emphasis (one thing in color with the rest in monochrome or black and white) to work on, but it's not due until Monday so that you have time to work on perfecting your selection to make the project as legit as possible. Also looking ahead, next Friday your next batch of photos are due. This weeks subject is one that I think we need right now. I'm calling it positivity and optimism. I want you to take 10 pictures that are uplifting and put a smile on your face and the face of others. It's really open to interpretation. Have fun with it and try different things! Have a great weekend everyone!


Period 4
Hello and happy Friday everyone. Being that today is Friday I'm going to keep this simple. Just like we did with levels, I would like for you to experiment with curves. Open some of your pictures and play around with curves. Please don't think of this as busy work! I feel like the only way to really wrap your head around curves is to experiment with it. So try it out and see what you can get out of it. Just upload a before and after of 2 different photos here. That's all for today! Have a good Friday and a great weekend too!


Period 5
Good afternoon and happy Friday! We've made it to the end of another week! Even more good news, I don't have any new lessons or assignments for you today. I'm just giving you time to work and complete those thumbnail sketches for your personification of a word project. I would like you to upload your thumbnails to Schoology by the end of the day today though. That's it for today, Hope you have a wonderful day and an amazing weekend! Take care!

Period 1
Hello everyone. Hope your Thursday is off to a great start. We're cruising along here in Photography! We've learned a lot already about editing, taking pictures and general computer knowledge. We haven't learned as much as we would have if we were meeting face to face and had 80 minutes a day together but we're doing well! Today I would like to revisit the idea of making a selection. When we started the course, and were working on the merging project, we learned to make a selection of you. We even did a practice item. Well, that's not the only reason to make a selection. There are many in fact. One would be our next assignment... Color for Emphasis. Clicking on that link and entering the password monochrome will take you to an explanation of the assignment and also show you a few examples. I had assigned photos with a splash of color as an assignment awhile back. My hope is that one of those photos could work for this assignment. Of course you can use any school appropriate photo that you have ever taken for this assignment if you would rather. The goal is to use color on just part of the photo to make the subject stand out. On the page linked above you'll also find a link to a handout that explains how to do the project. There is one issue though... Hue & Saturation is found under the Adjustments menu in Pixlr. The handout says it's under the Image menu but since we're in Pixlr, just open the Adjustments menu and you'll find it there. You can also see it in the photo at the right. Take your time with the selection though... a bad selection means a jenky looking project! I'm giving you extra time to get a good selection and make a nice looking project. This isn't due until Monday. If you have any questions about it, just let me know! Have a great day!


Period 4
Good afternoon camera geeks. Hope you're having a good day today. The last few days we experimented with levels. It's a really powerful tool that I love to use! I hope you can see the beauty of it too. Today though we are going to learn about a similar tool that some photographers like more than levels. That is Curves. It is similarly built around the histogram, and yields similar results, but is used really differently. This  will walk you through it. You will need this photo to use for this project. Please walk through this lesson using these files. When you are done, just upload your after file to Schoology. That's all for today, hope the rest of your day goes great!


Period 5
​Hello there everyone. Today, as we continue to with our exploration of type, I have a different kind of project for you to do. I have a list of words here. I would like you to choose on of the words from the list. Just pout you name next to that word and everyone will know that it's taken. Then I would like you to take a stab at personifying that word. Huh? I want you to make the word look or feel like what it represents. This is a little abstract, but I think it should be fun! You may use any typaface you want (except webdings or other fonts that are composed only of glyphs) to type your word. The you can change tracking, placement, rotation of letters, colors, you can even use the pen tool to add a simple effect to it... say a tail, top hat, etc. If you want to rotate or position letters separately you may need to type each one individually. 

Period 1
Hello all. Hope you're having a good day today. Today we are going to jump into the final portrait touch up that I have for you. I have saved the most fun one for last. It's called liquify and it lets you treat a picture like it's made of water. You can simply push and pull things to change them rather drastically. This video will walk you through the process. Remember that the goal is to make someone look better, not like some new type of monster! When finished, upload your before and after versions to Schoology please. Hope you have a wonderful day!


Period 4
Good morning photographers. Hope all is well. Yesterday I introduced Levels and we adjusted the highlights, shadows and midtones to match your histogram. Today I would like you to work on some of your photos. Start opening up your photos and looking at the histogram in levels. Some photos may be fantastic because, well... your just awesome! Others may not be as fantastic and could benefit from a levels change. Even maybe just changing the midtones could help if the highlights and shadows are good. I want you to play around, get familiar with the tool and how it changes your photos. The only way to do that is by experimenting. So that's what I want you to do. I have an assignment up on Schoology. When you are done I would like you to upload two different before and after versions of one of your photos. That's all for today! Have a great day everyone!


Period 5
Hello everyone! I'm sorry that yesterday's post included the wrong starting file. I have corrected it in the original post and you can also find it here. Since you were unable to do the assignment yesterday, I'm not introducing anything new today, just giving you more time to work on it today. Again, sorry for the mix up! Hope you have another good day!

Period 1
Good morning and happy Cinco de Mayo! We have two more portrait touch ups. Today's touchup isn't necessarily unique to portraits but it can really bring attention to your subject. This video will describe how to make a vignette. What's a vignette? It's a slow, subtle fade around the edges of a photo. Traditionally it was used to make the edges of a photo fade to white. Now a subtle blacken around the edges is popular. I'd like you to apply a vignette to one of your photos and upload the before and after to Schoology. That's it for today!


Period 4
Good morning and happy Cinco de Mayo to you all. Today I would like to discuss editing tone. If we were meeting face to face I have a PowerPoint that I would put on screen while I explain what how to do what it's showing you to do. We aren't in the High School though so this may be a little more challenging! I've made a video with both the PowerPoint and Pixlr open side by side. This way I can read, explain and do it all at the same time. Watch the video, pause it, and do as I do. Here you can find the grayscale ramp. This is the rock photo. It really isn't hard, but it can make a huge difference in your photos if you adjust tone. I do this to all my pictures actually! Give it a try and then upload you after version of the sliding rock to Schoology please.  That's it for today, hope you have a fantastic day!


Period 5
Good afternoon class. Hope all is well today. As we continue to explore the realm of type, today I want you to experiment. Yesterday's video explained how to edit and adjust type in Gravit. Today we are going to use Gravit to make different kinds of type. Here you will find the starting file. You'll find examples of what I have done on the left and space for you to do your editing on the left. I have also made a video that will make doing what the starting file tells you to do super simple. You'll find the video here. Once you've completed it, please upload it to Schoology and have a great day!

Period 1
Terribly sorry but this post didn't publish on time for some reason! So ignore that it's no longer Friday, I'm recycling the post for today! Sorry for the mix up!

We've made it to May! And it's Friday! And it's supposed to be a warm and sunny weekend! Things are looking up! In the class today I would like you to turn in your photos for Splash of Color. Since it's Friday I also want to introduce a new photo assignment. Please watch this video. It's about the difference between looking and seeing. Sounds dumb, but it should make sense when you watch. The excerpt that it wants you to read is here. The premise of both is building better photos and seeing some of the detail that you usually overlook that could make great photos. What I would like you to do for next Friday then is take 10 pictures that have depth to them. Have something in the foreground (like 6-12 inches from the camera) a background, and a subject in between both of them. I refer to this as sandwiching. The foreground and the background are the bread, your subject is the meat. The idea is to create a deeper photo by using both the foreground and background to build depth. That's it for today. Hope you have a great weekend!


Period 4
Terribly sorry but this post didn't publish on time for some reason! So ignore that it's no longer Friday, I'm recycling the post for today! Sorry for the mix up!

Good afternoon everyone. Happy first day of May! I feel like this is the part of spring where the weather finally starts to get really nice, which we need! I think that will make everyone's moods better! I have a new photo assignment for you today. Just like in Intro, I'm going to give you until next Friday to take the photos. I figure you can do these while you experiment with you camera apps. This should be a fun one... Trick photography! I'm sure you've seen photos before where it looks like someone is holding a super small person in there hand, holding the sun, etc. You can even google it for inspiration. This is one of the most fun things to experiment with. Try to make them as realistic as possible and really cool. Have a great weekend everyone!


Period 5
Good afternoon everyone, hope all is well with you today and that you had a fantastic weekend! Last week we were talking about type. Today we are going to continue on in that subject. We aren't doing a type search like you saw at the end of the video.  ​Now that you know a thing or two about type, What I would like you to do is check out this video. Unlike the others, I have not made it. It's much better than mine! Watching it will teach you how to create and alter type in Gravit. Once you're done watching the video I have a little challenge for you. This site presents a challenge. There are words written in different typefaces, but the tracking is bad. Adjust the the tracking for the best possible spacing and you will earn the max score for each. Once you are done it will give you an overall score. Take a screen shot of that score and upload it to Schoolgy here. The highest score will earn extra credit! Bonus points will also be given to the one person that can guess why I have beef with the name of this site. If you have a guess, upload it with your score. I'll give you a hint... it has something to do with terminology that may not be the best. That's all for today. Have a great day everyone!