Project 421
Four eyes, two photographers and one journey into the times we live in.
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from the BBC series, Genius of Photography, Program 4 | Paper Movies
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In 2006, photographers Martin Parr and John Gossage took a week long road trip through the Mississippi Delta on their way to visit Memphis and William Eggleston. America 2006 by Obvious & Ordinary is the culmination of a collaborative effort by two very different photographers and their look at the social landscape of the American South. The 46 color and black & white photographs in the book provide a glimpse into the times we’re experiencing as seen through eyes and photographic lenses of two very different photographers.
Martin Parr, aka Obvious, known for his colorful, highly saturated photographs, explores the culture of excess and our preoccupation with consumption while John Gossage, aka Ordinary, utilizes the gloomy values of grey to expose a place beginning to crack at the seams and in inevitable distress. Together, the photographs reveal a sense of anxiety and uncertainty in a place that is on the verge of collapse.
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America 2006 by Obvious & Ordinary
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Assignment
Working either individually or with another photographer, visually explore the times we live in. It is essential that either individually or as collaborative team, your idea(s) reflect a sense of considered thought, active visual exploration about your interpretations of the real world and is articulated with an individual’s vision and voice that can be brought together to reveal a more complex vision and dialog between the photographs.
Thinking about your conceptual concerns and what to photograph, I would propose you gravitate towards what your interests and curiosities are within the social landscape of the world we live in. How would you approach those concerns photographically to reveal what they would look like as a series of photographs? In addition to their visual engagement, what do you want the photographs to reveal, suggest or evoke, intellectually and/or emotionally, in relationship to these ideas and perceptions? Consider how your use of the camera, photographic aesthetics, materials and processes, as well as how your technical execution will be utilized in making photographs that begin to suggest and inform these curiosities and ideas.
Explore the possibilities of utilizing various cameras and/or materials (analog and digital, black & white or color), as well as presentation strategies (multiple-image and/or image scale) to inform your curiosities and ideas. In shooting your images, focus your energies on creating visually engaging compositions as suggested by your use of the photographic frame, point of view, details, moments of exposure, light and handling of materials.
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Requirements
This is a two-part assignment which will include an initial critique for feedback in preparation of the Final Project.
Critique
For the critique (see Calendar for Due Date) and evaluation, each individual photographer or as a team will complete the following:
Minimum of 3 Edited Contact Sheets (no more than 4 images per sheet) per photographer, reflecting your interpretation of the times we live in. Images should be optimized in Adobe Photoshop prior to creating the Edited Contact Sheets.
Minimum of 6 – two-page layouts, per photographer (if working individually) or as a team for a maquette in preparation for image sequencing and photographic book design | magazine considerations.
Click on the following for materials:
Photographic Book Sample Page Layouts.pdf
Turn-in the edited contact sheets, book planning worksheet, and sample page-layouts in one manila envelope for evaluation and feedback.
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Final Project
Either individually or as a collaborative team, design and produce a photographic book, using an on-demand printing service such as Blurb and SharedInk. For more information about photographic books and on-demand printing, click on The Photo Book – Self-Publishing with On-Demand Printing.
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Either individually or as a collaborative team, design and produce a photographic magazine, using MagCloud.
Click on MagCloud Page Layouts for Photoshop templates.
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If working individually, a minimum of 15 photographs is required for the book | magazine. Include a Title and the Name of the Photographer.
If working as a collaboration, each photographer is required to contribute a minimum of 10 photographs each to the book | magazine. Include a Title and the Names of the Photographers.
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