Review: Reem Saeed

I found Reem's work thorough the GPP newsletter, which features her as an upcoming Emirati photographer (who happened to take courses at GPP).  I like her choice of subjects and her compositional style, but the oversaturated colors are too garish, too demanding.  The b&w white images work much better, but in many of these there is too much contrast.  I find I prefer images that look more like what I see with my eye, rather than colorful, high contrast interpretations.  Perhaps that is because after years of exhausting myself fighting to make the world what I wanted it to be, I have been working hard to accept the world as it is.

Reem's Flickr stream can be viewed here.

DPP Outline and Calendar

The box

My approach in my first OCA course was simply to go to Part One and start working on exercises. There were more than a few times along the way I wish I had previewed content, exercises and assignments. I might have saved myself some work if I had.

So this time around I sat down with the folder and the materials and gave them a thorough once over before beginning any photography or processing. And what I have found is that much of the course is similar to what came before in The Art of Photography.

Part One deals with workflow and is perhaps the one area that isn't covered at all in TOAP. Ironically, it is the one assignment that is not counted toward assessment.

Part Two covers white balance, noise, dynamic range – all covered to some degree in TAOP. The assignment for this part looks most challenging and possibly the most rewarding in terms of learning and outcomes, requiring shooting specific types of scenes in jpg with no post processing. The idea here is to think carefully about lighting and how the camera interprets light to maximize in-camera capture. There is a follow-up task requiring a reflection and reshoot.

My current workflow

Part of the new course, Digital Photographic Practice, will be about developing a reliable work flow, a means of efficiently getting the image from the camera into the computer, processing it, outputting it to paper or the web, and finally archiving the files.  I thought it might be best to start out describing what I do now in anticipation of looking at ways I can make this better.

Who would you pay to shoot?

 

This "poster" for a Dubai photography event appeared in my FB newsfeed. I never imaged the existence of an amateur model circuit, in which people hire out their bodies to photographers.  The text accompanying the ad includes a link to the model's FB page, which features many images from model shoots.

I don't plan on attending.  I don't really see the point in making such photos, but I wonder who could take advantage of such an idea.  What kind of people would you be willing to pay to shoot?  Could you organize a gathering of body types?  For myself, I don't have any idols left.  There is no one I can think of I would pay to take photos of.  In fact there is not one person in the world that I desire to photograph.

Vintage Snapshots: Interview w/ collector Robert E. Jackson

I found this at NPR's The Picture Show.  The discussion there led to Project B.  Good stuff - except for the prices - ouch.  

Reflection on "The Art of Photography"

The following was written as an enclosure with my assessment package.

I've just reread My History of Photography, one of my early blog posts outlining my photography experience as well as my interests in joining the OCA.  What strikes me is the naivete.   By taking this course it seems I thought I could produce a portfolio suitable for a graduate program in photography.   While I've produced work on this course that isn't embarrassing, I don’t know if I’m ready yet for a Masters in Fine Art. 

The past year has taught me a number of things.  I've learned to see the whole frame, and not just my subject.  I've learned to think about (thought I can’t say I always know) what I want to capture.   I've learned how to conceptualize and execute a project.  I've developed more respect for light and color.  I've learned Lightroom and some post-processing skills.  I now have a monitor profiling routine and have started wrestling with printing.   Through the process of having to produce assignments, and not through any deliberate planning, I have developed a workflow.  I have engaged with the local photographic community.  I have developed the habit of shooting regularly and as a result have grown more confident in my vision and ability.   And I have begun reading, thinking, and writing about photography. 

Altogether it has been a marvelous experience and I look forward to growing and developing in my skills in my next course, Digital Photographic Practice. 

But before I get started there, I need to clarify something here.

Damn: Photos of monks meditating

Yesterday I had this very idea.  A few hours later - bam! - there it was in my FB news feed.

The Still Point

Capturing the movement of the mind

In his latest work, Junsik Shin, a recent photography graduate of New York City’s Parsons School of Design, takes his camera into the Zen temples of America and his native Korea. In his most recent project, entitled “Ee Mut Ko?” (“What Is This?”), his eye follows not the ornate interior artwork or the sweeping curves of the temple architecture, but the monks themselves, absorbed in meditation. It is both an utterly familiar subject and an unexpectedly fascinating one, for who would have thought that the thing itself, sitting meditation, could be so visually arresting?