The Hurrell
After completing a "Headshot Workshop," including a creative portraiture and natural lighting lesson, photographers will be paired up with students from the SOCAPA acting program to create professional studio headshots, portraits, and action photographs. Students will gain a basic knowledge of studio set-up, learning to control strobe lighting using equipment such as soft boxes and grids, creating a "drop-out white" background for professional headshots, and lighting subjects for dramatic, creative portraits. Photographers will gain the valuable skills needed to successfully direct photo subjects while experiencing the excitement of working in a professional studio environment. This project takes its name from George Hurrell, the famous Golden Age Hollywood MGM photographer.
The Cartier-Bresson
Guided by lessons on composition, street photography and techniques for safely and confidently approaching subjects, students will take to the streets, capturing candid portraits, human interactions, architectural street scenes, and urban details. This assignment takes its name from Henri Cartier-Bresson, an early 20th century master of street photography and father of photojournalism, who coined the expression the "decisive moment." Practice of the "decisive moment" encourages students to capture that fleeting creative instant in which everything in the frame comes together to create the best possible image. Through this exercise, students will build an awareness of framing, light, color, form, line, and pattern and will learn to make a multitude of aesthetic choices, to create technically strong and emotionally engaging compositions.
The Sherman
Students in the two week program will have the opportunity to create a series of creative self-portraits. Students will be encouraged to think outside the box, discovering what they want to say about themselves and translating this into images using in-camera techniques, costumes, props, lighting and/or Photoshop compositing. In addition to practicing the creative controls of shutter speed and depth of field, students will learn to work with self timers, tripods and manual focus. This project will stress the importance of conceptualization, metaphor, symbolism and self-expression, teaching from the work of photographers such as Cindy Sherman, Nikki S. Lee, Gillian Wearing, and Andy Warhol.
