Assignment 1 - Self Portrait

Reading Response

• Quick Crit: Review Self Portraits (1 hour)
• Talk about the Heart of Whiteness (30 min)
• Watch video
• Connecting the camera and computer
• Naming and storing files
• Controlling the camera from the computer
• Using grids and guides for alignment
• Introduce Project 1 - Identity politics and representation in photo

Why Shoot Tethered

• Overview and advantages of tethered shooting. Considerations such as equipment, software, and production concerns will be discussed.
• Demonstration: The tethered workflow review. Step by step tethered process with currently available equipment and software, including input, processing techniques and output methods.

Tethered Photographers

• Andrew Moore, Dirt Meridian
• Gregory Crewdson
• Jeff Wall

Look at Portrait Artists

• Catherine Opie [article about her] - Queer communities
• LaToya Ruby Frazier [website]
• Dawould Bey [whitney museum]
• Let Your Motto Be Resistance (it's a book) [amazon]
• Kehinde Wiley - Appropriation of Importance through appropriation of visual language [his annoying website] [wiki]
• Is the portrait real? Is the photographer constructing? Is the subject performing? Is there an ethics of portraiture?
• Dorothea Lange [wiki] - The lie of the unmodified portrait (discuss)
• Edward Steichen and JP Morgan [image] [steichen bio with mention of the portrait] [pop article]
• Jill Greenberg and Dick Cheney [atlantic rebuttal] [other link]... weirdly, it seems like the discussions about it have disappeared. ooOOOoo...
• Barbara Degenevieve - The Panhandler Project [video]
• Katy Grannan (I don't really have much to say about Katy Grannan. You can look her up yourself) [gallery link] [wiki]
• What does it mean if the author of the portrait is unknown? The Art of the American Snapshot

What is the difference between portraiture and documentary? (presence/absence of photographer) What if it's in a newspaper? Or a magazine? Or a book? Why are they in these places? How does that affect the photographs and how we read them? How could it change how the photographer shoots them? What is the role/place of consent in photography?

• Rineke Dijkstra [bio]
• Diane Arbus [show of early work at the Met Breuer]
• Henry Horenstein's Honky Tonk book
• Walker Evans - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men [wiki on the book] [wiki of Walker Evans in particular]
• Some token white men:
• Timothy Briner's Boonville project [link to his website]
• Larry Sultan's Pictures from Home [website]
• Alec Soth [website]

Tethered Portrait Shoot - Break up in groups of 5 (2 hours)

• Each group member shares how you self identify
• Each member of the group will now be the photographer for one shoot. The rest of you will help them with their vision.
• As a group use the props that you have to do one photoshoot of each person in your group based on how the photographer understands their subjects identity.
• (Example: I identify as a cisgendered male queer artist. Now how would you photograph me as that person? Who do you think that person is? Is this a real person? a stereotype? What is your positionality?)
• Use tethered shooting so that your group can discuss how the photographer is shooting your classmate. As the photographer what are you trying to accomplish? As a group member is it working? What do you see?

Prep for next week:

Work class. Be prepared to keep shooting with your group

Start working with your group / shooting / prep.

Assignment 2 - Edit 3 of your best images

Reading: Link

(you need to login to the nytimes first if you don't have an account you can sign up for a free day at a time through the FIT portal)

Write a 500 word response to the reading

Drop it in the reading response 2 folder lastname_firstname_read2.pdf

Deliverables: You will turn in three images to the assignment 2 folder on the drive titled like this:

yourlastname_firstname_PH152_Assig02_01.jpg , yourlastname_firstname_PH152_Assig02_02.jpg etc

(note this is not the same as your import conventions)