Great Black and White Photographers

To learn how to take Great Photos, its important to look backwards at some of the most famous photographers and their work to get ideas and examples of what great photos look like.
The first photographers worked mainly in the Black & White medium. Each spent thousands of hours  in the darkroom perfecting their prints which were as important to the final power of their prints as was their hard work and artistic eye when they originally shot them.

Although we won't be going into a traditional wet darkroom this year, we will be using another type of darkroom, Photoshop, to change and manipulate our photos. In the near future we will begin using Photoshop but first lets look at some of those famous photographers and their work.

First - Preview some of the masters

Go to:

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/

Click through all of the master photographers listed on the left side of the site. Look at their photos. When you click on individual photographers, their work will show up in the middle of the screen in a little slide. You will need to click on one of those, and then use the magnifying glass to zoom in. You will also see a forward button so you can flip through all of their work.

Next - Choose three you like - make note of their names.
Choose well because you will be assigned one of these photographers for a more extensive assignment. At least two of the three must have done documentary work (candid photos of people).

On your blog - Post the names of the three photographers you like and your favorite photo from each. You may have to do a google image search to find the photo you want, as not every photo on the "masters-of-photography" website are linkable. Make sure you SAVE the photos you pick out to the DESKTOP and post to your blog in the same post.

Basic Mac Skills

Basic Mac Skills

1. Find and set the location of the Dock – Click on Apple icon in top left corner of screen. Scroll down and click on “Dock.” Select the position you want your dock to be located (left, bottom or right). I recommend left. If you want the dock to be always present, click on “Turn Hiding Off.”

2. Set the speed of the mouse/cursor – Click on Apple icon in top left corner of screen. Scroll down and click on “System Preferences.” A new window will pop up with several options. Click on the “Mouse” icon and review options. You can adjust the tracking speed and the clicking speed. You can also reverse the direction of how the mouse scroll ball works by clicking the check box at the top of the window.

3. Open Safari and save a bookmark on the Bookmarks Bar – Click on the icon in your dock that looks like a compass. This opens Apple’s internet browser called “Safari.” Type in the URL for the class blog. Once the class blog is loaded, save the address for the class blog in your Bookmarks Bar by following these directions:

1.      On menu bar at top of screen click on “Bookmarks.”

2.      Click on the option “Add bookmark.”

3.      In the box that drops down, look for the drop down menu under the heading “Add this page to.”

4.      Select the “Bookmarks Bar” and click “Add” button.

4. Creating/Naming a folder – To create a folder on a Mac, use one of the following options.

1.      Keyboard shortcut (recommended) – hold “command” + “shift” and press “N” key.

2.      Click on desktop to activate “Finder.” On the menu bar, click “File” and scroll down to “New Folder.”

3.      “Right click” your mouse and click on “New Folder” in pop-up menu.

To name a folder, click ONCE on the text underneath the folder. When the text for the folder’s name becomes highlighted, you can edit the name of the folder.

5. Finding downloaded items – All downloaded files automatically are placed in the “Downloads” folder, which is located in your Dock. Click on the “Downloads” folder to see the various files that have been downloaded.

If using Safari, downloaded files can also be accessed by clicking on the small Down Arrow icon to the right of the search bar at the top right side of your browser window. A list of downloaded files will drop down.

6. Viewing/Switching between applications – The current version of the Mac operating system features a “Full Screen” viewing mode for certain applications. You can tell if a program is in “Full Screen” mode if the program window completely covers your screen. You can exit full screen mode by pressing the “esc” button on the top left corner of your keyboard. WE DO NOT RECOMMEND USING “FULL SCREEN” MODE for typical use in our classroom. It will cause problems and make your life miserable in this class.

Below are some tips on switching between programs on Mac.

1.      To open commonly used programs, click once on the program icon in the “Dock.”

2.      To see all of the program windows you currently have open, press “F3.”

3.      To quickly open other applications, press “F4.”

4.      To hide an active application to see the desktop or another program, press “command” + “H” key. Return to the program by clicking on its icon in the Dock.

5.      To quickly switch between open applications, press “command” + “tab.”

6.      To quickly hide all open windows, press “fn” + “F11.” Press it again to restore open windows.

7. Using the “Finder” – The Finder is what you use to navigate through folders and files on a Mac.

1.      To open a new Finder window, click on the Smile Face icon in your “Dock” or use “command” + “N” keyboard shortcut.

2.      To adjust how files are displayed, click on the buttons at the top of the window just above the file names. There are four different ways to view folders.

a.       As an icon. You can adjust the size of icons by adjusting the slider in the bottom right corner of the Finder window.

b.      As a list. 

c.       As columns.

d.      In “Cover Flow” mode, which provides an image preview of your file.

3.      Each different mode of viewing files and folders has different uses. Learn to use all four of them to effectively use the Mac. 

Welcome to PhotoJ

Photojournalism 2016-2017

Hello and welcome to Bowie Photojournalism!!

This year we will be using blogger to publish and post all of our assignments on the internet.
To accomplish this we have to set up an account: Please follow the instructions carefully. Its important that you do each step correctly and that you remember all the vital information so you can get back to it later.

Here's how:
What you will need
· Internet access
· An Email account

First – Create a Blogger account
Open Safari - you can use Mozilla Firefox, but sometimes the interface between the Macintosh computers and Firefox can cause problems. Safari is the native internet browser for Macintosh, so its the one I recommend.
· Go to  http://www.blogger.com/
· Click on the orange "Sign Up" box at the top right of your screen - if you have a gmail - this will be really easy because blogger is a gmail product.

In “Step One”
· Enter your email address
· Enter a password and WRITE IT DOWN
· Enter a display name – Do NOT use your full real name. To be safe, we will keep our blogs semi-anonymous - I recommend you do something like Firstname_lastinitial_blog, or something similar. No one can see this unless you leave your computer logged in on accident, but lets be safe.
· Enter the word verification
· Click on the “accept terms box, and hit continue·
· If there are any problems, they will show up in red.
Fix the problems

In “Step Two”
· In the blog title box, enter “first name’s Photojournalism Blog” (Ex Michael’s Photojournalism Blog) - this is what will show up at the top of your blog - My blog is called Bowie Photojournalism.
· In the (URL) box, enter the same thing as the title, but with no spaces or apostrophe (Ex: mattsphotojournalismblog) - this URL can be seen by anyone, so please keep it school appropriate.
· Hit “Check Availability”
· If it is available, hit continue. If it is not, select one of the suggestions, and then hit continue.
· Select a template and hit continue·

You did it!

Now make your first post on your new blog:

Hit “Start Posting”
Type “Welcome to my blog” in the post subject line, and hit “Publish Now”
Click on “View Blog” to see the results.

Select and copy the web address (URL) of your new blog
(ex: michaelsphotojournalismblog.blogspot.com)

Open your email - either gmail directly from blogger, or open the one you use (i.e. yahoo or hotmail)

Send an email with the following info to:

bowie.comm.photo@gmail.com

Subject : My blog
Full Name: ____
Paste URL here: ______
User Name: ________
Password: _______


Once you are done with this task, I will instruct you on how to find your photos you took last class and you will do a new blog posting your first images and writing about your team.