HIGHLIGHT: Digital Photography For Designers Course
This is a class I developed for the graphic design department at The Art Institute of Philadelphia. It covers aspects of photography that are important to design students, enabling them to create their own photographs for layouts, illustrations and their portfolios. The class also helps students learn to communicate with photographers and choose interesting and dynamic stock photography when working in the field. They learn all of the Advanced shooting modes associated with the RAW file format on a DSLR. They work with ambient light shooting a wide range of styles and subjects. They learn to work with hot lights and flash in a studio setting and are introduced to professional lighting techniques. Since they are design students the final project is to create a photographic magazine using their photographs, this teaches them how to design utilizing photographs in an image heavy publication. They also submit their best images to Pique Magazine (the school's photographic magazine) for possible publication.
The course is a fundamentals of photography course with studio lighting added. The graphic design students taking the course have often never used a camera or have only dabbled in photography. I have found that generally their work exhibits stronger composition than many beginning photo students because they have a strong background in layout prior to taking the course.
In the course they complete:
The course is a fundamentals of photography course with studio lighting added. The graphic design students taking the course have often never used a camera or have only dabbled in photography. I have found that generally their work exhibits stronger composition than many beginning photo students because they have a strong background in layout prior to taking the course.
In the course they complete:
- A series of photographs
- A photographic scavenger hunt
- Photographic illustration
- Logo from a photograph
- Studio and Environmental photography