Sunday, February 15, 2009

First critique results...

One of my main reasons for starting this blog is to keep better records of successful (and unsuccessful) aspects of my assignments and teaching strategies. I just finished reviewing the work from our first critique...a short assignment called The Scanner As Camera...and wanted to share a few thoughts.

First, the assignment: it's meant as a quick introduction to the computer as an imaging device. Though this is something most of my students are very familiar with, they (usually) haven't thought of using a flatbed scanner in this way. Basically, they use the scanner as a camera, capturing images directly on the glass. It's simple, direct, and in many ways is the 21st century equivalent of a photogram. Like the photogram, it is simple and quick to do. Also like photograms, it can be very challenging to get results that are truly interesting and unique. One problem in particular is achieving any real sense of depth in the image (by nature of the scanner the images produced tend to be rather flat)...and avoiding what I call the "bunch of stuff tossed on the scanner" syndrome.

I borrowed this assignment from a colleague when I began teaching here (with permission, of course) and I think it's been pretty successful so far. This semester I had some very nice results, in fact. For non-photo majors, I find this is a nice entry to the world of digital imaging that allows them to bring their own ideas and ways of working to the photographic medium; for photo students, it's a nice reminder that photography isn't just about zoom lenses and megapixels.

One question I've been considering about this (and other) assignments: how many examples from past students should I show? I've got mixed feelings about this...does showing examples increase their chances for success, or limit their chance for independent discoveries? Perhaps that's a topic for a future post...

1 comment:

  1. I see the point of not spoiling fresh results with examples that might limit choices, but in almost all other areas of art they have at least seen a range of possibilities. It might be useful to let them have one chance to try the medium without such reference, but then do it again after seeing what the field is actually doing currently. Here is a site that will provide many fine examples of what serious artists are doing with scanner photography:

    http://www.scannography.org/index.html

    Good Luck!

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