One of the things that’s important to do now at the beginning of the term, is to try to figure out how everybody can take better pictures right off the bat. So I’m starting with a little slideshow of some pictures that I’ve taken, showing you some of the mistakes that I've made in terms of taking those very same pictures. So this is a good introductory picture. I’m well dressed, my hair’s combed. And I'm shooting it in my bathroom cuz there's very good light there. Unfortunately there are a couple of problems that I could have solved before I took the picture. First of all, the shower curtain could have been closed. That eliminates a lot of visual distraction in the back. And the door could have been closed as well. That eliminates the need to paint the door. Take down the washcloth from the shower rod and clean off the counter in front of the mirror. Then all of these little things down at the bottom of the picture don't show up. Get rid of the plant. Put it someplace else while you're taking the picture. And finally, clean the mirror. It should be cleaned anyways, in terms of your bathroom, but in your picture, it really shows up as a problem. The first rule I usually give people when they're taking pictures is to stand still. The rule of standing still goes for you that's shooting the picture and it also goes for the person that's in the picture themselves. Here in the tango lesson I get a picture of one woman that's standing still and the other woman that's in motion. Because of the low level of light that's in this room, one dancer is clear, the other dancer is blurry. And me, in the mirror, is actually pretty clear as well. So stand still in the first place. If you have to brace yourself against the wall, if you have to sit down, if you have to use a tripod, it'll help you get a better picture. This problem happens outside as well. Sometimes when you're shooting in low light on a cloudy day or in the shadows of high buildings, and you're trying to get a good picture, you end up with a blurry image of someone moving in the picture itself. Here, I was shooting graffiti in Buenos Aires and a woman is walking past. We can't identify her. She's just blurring past the picture that I was trying to take. When there's nobody there, when nobody's moving, of course, I've got a clear picture of the graffiti that's on the wall of this building. And this thing also goes into something of a choice matter. We may want to show the fact that someone's moving very quickly in contrast to someone else. Here my wife is dressing a model for a photo shoot and she's in motion and the model is simply standing still getting ready to be photographed. One of the critical things that happens with taking any pictures is to get you to be careful. That's part about standing still, but it's about figuring out what you want to take the picture of, why you want to take it, how you might use it later. Think about your picture. It'll take about five seconds before you take the picture and it's really worth it as an investment in terms of the pictures you're taking. I shot these graffiti in Buenos Aires, and taking a little bit of time allowed me to get a fairly good picture in each case. Framing out all of the extra junk that's happening in the space where these guys are painted. One of the important things you need to think about when you're taking a picture, or whoever's taking the picture, is you need to make sure that the subject is extremely clear. In Argentina, there's a tango demonstration in this park every Sunday. The guy that's sitting under the tree is the person that demonstrates tango and he has a series of women that dance with him. The woman on the left in blue is his dance partner for today. However, in this picture we can't tell what's the most important part of the picture. We don't know what's gonna be going on here. All we know is there's a bunch of stuff that's at that end of the park. There's a couple of speakers, there's a couple of people and there's apartment building beyond that. Make sure that you frame your picture and shoot the picture so you know that the subject is fairly clear. When they're out there dancing, it's a little bit easier to recognize. This is another dance partner. We can focus on them, we can shoot them. With a limited view angle, we can't necessarily frame out all of the background, but we can make the subject a little bit more clear. We did also happen to get the guy on the left shooting the picture himself, and he gets to be kind of important in the picture. It'd be nice to get rid of him. There are a lot of times with pictures where you can't actually focus a lot of your efforts on the subject of the picture. This guy on stilts walking in a sea of cars Needs a lot of framing but everything is dynamic. He's walking, the cars are moving, you can't get off the sidewalk or you'll get run over. So there are some limits to the process in terms of making the subject clear. Moving around a lot, maybe taking a couple of extra pictures, may make it easier for people to understand that subject of the picture is the guy on stilts. And sometimes you find an interesting picture that's really kind of focused on one small event even though most of the picture is dedicated to everything else. Make the subject clear. Like this dog that's sitting on the balcony waiting for it's owner to come home. One of the things that's very important about most pictures as we've seen Is to try to minimize the distractions of people looking at the picture. Here we've got a couple dancing in Argentina. It's a common sight that happens in some tourist areas of town. The background is actually pretty good. But, of course, they've got more luggage sitting over there to the left than they can fly on an airplane with without paying an extra fee. I could've solved this problem by moving to the left myself and shooting against the grey background wall, and not getting a photograph of their luggage. That would've been helpful so I can move to get a better picture, even though I probably can't get them to move their luggage. Same thing happens in normal life. Here's a friend of mine who works at a model airplane show. He builds unusual contraptions. And there are a number of things that could've been taken out of the picture that would make it a better picture. All of the junk in the background is distracting away from this really odd flying machine. Even his tool case is a little bit odd. And the guy with blue jeans standing there looking at something else doesn't need to be in the picture. In contrast, the next image works out fairly well. Here we have a flying union suit that he built. There's no clouds in the sky, there's nobody else coming by. We just get to focus on this odd thing that's flying through the winter sky of Minnesota. One important thing about taking pictures is to use good light. You've seen some of the problems with shooting in slightly dimmer light. But it's amazing what good clear sunlight can do. If you shoot down sun, in other words with the sun at your back, you'll get much better pictures. This street scene in Argentina is one great example. On the same street, if it were sunny, we'd see a much better picture. And so here we see the same street just across the corner. And we're seeing a whole bunch of buildings that are crisp, and clear, and sunny. It's a much different picture, and the colors are much more realistic. Shoot in good light. This happens a lot, when you're working in the dark, or in a very dim room. This magical moment of a couple dancing in a dance studio in Argentina with one single dim bulb. When I was there, I could see it but my camera can't record it. What we see is much more than what we can record in a photograph. Fixing with Photoshop doesn't make it. We have to find places to shoot in good light. And the same thing does happen outside when you're in areas where there is strong sun. Here at the La Boca Football Stadium, the Boca Juniors, the goal to the left is in the shade. And I'm sure that has a problem for the goalkeeper. At the same time it's very difficult to see the presentation as well. Spend a few minutes learning how to get the most out of your basic point and shoot camera. Almost all digital cameras have some limited functionality to adjust for shutter speed, lighting and lens focal length. Using the fully automatic mode works okay in ideal conditions, but if you're shooting indoors or at night, or trying to capture a fast paced event, you might wanna learn how to make the right manual adjustments. Read your camera's manual to learn how to change the three basic camera functions. That's shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Aperture refers to the amount of light that gets in through the lens. Shutter speed determines how much blur you'll capture, how clear the image will be. And ISO is a relic of the film era and allows you to compensate for low lighting conditions. So you can adjust the camera to be faster or speedier and do better in lower light. Having more control over your camera will give you the clearest, best images possible. Because chances are, you won't be able to control for everything else, like we've seen, when documenting your DSD. Some smartphones also allow for limited camera customization as well. One thing to remember is that you should be able to push down the shutter slightly and the camera will focus before you take the picture so you can time the picture a little bit easier. One of the important lessons to learn with a digital camera is that, unlike film, the number of pictures you take is really pretty much unlimited. You can always shoot a number of pictures and if something is critical, take more pictures and throw the bad ones away. Just like the ideas you have, more pictures on a digital format can be used in a lot of different situations and you may find something that's a lot more interesting. Considering, for example, this class photograph in Argentina at a museum. The second picture turns out to be much more animated, much more clearer, and a lot more fun. One of the important things you're trying to do with your photographs is to document your assignment. And to tell an illustrated story. You want to visually capture the idea, the implementation, and the result of your project. And also explain the setting. How you interacted with the public. Who was involved, and things like that. Here, one of the things we wanna do is make sure that the focus of what we're doing is clear, again. And that we want the signpost that's in front of us to be the lead focus of our picture. And I would have sort of moved a little bit to the left and made sure that we focused on the symbols that are in the concrete. That'll set us up for the next picture. Successful do something different is not only captured by clear photographs, by a variety of shots. A photograph to explain the setup, a few different angles, Individuals involved in the conclusion. It's fine to leave out someone's face, but try to capture some indication of the public nature of the project. And make sure you don't upload ten photographs of exactly the same thing. Ten images of you about to eat Chinese food for the first time from slightly different angles isn't helpful. Nor does it tell the whole story. So make sure you get some variety in your collection of images for each week. Document the DSD as you go along. Take multiple shots because you can always edit out and select the best ones to illustrate your story later. You've got a limited set of pictures to present. But you have an almost unlimited set of pictures that you could take. One of the simple things you can also do with a digital camera is you can adjust the visual size of your picture. Most cameras allow you to set fairly high resolution images, say about two megabytes, and you can get a fairly sharp and clear picture. If you change the setting so that you get the most possible images on your phone or on your digital camera you'll get small grainy pictures that you won't be able to replace. Use a higher resolution. You can always get rid of the files later. You can always get rid of the high resolution later, but we can't put new resolution back in. One critical thing in terms of using your computer and in terms of submitting your files to the project is to name your files. It's very important for both you and us to keep track of the photographs each week. Make sure to label every file you upload with your last name and number the DSD in a, b, c or d etc for subsequent images. That'll make it easier for us to find things. That'll make it a lot easier for you to upload things. And that'll also make it a lot easier for you to manage your computer in the long run as you move forward. Also, check the file size before uploading. For photos, files under five megabytes, are generally recommended. And your computer's basic photo editing software lets you resize photographs if they're very large. We don't want really big photographs, say over four or five megabytes. And we also don't want really small photographs when you send something in. File format should also be checked before you send something in. It's very important so we can look at the images. Only a few types of images can be seen on the web and that's where we're doing most of our work. Standard formats are jpeg, mp4 and mov files. The accepted video compressor formats are mp4 and mov files. mp4 is usually a smaller file size which means less time is needed to upload. In general, please keep your movies under 100 megabytes. Your video editing software will tell you the file size before you export. And make sure you upload the final, compressed video file, not the working or project file, such as a wmv file or Windows metafile. Please try to use mp4 or mov files. Otherwise, your video probably won't be watchable. And again, we'd like to see our pictures in a jpeg format. You also need to be kind of creative in your presentation. You're showing a set of certain things and that can help frame the work that you're doing. Video is always welcome, and as we said the same rules apply for shooting videos as they do for shooting still photographs. Focus on what's important. Both in the scene, the composition, the framing, and the timeline. Edit out any unnecessary footages, any footage. Keep the video concise and narrative clear. Add your own soundtrack, still photographs, or captions if needed to explain or keep things interesting. All computers have some basic video editing software, as do most smartphones. So learn the basics to stabilize shaky video or minimize background noise. Again, control what you shoot. Treat it like you're doing art direction, making sure you get exactly what you want, and nothing else. And if nothing goes as planned, use your own creativity to show this with the visual documentation. The best VSDs I've seen were shot with very unusual situations. Finally, one small edit. Please don't include babies or weddings. It's a wonderful wedding that I went to a couple years ago. It's a really great couple and they're happily married. But in terms of a DSD and in terms of academic work, probably using weddings is not a good idea. Same thing goes for baby pictures. Babies are really cute. Babies are wonderful. But when it gets to the things that you are trying to do stay away from the baby pictures that you think are the most priceless things in the world. Because you can't do anything with them, and you can't make changes because it's still this picture of this wonderful, precious baby. And, unfortunately from my point of view, don't shoot your dog pictures either. The ones that are precious because, of course, we love our dogs like we love our babies. And in the end, when you're working in paper, when you're doing some manipulation of these images, print two of them. Put one of them, save it, put it in you save deposit box, keep it precious for the rest of your life. Then you can do anything you want with the other picture.
