Photography slideshow project on your blog (10 percent of grade): You will shoot 40 photos, on a subject of your choice, then edit those down to just 10 pictures with captions and post them on your blog using the Gallery widget on WordPress. You will clear the topic in advance with the instructor; you would be wise to select a story with good audio possibilities that you could record for the next assignment.

Step-by-step tip sheets and slides are in the Week 5 Module in Canvas:

“Basics Concepts of Photojournalism.ppt”  (to guide your shooting)
“How to Use PhotoShop to Crop and Size Photos for the Web.doc”
“How to Use PhotoMechanic.pdf”

Assignment Instructions:

  1. Bring a short statement (2 or 3 sentences) about your chosen topic to class on Tuesday, Feb. 4. You may email me before then for feedback if you want to get a jump on this assignment. I will provide feedback on anything turned in Tuesday by class Thursday, but if you email before then, I’ll give it to you sooner than that. For your photo gallery, you must come up with an interesting visual topic that relates to your blog topic. It cannot be about yourself.
    Find an interesting person, function, event, etc.
    It needs action, it needs to be in a place and at a time with decent light, and it needs to be with people who allow you access. 
  2. Shoot 40 photos with a digital camera. Why 40?
    1. Because you need experience composing and shooting.
    2. Because the trick to getting a small number of great photos is to shoot quickly, keep moving, and do your culling after you’ve uploaded your shots into a photo culling program like PhotoMechanic.

The equipment is not what matters most; what matters is your attention to the fundamentals of content, composition and technical excellence in photography explained on the slides and comments beneath each of the “Basics Concepts of Photojournalism” slides.

If you do not have a digital camera available, you can use the Vixia camera you checked out (it has a still photo mode that the manual explains simply). If you have a smartphone with a decent camera (iPhones are great; Droids, not so much), you could even use that.

  1. Culling: Your slide show must have at least three close-ups and at least three mid-range shots. The easiest way to look at each of your photos is to use PhotoMechanic, which is available in the Mac Lab. You may use Adobe Lightroom as an alternative. Instructions are in the Week 5 Module in Canvas.
  1. Use Photoshop to crop and size photos for the Web. Step-by-step instructions for this are on the document “How to Use PhotoShop to Crop and Size Photos for the Web.” You may either use the quick-and-easy “Save for Web” option or resize the image manually. If you do so, the specifications will need to be 72 pixels/inch, width: 800 pixels, color mode: RGB. You may set a different size if your WordPress template will not accommodate 800 pixels wise. Note: some cameras will make dpi and size adjustments automatically.
  2. Select no more than 10 photos to tell your photo story.
  3. Write complete, grammatically correct captions for each photo.
  4. Upload the photos to your blog on WordPress.
  5. Create a gallery and order them in a sequence that makes sense to the story you’re telling. Instructions are available on the WordPress Support >> Images>>Gallery at http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/gallery/
  6. Email the link to your gallery to me at mjf0009@auburn.edu

This project is due by Thursday, February 13, at 4:45 p.m. I have pushed back deadline by a week in recognition of the week of class we have lost to snow days. We’ll have time in class Feb. 4 and Feb. 6 for any questions, and I’ll go over routines of how to use the programs then. But this is to ensure you are able to get a jump on it if you desire.

Email me with any questions or problems.

Have fun with this!

Cheers,
Dr. Fuhlhage