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June 06, 2007

Maine Workshop Day 4

Day four and in class early (8am I think). I again brought in everything I shot the day before, pining them to the board. Another classmate followed suit, making cheap color copies at the local Kinko’s. To be fair, he was from out of town and didn't know where he could get high quality prints. I print everything on my Epson 7600 on Ilford Pearl (semi gloss) paper. Class has been starting at 8am and finishing up after 7pm, needless to say I didn't have much time to color correct my work. I did a general edit to get rid of the obviously bad shots and did it twice more to find the best shot of the subject at hand. My point of the last two sentences is that Pearl or semi gloss paper is very forgiving and often hides imperfections that I had to gloss over due to lack of time. Glossy shows every last detail with nowhere to hide.

The Rem Koolhaas-designed campus center at IIT, Chicago. This was shot with my Tilt shift 24mm with two shots.

With a positive review and critique from classmates and Norm, I was happy we spent some quality time reviewing my work. As a fellow classmate remarked about Norman, "He has a way of looking at your work and can right away tell you what you need to do to raise the level to a place he thinks is acceptable." All and all, I think Norm was happy I took the time to print my shots as well as that I was more than a young punk trying to be a photographer, but a photographer that could learn allot from someone like himself as well as he could learning something about shooting architecture in Chicago from me. Norm and I have a lot in common. One of the biggest differences is he still enjoys and shoots mainly in film. I won't have anything to do with film as I've been let down twice in my career with Kodak and Ilford laying me off due to the decline of film sales. The things we do have in common are we mainly shoot with the same lens (TS 24mm) and also Norm uses Canon products and we have one of the same camera's (5D). We both enjoy shooting Architecture and landscapes. On more than one occasion where most of the class was shooting away like crazy, Norm would only stand, survey the area and take one shot. Knowing in his mind where the shot was before he took it. I as well don't go out and go nuts with my camera. I'm carefully calculated and like to believe I can see the shot before pulling out my camera to take it. I often won't pull out my camera till I can see a shot worth taking. This is also applied to my commercial work in Landscapes and Architecture. Providing full coverage with less shots means more to the client than 100's of substandard shots. Pick your angle, compose the frame and take the shot.

IIT's library designed by Mies Van Der Rohe

Today was the big day that I finally had my portfolio review by Norm and the class. This week was busy as all hell, so I didn't have a chance to print my portfolio. This of course was a huge mistake and I knew this going in. I figured I would like to hear what people think about my website and as well when it comes to my professional Landscape Architecture work, It's all lined out on the same page and easy to view. Ok, so we open up my website and for starters the resolution of the laptop we were using didn't match the overhead projector. So every page could not be seen full size and we constantly had to scroll around to see the work. I can't tell you how frustrating this was and it made it difficult to see my creative architecture work. Norm was in standard digital portfolio mode and had very little constructive advice and it was in my mind a complete waste of time. Lets stay positive, the class did make a few comments that they felt my work was consistent and solid as well as the site was well designed and laid out. I was happy to hear it and that made it worth it. But the lesson here was to never show your digital portfolio to an old traditional photographer. They look at you as if you are insulting them by not printing your work. Hey, its the year 2006, not 1952...we view things digitally now...saving us time, effort and money by not printing a bunch of photos we may never use, frame, or sell as a print.

The only Mies Van Der Rohe church in the world. Very simple box with only the brick walls holding up the structure.

A shot from behind the alter where the Jesus magic is stored. Seems to be in disarray and in need of restoration.

Norm & JJ setting up their shots in at the back of the church.

Breaking out, getting on our way, we headed to the IIT campus here on the south side of Chicago. This is a campus that Mies Van Der Rohe designed and taught young architects the art of pushing the envelope with less rather than more with an attitude. We spent lots of time walking around the campus shooting Mies work. We were given access to the Mies Church, campus center and into a student housing center to shoot the campus center from above. The Marketing manager made this possible and was very helpful making sure no one stopped us from shooting. I can't tell you how often we are shooed out of a location in Chicago. After 911, everyone is paranoid that you're going to take a photo and make plot to take down a building. In most cases, people can ask you not take a photo, but they can't stop you. Its more persistence of a mall cop that scares people off. Me? I know my rights and I know that you can't stop someone from taking a picture of any structure that is viewable in a public space.

Back on track, we spend the day shooting Mies's work and the student center. The student center is extremely impressive inside and out. We could have spend hours on the interior alone (and we did). I spend more time outside than in as I knew the campus and took a walk around to see what I could find. Most the people in the class have never been in Chicago, so they tended to only go where they were directed. This gave me a small unique advantage when I brought my prints in the next day. Talking with Norm, he gave me some insight as to using at 1.4 canon extender with a TS 24mm to give you a 33mm shot when the 24mm was a bit too wide. In some locations you want to zoom in with the TS 24mm and you can't change your location by moving closer to the subject. The canon 1.4 extender does the job quite nicely. As well we talked about circular polarized graduated filters. Norm tends to use them anytime he's shooting with blue skies and architecture. You can attached them right to your lens by screwing it onto the lens. You can then turn the lens to insure the darker part is going to be in the sky rather then on the ground. What do they do? They tend to make the photo sharper and the skies really deep blue and dramatic clouds (if any in the sky). Adds quite a bit of texture to your shot.

The shot where I couldn't move closer to the subject and could have used a 1.4 extender knocking it down to a 33mm. Norm used his with his TS 24mm. This shot was cropped to cut out the information that I didn't want in the photo to focus more on the subject.

The kids of IIT often construct public art just out side the library showing off the strength & flexibility of the materials as art over functionality.

Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)