Paul, Interesting story. I'm not sure I'd have the patience or the dedication to tackle something like that.
The gallery is excellent, especially the 'Object' and 'Place' series - You've certainly got a keen eye for colour and composition Cheers Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian Walters Western Sydney Australia http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:04 +1100, "Paul Ewins" <[email protected]> wrote: > This gallery is the result of my first semester of study at Photographic > Studies College (in Melbourne) - www.psc.edu.au > > I had been toying with the idea of actually studying photography for a > few years now, having found short courses, workshops and camera clubs to > be a waste of time (for me). The trouble is that most tertiary education > here is at least partly government funded and is thus skewed very heavily > towards 17 year old school leavers and towards vocational learning (i.e. > will get you a job, not learning for the sake of it.) The university > options were one BA (photography) course (at RMIT) or a BFA with a > photography major (most of the universities offered this). All of those > were full time courses and places were fairly keenly sought. With an > over-supply of arts graduates and limited government funding there seems > little desire for any of the institutions to offer any arts courses to > mature age students part time. > > The next step down is the TAFE system (Technical and Further Education) > and these are diplomas, not degrees. I had three options there, two > places offered courses skewed towards producing assistants and studio > managers and the last was PSC which offers an Advanced Diploma of > Photography. It offers a rather expensive (by local standards) full time > course that runs over three years or a much cheaper part time course (2 > nights per week or all day Fridays) that takes four years. The full time > course if basically for school leavers who normally aren't anywhere near > as motivated or organised as mature age students. Our part time class did > have a few teenagers but the bulk were in the 25-35 range with a few of > us in our 40s and 50s to balance out the teens. There weren't any > complete beginners but most had little technical knowledge. > > The course is entirely digital which does allow for much more rapid > assessment and feedback and plunges us straight into all of the colour > concepts. The downside as one tutor put it is that where in the past they > would see all of our work for the week in the form of a couple of B&W > proof sheets, now they just see the 5 or 10 shots that we think is best > from the few hundred we may have shot that week. Our best work may be > lurking in amongst the rejects because we aren't sufficiently developed > to recognise it. Certainly there were many occasions in the review > sessions when someone was almost apologetic about a shot that they > thought inferior but a lot of us absolutely loved. By then end of the > semester it was clear that everyone was able to produce good work > although some were more consistent than others. > > The first 8 - 10 weeks was taken up with technical concepts in the > morning and art theory in the afternoon. We were expected to shoot in our > own time and upload images each week for review. In practice nobody > managed to have something new every week and there were a few that had a > lot to do in the last couple of weeks. The second half of the semester > concentrated on shooting for our final folio. The constraints were no > cropping (apart from straightening horizons), no flash, no monochrome. We > had to provide 15 - 20 images in each of three sections: People, Places, > Objects (animals were generally regarded as people since we tend to > treat them in a similar way). In one of those sections we were expected > to provide a series of 6 - 9 conceptually linked images. Otherwise we > were expected to show a variety of subjects and methods which is why the > folio is varied to the point of being disjointed. For my concept I > started with "waiting" which gradually got refined to low light shots > of lone people and objects. It took me so long to work out what I was > actually doing that the last few shots were done in the week before > submission but I enjoyed the challenge immensely. > > www.paulewins.com/PSC/semester_1/folio/index.html > > All shot on the K7, mostly with FA24 and 43 but also 15, 77, 100 macro > and 18-250. The FA 24 is annoyingly large compared to the limiteds but it > was great for the low light stuff. Despite the obvious shortcomings of a > large range zoom the 18-250 (and perhaps the 43) is the best option for a > lightweight kit for when I was just wandering around. > > Paul > -- -- http://www.fastmail.fm - One of many happy users: http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/quotes.html -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
