The first photo should establish the location of your story – what does it look like? color? texture? geography? architecture?
The second photo should establish a face that is central to your story – who lives/works/exists here? what do they look like? how does the place show in their face?
The third photo should fill the place with some faces – interior? movement? uses of the space? how full? empty?
The fourth photo should show your face in the place – shift the focus. how do faces interact with the place? how do the faces reflect the place? the place the face?
All four images need complete captions – including all identifying information, contact info and in complete sentences.
WhatShouldIReadNext.com: start with an author or book you love, click the closest match from the list that pops up, and then this site will generate a list of books you’ll probably like based on your initial author/title. Pretty cool.
GoodReads: This is social networking for readers. Join (you can use your Facebook credentials) and then find friends and see what they’re reading, find interest-based groups, search book lists, or join a discussion.
BookBrowse.com: The “Read Alikes” service here is similar to WhatShouldIReadNext but the lists of comparable books is handpicked by other readers.
WhichBook: Choose your book by mood or other fun factors, like Happy or Sad, Beautiful or Disgusting, Conventional or Unusual.
Make the time to read. Make it important. Make it a priority.
Read in the bathroom
Read in line
Read while you are waiting for . . . anything
Read before you go to bed
Read in a favorite chair on a rainy day
Read outside on a sunny day
Use the 50-page rule
If you are not into it by the 50th page there is no sin in saying that this book is not for you.
Start a reading notebook
It could be a Pinterest board, a note on Facebook, a list on your phone, a folder of photos, your GoodReads account etc.
Find your reading spot
Make it comfortable
Where you cannot be disturbed
Turn off your phone
Have a good light
Have some tea or some other beverage of your choice
Maybe eat the food you might be reading about
Read with someone else who appreciates reading (fun to read to each other)
You will document, over the next two weeks your relationship with reading a book. You will take pictures and create a narrative for presentation on Monday, Oct. 16.
This will include:
Pictures of you finding a book that works for you (minimum of five photos)
Documenting when and where you read the book plus how many pages at a time you read (minimum of five photos)
Take five photos the explain the plot of the book (This is the really creative part - minimum of five photos)
Write an extending puke (plus you should be doing this the whole time in order to write about you are documenting) about how you felt about the process of the course of time you have read the book. Again, this is an opportunity to get really creative. Last five photos.
WhatShouldIReadNext.com: start with an author or book you love, click the closest match from the list that pops up, and then this site will generate a list of books you’ll probably like based on your initial author/title. Pretty cool.
GoodReads: This is social networking for readers. Join (you can use your Facebook credentials) and then find friends and see what they’re reading, find interest-based groups, search book lists, or join a discussion.
BookBrowse.com: The “Read Alikes” service here is similar to WhatShouldIReadNext but the lists of comparable books is handpicked by other readers.
WhichBook: Choose your book by mood or other fun factors, like Happy or Sad, Beautiful or Disgusting, Conventional or Unusual.
Make the time to read. Make it important. Make it a priority.
Read in the bathroom
Read in line
Read while you are waiting for . . . anything
Read before you go to bed
Read in a favorite chair on a rainy day
Read outside on a sunny day
Use the 50-page rule
If you are not into it by the 50th page there is no sin in saying that this book is not for you.
Start a reading notebook
It could be a Pinterest board, a note on Facebook, a list on your phone, a folder of photos, your GoodReads account etc.
Find your reading spot
Make it comfortable
Where you cannot be disturbed
Turn off your phone
Have a good light
Have some tea or some other beverage of your choice
Maybe eat the food you might be reading about
Read with someone else who appreciates reading (fun to read to each other)
As human beings, we naturally search for narratives within pictures. When we see an image, we respond with our own subjectivity, values, and experience. Photography is a powerful tool in the hands of a campaigner. We identify strongly with photographic images because we see a close representation of what we assume to be the reality. However, photography is the selective framing of an event. In one brief moment, the photographer edits both space and time. An understanding of photography can help us to make our own images, and help us make them persuasive to the viewer.
The composition of the image is crucial to its meaning. In this case the subject is a shrouded body. We assume that the body is a dead one and we invent reasons why the subject might have died. The body might have fallen from the building in the background. Alternatively, the rocks in the foreground might have crushed the body. The subject might have drowned in the nearby sea or have been burned in an adjacent fire. The artist John Hilliard shows how the reading of the picture can be changed completely by simply moving the subject towards the top or the bottom, the left or the right of the frame. What the photographer decides to select within their frame is critical to the meaning of the image. This is because we intuitively make associations between the elements in the picture, and this depends upon their arrangement within the frame.
What makes picture work?
What are the things you like about photography? Do you love the moment of seeing the images in prints or on your screen? Is it the challenge of making the photo? Is it the sharing the images with your friends? Is it the memories you get when you look at your photos later? Whatever it is you like about taking pictures, write it down.
What you want to achieve with photography. Do you want to remember what your kids are like at each stage of their growing up? Do you like flowers or architecture or mountains and want to document them? Do you want to show the human condition? Do you want to pursue a career in photography? Write down what you want your photography to do.
What subjects you want to shoot? Flowers, dogs, kids, models, food, people's feet, whatever. Write down those things you find catch your eye or make you wish you had your camera when you see it.
How you feel about those subjects. Do you love it, hate it, feel afraid of it, laugh at it, wish it was yours? This is actually the most important section of the lesson. When you understand what you feel towards something, you'll find your photography of it improves automatically.
Now grab your pen and puke. Once you're done, put it on the wall, throw it into your camera bag or put it somewhere you can easily review it. Add or change it as you grow as a photographer. But once you have the list, you have a great tool to make your photography better.
The most used lesson in artistic composition is the rule of thirds. While there are lots of ways to compose pictures, this short cut always makes an image more interesting than most where the subject is dead center. If you're shooting a close up of a person's face or other object, putting it in the center is the thing to do. But, if you have a picture with a person in the center and lots of scenery around him or her - well, it could be improved.
Exercise: Take a piece of paper and draw two horizontal lines dividing the paper into thirds.
Draw two vertical lines again diving the paper into thirds.
For Monday: Choose 5-7 pictures that you like from either the link I provided or another site and use them to think about what kind of photography you like. Puke about it. Then take some time this weekend to do these two exercises. Exercise 1: Two Dozen
Pick a location. Stand in one spot and make 24 unique photographs while standing in the same place. You cannot move your feet but you can turn around.
Exercise 2: Ten of One
Take 10 unique and/or abstract photographs of 1 small subject.
“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb
We have a choice in how we view things. Consider these thinking techniques:
Think like someone else One way to look at your challenge differently is by imagining how someone else might try to solve your problem. For maximum effect, pick someone (in)famous. What would Dr. Crowley do in your situation? What about Oprah, Tom Brady or Drake? Your famous associate doesn’t even have to be real. Imagining how James Bond, Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker might attempt to solve your problem can be just as insightful.
The Time Traveler Imagine for a moment that time travel will be invented at some point in the future. Hold that thought.
Imagining how your experienced 90-year-old self would give you advice, helps to create psychological distance. The exercise allows you to shift your perspective and to see approaches you would otherwise overlook.
Make it worse Another great way to change your view on a problem is by imagining ways to worsen the situation. This might seem ridiculous, but if there’s anything reading this article might have taught you, it is that there can be a lot of value in ridiculousness. Thinking about ways to make your situation even more horrible than it already leads to surprising insights.
The ‘Make it worse’ technique consists of three very simple steps:
Step 1. How could you make your situation even worse? Step 2. What could be possible benefits of this aggravation? Step 3. Use new insights to generate as many ideas as possible for tackling the initial problem.
The Reversal To change your perspective, it sometimes is enough to just need to change your question. After all, the way you describe your problem determines what direction you will look for solutions. Actively change your problem statement and you’ll force yourself to generate more original solutions.
One way of doing this is changing the order of the keywords in your problem statement. For instance, don’t ask ‘How do we make sure that fewer people take the car to their work?’, but ‘How do we make sure that fewer cars take people to their work?’ While such a ‘reversed’ challenge sometimes sounds odd and illogical, it often sparks much more creative solutions. In this case, it might lead you from pondering about different means of transportation (like trains or bikes) to considering ways to get people to carpool (fewer cars for the same number of people).
Assignment for Monday
Look at something differently this weekend.
Take a picture of something.
Describe it.
Now, describe it differently.
Then a 1-page puke about your process of figuring out how to think differently.
What did you do? What made you do it? What surprised you?
For Friday - Create an artifact that explains your media consumption and what you think it says about you. It needs to address the following questions: 1. How much time do you spend with a particular media platform? (averages for the typical American listed at around 9 hours of screen time a day, for 13-74 year olds. FYI) 2. Why do you choose that particular screen for the media content? 3. What do you "get" out of that media? What kind of stimulation are you looking for? (This is the hard part.) 4. What don't you engage in? What kind of outlets do you avoid? (Don't read, or don't listen to commercial radio, or don't play video games for example.) 5. What kind of "high" culture would you like to engage in? Why don't you? 6. Use one idea from the article provided in the Google Drive to talk about what you have learned about yourself and media culture. Spend 24 hours making note of every time I touched a "screen" even to talk or text (Almost always entertainment or distraction - if not make a note.) PS Texting with your mother COUNTS as distraction and entertainment unless there is an emergency in the family. There is no judgment here just a hard look at yourself and what you do.
“communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed”
Exercise: 
