In the last Practical Assignment, we analysed the visual design and how it can be understood as the building blocks or words that we photographers use to compose a message.

With this Practical Assignment PA4, we will follow with the next step: analysing how that visual design is used, arranged, or “composed” with expressive purposes, by means of conscious and/or intuitive decisions made in the field at the moment of exposure.

You will have read in Module 6 how as photographers we choose the values of many variables like aperture, length of exposure, framing, vantage point and exposure, focal length, etc. Every single one of these decisions will have an impact on what appears inside of the frame, and on how every part relates to the rest, and the whole. Photographers, like musicians or writers, use their building blocks (visual design, words or notes) and “compose” them so that order is built out of chaos, and a message appears.

In this Practical Assignment, you will, in retrospection, how your decisions, made in the field, affect the message and emotional connotations of your images. You will also analyse the visual relationships taking place in your images and the way the observer will experience your images, and how all this has an impact on the expressive power of your imagery.

This Practical Assignment will push you to become aware of what you are doing and see how it is working (or not). Again, do not worry if this process seems a bit too intellectual, conscious, and rational to you. The idea is to do this exercise as many times as needed so that it becomes truly intuitive. The main goal is creating a habit in your mind that makes all these considerations take place in the back of your mind whenever you are photographing in the field so that you do not need to think about that anymore. As always, good learning happens when you learn something and succeed to “forget” it all afterward. Practice will turn rational and conscious into intuitive and unconscious and you will be able to focus your attention on developing a connection with your subject, think about ideas and concepts, feel, imagine and daydream.

MATERIAL YOU SHOULD HAVE STUDIED FOR THIS PA4

In order to carry out this PA4, you should have covered the following modules:

Module 6 – Composition with Intent

Example of PA4 (PDF and Video) made by Rafael Rojas (below on this page)

MAIN OBJECTIVES

The main objective for this Practical Assignment will be to analyse how the work you made in the field (Composition) has affected that visual design, and has shaped:

- The nuances of the message
- The expressive register
- The emotional connotations
- The visual style
- The visual experience in the viewer
- Depth and Balance

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ASSIGNMENT

IMPORTANT: For this Practical Assignment, please consider the images as they came out of the camera, with no postprocessing and reframing (cropping) being done to them. If you shot the images in Jpg, then use those jpgs as a starting point. If you photographed them in Raw, then convert them directly to jpg format without applying any post-processing yet. The idea of this Practical Assignment is to analyse the decisions made at the moment of exposure, and the resulting composition at the moment the photograph was made. We will cover the refinement of composition in subsequent steps with additional Practical Assignments…

For completing this Assignment you will need to use a PDF template document that we have prepared for you. You can download this PDF template document here.

For this Assignment, you should:

- Fill in this PDF document for every image of the 10 images selected with your tutor during the PA1.
- The PDF’s can be filled automatically on your computer. You can also attach-embed the corresponding image to each of them, and the few sketches that are needed to illustrate some of the questions. In other words, there is no need to print these files out, fill them by hand or scan them. You can directly do everything digitally on the file itself. You might need to download the file, save it to your computer and then open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader so that you can fill it directly.
- Save the filled-in PDF files, by giving the file name: “yourname_yoursurname_PA4_number 1 to 10”
- Send the 10 files via email to info@essentialseeing.com. If the files are too heavy, please use the free service www.swisstransfer.com or www.wetransfer.com.
- Your tutor will review your Practical Assignment and produce a Video Assessment review, giving you personalized feedback and guidance. This video will be posted on this website page.
- You will be notified when your Video Assessment is ready for you to review.
- You can also check the Assignments posted by other students and the corresponding Assessments on this page. Like this, you can learn from each other and have some examples to find inspiration.

If you have any questions, please contact your Tutor.

We are looking forward to receiving your submissions for the assessment!

PA4 BY RAFAEL ROJAS

STUDENTS’ ASSESSMENTS