The prof was very loose with the definition of architectural landscape,
•The viewer has to have a place to stand.
•It must be autobiographical, thus it must say something about the photographer.
•It needs to have architecture in it (this can take up a corner or the entire frame).
•It must be about the landscape.
Landscape photography differs drastically from other photography. There are no makeup artists, fashion designers, set decorators, strobes, hot lights, etc. Just you, your camera and the effort you put into it. At first it seems like there is very little that can be done with that. I mean how can I shoot without a profoto pack and makeup artist? Many people get too attached to the the tools and techniques, shaking things up once in awhile is good.
Back to the class, our second assignment was the break through for many students. A class field trip to the Embarcadero in San Francisco. We were allowed to shoot anywhere from the ballpark to pier 39. We all went on the same day, at the same time and yet many brought back completely different photos, sometimes of the same thing almost standing in the same spot. The class was amazed and so was I. My first instinct is to assume that most of the photos would turn out the same, after all you can't move a building or the sun. Most of what we have been taught revolves around changing our environment, which the camera captures. Often glossed over is the capture itself, well beyond getting a 'good' exposure. In this class everything was reversed, it's you and the camera that matters, everything else you just need to accept. This was freeing.
Embarcadero
What the class did expanded after that. It is a mid level class and many had lived and fretted under too many details and constraints for too long. The photo process was also left up to the photographer. Some people experimented with polaroids, others with photoshop. I experimented with modified plastic lenses.
The class was only 6 assignments plus 1 extra credit assignment long, but by the end it was possible to pick out one person's work over the other, even if they shot the same thing. This class really drove home the amount of personality people do and should bring to their work. I learned a lot about my work and others.
Something should be said about having your shit together as a prof in any school, even an art school that runs things a bit looser. Assignments were given out well ahead of time, the grading scale, late work scale, and redo policy all spelt out. critiques took up most of class time and offered different views based on where each student was coming from. This sits in contrast to another prof who couldn't give use accurate due dates or assignment details for important things like the mid term project, and had rambling critiques that called one person's work crap and another's excellent, for the exact same reasons.
A book presentation I created using work from this class,
erode gallery
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