Project 1: Found Alphabet

Submit Assignment
  • Due Jan 24 by 8:30am
    •  
  • Points 50
    •  
  • Submitting a website url or a file upload

Task

Create a photographic alphabet using found graphic elements. For instance, photographing a tree fork to represent Y, a clock face to represent O, a tangled cord to represent S, or a bird poop stain shaped like an X. OR: An alphabet of words that start with those letters, in a theme (Food: Apple, Banana, Caramel, Dogfood)

Purpose

Learning Objectives: Composition should be your FIRST CONSIDERATION IN EVERY PHOTOGRAPH. (Personal opinion.) You can set your camera to creative auto and get thoughtless but competent exposure and color. But you can't un-suck bad composition. In the age of disposable cameras, it became trendy at weddings to give each attendee a disposable camera and shoot the wedding. It went out of fashion when the shots were all children shooting sidewalk close-ups, or otherwise intelligent people shooting to cut off the top of someone's head in a composition. Skills: This assignment will teach you about controlling the exact compositional variables inside your picture frame. It will also make you sensitive to other aspects of photography that affect composition, such as camera focal length and lens type. The distorted wide-angle perspective of 16mm might be needed to capture a Z of zig-zagging road. That far off tree branch might be a perfect Y, but you'll need a 300mm lens to zoom that far in. If you experience the frustration of encountering a perfect letter, but not having the lens to grasp it, you have succeeded.
Alternatively, thematic alphabet books (animals, food, people) are very popular and kewl. 

Criteria for success

Turn in a collection of your 26 photos using the methods discussed in the syllabus under “What to turn in.” Do NOT photograph actual typography. Just shoot Jpeg for now. Y’all don’t even know what Raw is!

“Finding” your compositions can have some gray area. Try not to “draw” with objects found in your environment. For instance, don’t just build a Q out of legos. However, a chair rotated in the right direction can look like a lower case h. It’s understandable to position and orient it to obtain ideal lighting. Having a person stand in a letter-like shape is about the same as building a letter with Legos, but something like, say, making a lower case n by shooting someone's upper teeth? Or a Y in their arm crease? That's "found" enough.

Rubric

You get 2 points per letter, totalling 50 points (and one forgiveness letter.) Those 2 points are based on the following:
  • 1/2 point for Readability. Does it actually look like the letter?
  • 1/2 point for creativity.
  • 1/2 point for camera use. Don’t turn in underexposed muddy photos!
  • 1/2 point for file format and naming conventions. 26 jpgs in a .zip folder. Name them DSGN128_Lastname_Firstname_alphabet01.jpg
  • DSGN128_Lastname_Firstname_a.jpg

Knowledge

Composition is the fundamental language of design. But are letters composition? Absolutely! Consider the great Andrew Loomis' treatise on composition, including letters. https://archive.org/stream/andrew-loomis-creative-illustration#page/n17/mode/2up (Links to an external site.)

Example project

Check the files section for an example project in the folder Alphabet. But here's another example found from googling "photography alphabet." Don't mash them all together into one crop, have 'em stay separate.

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