A few weeks ago we have published the first of the two-part series on photographic exercises. Today we will present the remaining 5 exercises proposed by Petrisor Iordan (www.cursfoto.ro). After you try them out, feel free to share your experiences with us on our Flickr Group.
After having to choose a photograph, a subject, an effect, a location and a word, today’s exercises are about ideas, stories, songs, movies and photographers. As you will see, the exercises in this second part are a bit more challenging than the ones in the first part. They challenge you as a photographer to take your photography even further and look deep inside you in order to get the best our of yourself.
Exercise 6
Choose an idea and try to transpose it into an image. One example could be the relationship of human with nature; the man invading nature, the man as part of nature, the man being nature etc. Try to identify the scale you wish to experiment on, the elements which can be part of your image, representative situations, aesthetic genres, the way in which you would like to illustrate your idea. Also try to look for examples of how other photographers have managed similar situations.
Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Exercise 7
Choos a story and illustrate it through your photography. Usually several photographs brought together can better tell a story than a single one. Each image needs to contribute towars building a common understanding, thus constituine the sum of information which, put together, will finally tell the story. All images together should add more meaning to the story than each image in particular.
Keith Johnson
Exercise 8
Choose a song and try to find or build a corresponding image. The image should recompose in a similar way to the song. Pay attention to the melody, try to find analogies between sounds and elements, between the melodic line and the composition of the image, between the execution and contrast etc. Try to first identify simple elements such as lines, points, colors, light. Then focus on locating them, on proportions, repetitions or textures, perspective, amplitutde etc.
Robert Mapplethorpe
Exercise 9
Pick a movie an then search for a secquence which synthetises the sole essence of the movie. Out of that sequence, choose a representative image. You can select more than one image from different sequences, then narrow your list down until you only get one image. The last image, the best, needs to convery a most complex idea on the movie. If this is not enough, what would you add to the image to make it complete?
Gregory Crewdson
Exercise 10
Choose a photographer, a master of photography, and analyze his work. Identify his projects, themes, technical and artistical processes, the cultural fundamentals of his work. Which are the defining elements through which he approaches his subjects? Try to find out which were the artists who influenced him and look for a connection between the photographer’s work and their works. Then try to take a picture as if you were the photographer himself. Try to look throught the viewfinder as your chosen photographer, and not as yourself. Afterwards, take his vision and give it some character by comining the photographer’s point of view with your own ideas.
After you finish with any of the exercises, we would be more than happy to see your results in our Flickr Group. Or just leave us a comment with a link to where you have uploaded your results.
Whatever honestly influenced u to publish “Photography Exercises Part 2 | Camera Obscura Photography Magazine”?
I actuallydefinitely adored it! Thanks a lot -Flor