The Assignments:

Assignment 1 of 3: This task focuses on the taking and sharing of pictures.

The steps of this assignment include:

1) View or review the resources I am providing to make you better photographers as well as understanding the technology behind the devices.

2) Use your digital camera to photograph a handheld object like a coffee cup, cell phone, pocket knife, sunglasses, or almost anything else of that size. By photograph, I mean take many pictures of it from various angles,using different backgrounds, perspectives, and settings. The point here it to keep the object constant over all else.

For example if a cell phone is your subject, then the phone could be on a desk, partially in a pocket, or in, on,under or along any class-appropriate setting you can come up with. Humor is fine. As photographers say, work the shot. This means consider what is attractive about the scene. What is interesting? What is important? What is not? Take many pictures and consider what you like. What doesn’t work? What distracts? What attracts? In the end, you will need about 20 individual images,each associated with your object. Be creative.

3) Put your images in a folder on your desktop with a descriptive name that means something. Download Google Picasa, sign up for Flickr, or use the online photo management system you are already used to (as long as it offers the necessary features for this assignment) if you have not already done so. Note: some photo programs will “link” their interface to all images and movies on your computer. The data is not removed from anywhere,but just connected to the program. It can be disconcerting or even scary when you see every image on your computer flash by in a small window as if being uploaded to somewhere unknown.

4) Make a new album and title it Digital images (name of your object). Find your object pictures in the album or library or whatever your photo program calls its storage arena. Put your object pictures into the Digital images your-object folder. Then upload onto the web using the upload button or whatever the tool is called. You will need to have a Google or other account open when doing this. Keep the album visibility public. The medium size image is fine in the dropdown menu if you have such a choice.

5) Use a “link to this album” feature if you can find one. Then try to embed the slideshow hypertext on your blog. Remember, it's just pasted into an html/JavaScript gadget on your blog.

Keep the gadget at or near the top of your blog page so I can easily find it since many of your blogs are already full of pictures, which is a good thing! If two different accounts are needed, you can run a different Google/Flickr/Yahoo/etc. account in a different browser like IE and Firefox, or Safari and Firefox at the same time.

6) Test your blog gadget.

Assignment 2 of 3: This task focuses on editing and manipulation of photos.

The steps of this assignment include:

1) Choose five of the images from the set you created in step one.

2) Put copies of the images in a separate folder. You will be manipulating these images but you want to keep originals. Make the copies, and change their file names by adding an “E” at the end of the filename (not the extension) indicating "edited." This way, when back in the folder with your originals, you will see both the original and the edited file next to each other when sorted alphabetically, or all together if sorted by date modified.

3) Using the photo editing tools in Picasa, Flickr or other programs, please work with each image changing it from its original form to a new one. It might even be best to start by just double clicking on a photo file to see what happens. Many computers have a default program for working with images. Or you could right click on the file and see what your computer offers you to open the file. Maybe there is some goodie already installed on your machine.

We will be working with the more artistic aspects of photo manipulation in step 3 but for now concentrate on making the image stronger or more focused on a specific area. Use the cropping, straightening, and brightness/contrast tools. Make at least 4 distinct changes to each image.

4) Make a new album using the naming convention of "Digital images (name of your object)" plus the word edited. Following the steps in assignment 1, upload the album to the web if needed,and embed it in your blog below the assignment 1 album.

5) Test your blog gadget.

Assignment 3 of 3: This task focuses on the digital art aspect of photography.

The steps of this assignment include:

1) Choose at least two of your original images that you will alter digitally to bring out your inner artist. Make copies of them in another folder, and change their file names by adding an “A” at the end of the filename (not the extension) for art.

2) Explore the tuning and effects features of Picasa, Flickr or whatever you are using. Other editing programs should have similar or better tools. Photoshop.com is a good choice (but may requrie a subscription). Note that some of the effects have additional options once selected.

3) After exploring the tools you may want to choose different images that the ones you started with. Feel free to select different ones from your original set. I won't know the difference.

4) After you have altered (arted?) your image, make a new album using the naming convention above plus the word “Art.” Following the steps in assignment 1, upload the album, and embed it in your blog below the assignment 2 album.

5) Test your blog gadget. If all works how you want,then post your blog address in the proper discussion thread as well as an explanation of what you did to your images. Please look at others’ photo albums. Comment as needed.

As usual, there will be HelpCircles for the assignments and for digital photography in general. This topic usually generates the most HelpCircle questions because things change so fast that even though I have dilluted my directions to hopefully work generically across most platforms and programs, but still things change fast.