CS178 Assignment 5 - Still LifeVanity. Photo by Andrew Adams. MotivationUntil now most of your photos have been a kind of found art. The photograph captures something beautiful already existing in the world. This is not to say there's no creativity involved. Your interpretation of the scene, as expressed by your composition and your creative control over the camera, has been what makes the captured scene "art". This week we'll extend your creative control beyond the camera to the scene itself. In still life photography, you arrange the scene, choose the background, and can alter the lighting however you want. You should take time with each shot to make it just how you like it. There are plenty of second chances to get the shot right with still life photography. InstructionsThis assignment is similar in format to last week. There are five requirements, which you should meet by taking 5-10 photographs. The key difference between this week and previous weeks is in the selection of the scene. This week, only photograph objects you have arranged and lit yourself. Additionally, this week you should use your comments to justify your choice of background, arrangement of the objects in the scene, and your choice of lighting, in addition to justifying your choice of camera settings (ie focus, shutter speed, aperture, etc). Before you begin, you'll find it helpful to read the final section of your course reader: "The Case of the Disappearing Glass". If you haven't looked at it yet, it's a pretty interesting read. General RequirementsThese two requirements apply to every photo you take this week.
Specific RequirementsThese three requirements are similar to requirements from previous weeks, and can be satisfied with a single photograph each. You'll need to take multiple photographs for at least one of them, in order to reach the five photograph minimum.
Upload your photos and add comments.Upload your photos using the Picasa account you created in the first week to a public Picasa album titled "CS178 Assignment 5 - Still Life". Add comments below each photo explaining how you arranged the scene, how you took the photo, what relevant camera settings you used and why, any image processing done to the photograph afterwards, and most importantly, which requirement the photo covers (all of your photographs should satisfy requirements 1 and 2).
Example SolutionWe've put up an example solution to this assignment to both let you know what we expect, and hopefully also inspire you to take better photos than the TAs can. You don't have to meet the assignment requirements in the same way as we did - surprise us!One caveat: In our example solutions we may reuse photos we already had lying around, or borrow photos from other people to illustrate a point. Don't do this - your work for each assignment should be done by you specifically for the course. If you have questions or comments about the photos we used in the example solution, feel free to add them as comments below the corresponding photograph in Picasa Web, or to email us. GradingAs usual, we will assign grades based on whether you met the requirements of the assignment. For each requirement, you'll be given a check for meeting the requirement, check-minus for not quite meeting the requirement, or check-plus if you do something spectacular that makes your grader's jaw drop. Due Date11:59PM, Sunday, May 9, 2010Assignments are generally due on Sunday at midnight at the end of the week in which they're assigned. This leaves you free to start thinking about the next assignment during your next section. Sometimes lateness is unavoidable. Here's the lateness policy from the course outline:
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