ISU:
DESTINATION TORONTO
Toronto is an amazing city – full of culture, character, people, places, parks, nightlife, restaurants, events and unique neighbourhoods that make our city ‘The Liveable City’. Whether it’s the CN Tower or a comfy couch at your local independent coffee shop, there are many pieces that come together to make our city great.
Your assignment is to showcase the City of Toronto and highlight what makes it great.
As we have learned from previous assignments you will get better photos if you know what you are looking for before you start. To help you know where you are going, this page has been broken down into sections.
Part 1 | ARTIST STATEMENT
ARTIST STATEMENT
1/2 page max, double-spaced, 12 pt type
Write an artist statement as an introduction to your work. This should be written before you take your photographs. Express what you hope to achieve with your photos and what the viewer should take away from your work.
Tips:
-
Don't start with any version of the line 'I want to show Toronto in a way it has never been shown before.' As a grade 12, amateur photographer, it's not realistic that you are going to do that.
-
Proofread, and edit accordingly. Spelling and grammar count. Don’t babble. Keep it tight.
Here is the lesson on writing an artist statement.
Note 1.1: This work must be submitted as a Google Doc and submitted as part of your final submission, to the assignment dropbox on Brightspace
OR?
Something else?
Here is a note I wrote to myself at the end of one particularly poorly written set of artist statements:
Make up a new written requirement. Artist statements are all the same, and they pretty much all suck. What about a story? What about selecting either a poem or song about a city and taking photos that reflect that? What about finding a newspaper article and shooting photos that tell that story?
Here is a note I wrote to myself at the end of one particularly poorly written set of artist statements:
Make up a new written requirement. Artist statements are all the same, and they pretty much all suck. What about a story? What about selecting either a poem or song about a city and taking photos that reflect that? What about finding a newspaper article and shooting photos that tell that story?
Here is a note I wrote to myself at the end of one particularly poorly written set of artist statements:
Make up a new written requirement. Artist statements are all the same, and they pretty much all suck. What about a story? What about selecting either a poem or song about a city and taking photos that reflect that? What about finding a newspaper article and shooting photos that tell that story?
Here is a note I wrote to myself at the end of one particularly poorly written set of artist statements:
Make up a new written requirement. Artist statements are all the same, and they pretty much all suck. What about a story? What about selecting either a poem or song about a city and taking photos that reflect that? What about finding a newspaper article and shooting photos that tell that story?
"That night in Toronto
With its checkerboard floors
Riding on horseback
And keeping order restored
'Til The Men They Couldn't Hang
Stepped to the mic and sang
And their voices rang with that Aryan twang”
-Bobcaygeon, The Tragically Hip
Part 2 | BODY OF WORK
You must take (and submit in a separate album) a minimum of 100 photos. This album will be assessed a mark based on a number of criteria and is worth 20% of your total mark for this assignment. This album should include a wide variety of subjects (e.g. people, architecture, landmarks, parks, culture etc) and locations (e.g. Harbourfront, Kensington, the Financial District, Fort York, etc). It should be clear from the work presented that some degree of planning, scouting and experimenting took place. This album should demonstrate your learned ability to shoot a variety of styles and subjects and appropriately apply skills learned in other culminating tasks. (e.g. shooting a series of photos in evening or night light and using light painting in your compositions.)
Note 2.1: These photos do not need to be named.
Note 2.2: These photos will make up your Thinking and Inquiry mark
BODY OF WORK
100 photos
Part 3 | SELECTED WORKS
SUBMISSION
25 photos
You will choose a subset of 25 photos from your body of work to be submitted as your selected work. These photos should illustrate your learning over the course. Your photos will be evaluated based on content, image quality, technical merit, creativity, uniqueness, connection, overall visual appeal and how well you address the topic 'What makes Toronto Great?'
Requirements:
-
Each of your 25 photos must have a name (the name ‘untitled’ may be used for a maximum of 3 photos).
-
Your photos should have at least three different date stamps based on the EXIF information diplsayed by Flickr.
-
Your submitted photos should cover a wide variety of subjects. (One image that is a recognizable tourist attraction. One that is about parks or nature. And so on until you have a broad number of categories and subjects.)
-
Your submitted photos should demonstrate a wide array of skills learned in class. (One might demonstrate capturing motion, one might demonstate long exposure, one might demonstrate depth of field.)
Note 3.2: These photos will make up your Application mark
Part 4 | HISTORICAL TORONTO
Using the Internet, books, magazines, the Toronto Archives, whatwasthere.com, TorontoisAwesome.com or even family albums, find a photo that features historical content of the City of Toronto (or surrounding area). Your photo should have been taken before 1950. Your job is to re-take that photo, or a part of it today. Your photo should demonstrate either how much the subject has changed, or alternatively, how little it has changed, in contrast to its surroundings. Both the original photo and your photo should feature something that indicates that some change has taken place, whether that is an automobile, fashion, new buildings, or changes in landscape. Here’s a great example. Add both photos to your Flickr submission, and name them history-old and history-current. They will be the 26th and 27th photos in your submission.
PROCESS
As part of your independent study unit, you must demonstrate the ability to follow procedures and class protocols accurately. Over the semester we have established a process for submitting work. There have also been instructions included in this outline specifically detailing submission of work.
ASSIGNMENT CHECKLIST
Assignment checklist:
These are the things you are handing in:
-
1/2 page, type-written, double-spaced, artist statement submitted to Brightspace
-
Link to a named Flickr album which includes your body of work totaling 100 images - submitted to Brightspace
-
Link to a named Flickr album which includes your submitted photos totaling 25 named images - submitted to Brightspace
-
an old photo (pre-1950) and a new photo (today) of a recognizable subject in Toronto that has changed over time uploaded to Flickr
INSPIRATION
DOC
There are a number of places to find inspiration. Here are just a few:
View from the Streets | Toronto Star project
ASSESSMENT
HOW IS IT MARKED?
Review the images and feedback to get a better understanding of what I had to say about submitted work for this submission
This is a wonderful find. How do you apply the rules we have learned to this composition? This is a very centrally composed photo, which cuts off her fingers and foot - not purposely. We learned about intrusions and eliminating distractions. This is where to apply it. How would another angle affect the photo? Can you better incorporate angles to use her dynamic movement the affect the composition? What about the crowd? A low angle could have moved their obscured faces into view, and by moving left you could have included them all, forcing the viewer's eye to follow the eye lines to our focal point. This is good, but could be much stronger with more consideration.
You should be very proud of this work. It is exemplary. Your use of the techniques we learned throughout the course and your experimentation are exactly what I hope to see in an ISU. The photos they lead to are outstanding. You have applied tools from every aspect of this course. 'Frame within a frame' (from open/closed composition), white balance changes for a purpose (white balance task), colour isolation (red balloon task), depth of field, capturing motion, and more. Your selected photos give the viewer a thorough and varied view of the city, through the lens of colour, contrast and unity, which you eloquently write about in your written artist statement. Outstanding.
Overall, you did a good job of finding interesting images and scenes to capture, but some of them need more subject matter. Look at your photo 'Bokeh'. It's a good example of using the technique, but it's not something that would show up in a book about Toronto, because there's nothing specific about 'Toronto' in the image.
...look at 'stairway to heaven'. It's a good photo that uses a lot of the considerations we have talked about: repetition, contrast, capturing motion, leading lines, depth. But look critically at the composition. The brightest element (the red neon Rogers sign) is cut off, leads out of the frame, and doesn't help the actual emphasis of the photo: the stairs.
So; a good photo, but a little critical analysis and thus tighter cropping would make a big difference.
Look at the difference between 'The Coast is Clear' and 'Where to?'. The use of the rule of thirds and the addition of the girl makes all the difference. 'The Coast' also makes really good use of colour temperature differences. The warm vs. the cool colours really enforces the emphasis point. This is an excellent photo. 'Where to?' is fine, but my eye darts around looking for a place to land. I search for the point. I eventually land on the clock, but sort of in disappointment, and keep checking the flags to see if they're more important. By comparison, in 'The Coast' my eye goes right to the girl and stays there.