AGO Toronto Introduction to Photography

[Matthias]

Hi all,

Recently I enrolled in the Introduction to Photography workshop at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. It is a 4 week program that consists of a lecture (~3hours) followed by an assigment. In this thread I will be posting a bit about the workshop's contents but also the photos I took for the assignments.

The first lecture covered the basics of photography. It started with layout of modern (D)SLR's and the various different output file types and quality, followed by things like the Program Mode, Aperture and Shutter Priority and full Manual mode. Concepts like ISO, Aperture, Motion blur, Depth of field were discussed.

Most of this I already knew but it was nice to hear it again even more so because there were lots of examples photographs shown to illustrate all concepts. Most of these photographs were 'historic' photographs so at the same time we learned a lot about the history of photography as well.

At the end we were presented with the first assignment, a treasure hunt:

1. Photograph a moving object with a fast shutter speed
2. Photograph two complementary colours (red and green, orange and blue or yellow and purple)
3. Photograph a shadow of a person
4. Photograph a tree
5. Photograph a street sign
6. Photograph a texture with side lighting
7. Photograph a reflection
8. Photograph a street scene with great depth of field
9. Photograph a geometric pattern
10. Photograph a monochromatic subject

I will be commenting this thread with next assignments and photos that I take for those. Please let me know what you think!

Here are the photos I took for the first assignment:

1. Moving object, Porter plan landing at Billy Bishop Airport.

• ILCE-6300
• FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
• 200.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/2000 sec
• ISO 160

2. Complementary colours, yellow flower in a planter with a purple column of the OCAD University in the backgroun

• ILCE-6300
• FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
• 400.0 mm
• ƒ/11
• 1/200 sec
• ISO 400

3. Shadow of a person, my son walking behind his car

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 1/320 sec
• ISO 100

4. A tree, taken near King's College of the University of Toronto

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/11
• 1/400 sec
• ISO 100

5. A Street sign, University Avenue

• ILCE-6300
• ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21
• 21.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/1000 sec
• ISO 800

6. Texture with side lightning, side a building near Queens Park

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/11
• 1/200 sec
• ISO 100

7. Reflection, reflection of a street car in the front facade of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/500 sec
• ISO 100

8. Street scene with great depth of field, Nathan Philips Square in Downtown Toronto

• ILCE-6300
• ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21
• 21.0 mm
• ƒ/11
• 1/160 sec
• ISO 100

9. Geometric pattern, underside of Ryerson University on Young Street

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/11
• 1/100 sec
• ISO 100

10. Monochromatic subject, side of the back side of the AGO

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/500 sec
• ISO 100

 

[Matthias]

Looks great! Comments:

Go back to the airfield and reduce shutter speed to about 1/125 to make sure the propellers show motion. You will need to pan to get the shot. Anytime you shoot a prop plane you want the prop to show movement, or it looks like it's about to drop out of the sky. Yes, I have been guilty of the same thing, most of us are from time to time. I think you (and your instructor) will like the shot better if the props are blurred. 1/2000 is for jets!

Not sure about the tree, I think it's a very interesting tree because of the angle it grew at. I would like to see it in it's normal state.

I took a class with my daughter when she decided to get a camera. It's never a bad thing to be reminded of the basic concepts. Have fun!

Thanks a lot, it is indeed nice to be reminded of the basics plus with the examples I tend to see things in a different/new light.

Thank you for the feedback! I will go back there and try a reduced shutter speed, I thought of doing that or doing a panning shot of a car or bike but the instructor was really focussed on freezing the action so in the end I decided to use a very fast shutter. I do think that your suggestion will look better!

About the tree, I found that to be the most difficult one as there are so many of them. So I tried to find one that grew at an angle and play with the framing a bit to create something a bit more interesting. I took a few photos of other trees but decided to go with this one.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I have never taken a photography class, so I enjoyed your explanation of the syllabus!
I also enjoy these types of assignments or challenges when there is a clear theme or goal to the photos. I think you did well! I particularly liked the Complementary Colors and Monochromatic examples.

 

[Matthias]

I have never taken a photography class, so I enjoyed your explanation of the syllabus!
I also enjoy these types of assignments or challenges when there is a clear theme or goal to the photos. I think you did well! I particularly liked the Complementary Colors and Monochromatic examples.

Thank you! It is nice to go out and try to get the assignment done. It challenges you to look in a different way at the things than you would do usually. Hopefully some of it sticks and allows me to take better photos.

I will add replies to this thread for each of the upcoming lectures and assignments!

 

[alexpler]

I liked the complementary colours and the pattern shots. You did great with the assignment!

 

[Matthias]

I liked the complementary colours and the pattern shots. You did great with the assignment!

Thank you, appreciate it!

 

[evacguy]

Hi all,

Recently I enrolled in the Introduction to Photography workshop at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. It is a 4 week program that consists of a lecture (~3hours) followed by an assigment. In this thread I will be posting a bit about the workshop's contents but also the photos I took for the assignments.

The first lecture covered the basics of photography. It started with layout of modern (D)SLR's and the various different output file types and quality, followed by things like the Program Mode, Aperture and Shutter Priority and full Manual mode. Concepts like ISO, Aperture, Motion blur, Depth of field were discussed.

Most of this I already knew but it was nice to hear it again even more so because there were lots of examples photographs shown to illustrate all concepts. Most of these photographs were 'historic' photographs so at the same time we learned a lot about the history of photography as well.

At the end we were presented with the first assignment, a treasure hunt:

1. Photograph a moving object with a fast shutter speed
2. Photograph two complementary colours (red and green, orange and blue or yellow and purple)
3. Photograph a shadow of a person
4. Photograph a tree
5. Photograph a street sign
6. Photograph a texture with side lighting
7. Photograph a reflection
8. Photograph a street scene with great depth of field
9. Photograph a geometric pattern
10. Photograph a monochromatic subject

I will be commenting this thread with next assignments and photos that I take for those. Please let me know what you think!

Here are the photos I took for the first assignment:

1. Moving object, Porter plan landing at Billy Bishop Airport.
View attachment 44637

2. Complementary colours, yellow flower in a planter with a purple column of the OCAD University in the backgroun
View attachment 44638

3. Shadow of a person, my son walking behind his car
View attachment 44639

4. A tree, taken near King's College of the University of Toronto
View attachment 44641

5. A Street sign, University Avenue
View attachment 44642

6. Texture with side lightning, side a building near Queens Park
View attachment 44644

7. Reflection, reflection of a street car in the front facade of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
View attachment 44645

8. Street scene with great depth of field, Nathan Philips Square in Downtown Toronto
View attachment 44646

9. Geometric pattern, underside of Ryerson University on Young Street
View attachment 44647

10. Monochromatic subject, side of the back side of the AGO
View attachment 44648

Nice shots, my favourites are 5, 8 and 2. I really like the street sign and the street scene.

 

[Matthias]

Nice shots, my favourites are 5, 8 and 2. I really like the street sign and the street scene.

Thank you, Ed!

 

[Matthias]

I have never taken a photography class, so I enjoyed your explanation of the syllabus!

@FowlersFreeTime they will also share the lectures/presentations with us. Let me know if you are interested and I will share them with you!

 

[Matthias]

The second lecture started with review of the photos taken by the participant (those who felt comfortable showing their pictures) and the instructor giving tips on how to improve. There was a wide variety in quality, there was a participant that shot in small JPG and another one that shot JPG but had Tungsten white balance for all the shots (which were outside around noon). I must say that overall the compositions were nice.

After that, the lecture focussed on the book 'The Photographers Eye' by John Szarkowski and basic composition 'rules'. This book can be seen as an introduction of photography to the general public as it was written by the curator of the first large photography exhibition in a museum (The MoMA in New York). Szarkowski introduces 5 categories in photography that are not mutually exclusive, meaning a photo does not necessarily fall in 1 category but most of the time in multiple. The five categories are 'The thing itself', 'Detail', 'Frame', 'Time', and 'Vantage Point'.

• The thing itself — photography deals with the actual.
• The detail — photography is tied to the facts of things.
• The frame — the photograph is selected, not conceived.
• Time — photographs are time exposures and describe discrete parcels of time.
• Vantage point — photographs provide us new views of the world

I had not heard of the book before and if you also have not, consider having a look at it! I am really inspired by those old photographs. There is a guy on youtube that shows the book page by page and there are numerous websites about the book.

During the lecture, a selection of photos from the book was shown and explained why it would fit in certain categories. After that we moved on to a presentation on composition rules (leading lines, rule of thirds, filling the frame, etc). To be honest, this part was a bit rushed because in between the Szarkowski part and this part the instructor answered a question to someone on how to best export using an iMac computer. I felt like the question should have been dealt with through email or after the class was completed as it was very specific and only useful for a single attendee. After the lecture the presentation was shared through email so you could have a look at it yourself.

It ended with the next assignment, which is to take a photograph for each of the 5 categories that Szarkowski described.

I will update here once I completed the assignment.

 

[Matthias]

So here is the next set of photos that I took for the second assignment in the workshop. I found this more challenging as the topic are more concepts than fixed tasks. Also, as the instructor told us, every photo could fit in multiple categories.

Please let me know what you think!

1. The thing itself

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 1/2000 sec
• ISO 100

2. Detail

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 1/60 sec
• ISO 100

3. Frame

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/9
• 1/160 sec
• ISO 100

4. Time

• ILCE-6300
• E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS
• 51.0 mm
• ƒ/16
• 1/25 sec
• ISO 100

5. Vantage point

• ILCE-6300
• FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
• 100.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/800 sec
• ISO 100

 

[Matthias]

Really nice shots!

Thank you!

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

So here is the next set of photos that I took for the second assignment in the workshop. I found this more challenging as the topic are more concepts than fixed tasks. Also, as the instructor told us, every photo could fit in multiple categories.

Please let me know what you think!

1. The thing itself
View attachment 45006

2. Detail
View attachment 45007

3. Frame
View attachment 45008

4. Time
View attachment 45009

5. Vantage point
View attachment 45010

I like them all, but particularly #3.
I would be curious to see if anyone asks why not use a narrower aperture for #2, but if you didn't have a tripod, you did well enough.

 

[Matthias]

I like them all, but particularly #3.
I would be curious to see if anyone asks why not use a narrower aperture for #2, but if you didn't have a tripod, you did well enough.

Thank you! I could have gone narrower and use a higher ISO but I also liked the effect of the front figure being out of focus. Perhaps I could crop in a bit more to make that figure less prominent.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Thank you! I could have gone narrower and use a higher ISO but I also liked the effect of the front figure being out of focus. Perhaps I could crop in a bit more to make that figure less prominent.

nah mate, don't listen to me, you were there and you chose to focus on whichever face caught your attention.
If anything, I unintentionally demonstrated a newbie mistake of equating detail with a deep depth of field.

 

[Matthias]

nah mate, don't listen to me, you were there and you chose to focus on whichever face caught your attention.
If anything, I unintentionally demonstrated a newbie mistake of equating detail with a deep depth of field.

No you make a valid point! The focus was on the leaf that happened to be there, that really caught my eye and the hand pointing towards it was a bonus. I see that the front figure can be distracting being that it takes up a large part of the frame.

Indeed, detail could be isolating a specific detail but also showing a lot of detail across the frame.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

No you make a valid point! The focus was on the leaf that happened to be there, that really caught my eye and the hand pointing towards it was a bonus. I see that the front figure can be distracting being that it takes up a large part of the frame.

Indeed, detail could be isolating a specific detail but also showing a lot of detail across the frame.

Wow, I was way off!
In my defense, when I was scrolling down and not looking at the image in its entirety, I guess my attention was already held by the faces in the center of the frame before I reached as far as the leaf. I feel a bit sheepish that I didn't even realize the hand was pointing to the leaf LOL

 

[Matthias]

Wow, I was way off!
In my defense, when I was scrolling down and not looking at the image in its entirety, I guess my attention was already held by the faces in the center of the frame before I reached as far as the leaf. I feel a bit sheepish that I didn't even realize the hand was pointing to the leaf LOL

Haha I guess I should have listened to Tim...

 

[brphotographycanada]

Very interesting. I took a course on introductory photography a few years back and it covered largely the same topics. Your instructor has much more interesting and challenging homework. I recall mine were something like "great depth of field, narrow depth of field, leading lines, rule of thirds..." Thanks for sharing because I'm looking to put together an introductory photography workshop and this is great inspiration.

 

[Matthias]

So the third lecture started with review of the previous assignment. There were some very nice pictures and all the attendees found the assignment to be more challenging (as we had to photograph concepts instead of well defined tasks) than first weeks' assignment.

The second part of the lecture was all about portraits, we looked at dozens of portrait photographs and had to identify where the light source was, which emotions were displayed and why a certain framing works well with the photo. After that we had a practical exercise where the instructor had a studio light and we could play with the location of the light source. We had to take turns to sit in the portrait chair so the rest could practice.

Next assignment is to take portrait photographs with natural lighting, can be inside or outside. We have to bring out 5 best photos.

It will be a challenging one as this is way out of my comfort zone!

 

[Matthias]

So let me give you a final update on lectures 3 and 4 of this 4-week Introduction to photography at the AGO.

Lecture 3 started with review of the images and as expected each photo sparked a debate about the categories which was nice as you hear other people's views and gain insights in your work that you didn't had before. The only thing was that some students did not take the photos in the time between lecture 2 and 3 but also brought older photos and started telling why the photo was important to them, I felt like that didn't really belong.

Anyway, after the review we got a presentation about portrait photography. He told us about the history and again showed lots of examples (old and new). He explained lighting and the use of background (also absence of background), shallow depth of field, he also explained about different types of portaiture (e.g., street-, environmental-, classical-, etc). The setup of the classroom was changed so half of it was now a studio. The instructor had brought studio lights and we spent around 30-40 minutes taking turns making portraits of each other.

The assignment was to take portraits using natural light and bring the 5 best ones to the 4th lecture. As my little one got sick on the 1 day that I could go outside and ask people to take their portraits, I could not do that so I took a lot of portrait of my son which I will not share online. I got to say it was a nice exercise and I learned in particular to pay attention to the source of light and the background. I am more aware of distractions and try to remove them bu changing my angle.

Lecture 4 started with a review of the photos and again people brought older photos. Also I noticed that in lecture 3 not everyone wanted to get their portrait taken (they did however took portraits of everyone else) and those people also did not show up in the last lecture. It's a pity as even if you do not want to take portraits, you can learn a lot from the exercise.

After the review, he had arranged that a model came in and we could practice model/portrait photography. This time there was also a nice black backdrop an the studio lights as well. The assignment was to take photos of the model and share the best 5 with the instructor through email, he would then give feedback digitally as we would not meet again.

All in all I got to say that I learned a lot. Mostly I learned to look different at normal things around me, pay more attention to different colors/color combinations, source of light, concepts that tell a story, and more. I would recommend this workshop for beginners and people that already know how to operate in manual mode but want to learn more about the topics I described in lectures 2-4.

Here are the 5 best photos I took from the model:

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/1.4
• 1/100 sec
• ISO 400

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/2
• 1/100 sec
• ISO 800

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/2
• 1/100 sec
• ISO 400

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/1.4
• 1/100 sec
• ISO 400

• ILCE-6300
• FE 35mm F1.4 GM
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/2.2
• 1/80 sec
• ISO 800