Art 315: Photography students are encouraged to review this assignment and continue their study of the zone system.

Product photographs and still life setups allow for complete control of all factors within the limits of equipment and materials used. Arrangement and lighting, often outside the photographer's control, can be totally managed in a still life setup.

You may print this assignment in the darkroom or using a laser printer. Print and mount for exhibition fully enhanced and retouched. Make at least one final print. Save zone system records of metering and processing. Also turn in negs, trial prints, enhancement records, printing records, and so on.

Study product and still life photos, drawings and paintings noting the variety of purposes and styles used. Artists such as Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse provide models from art history. Audrey Flack is one of many contemporary still life painters.

Review the relevant information in the London/Upton text. Read the chapter on tone control (zone system) and lighting, "Editorial and Advertising Photography," in Langford, Master Guild to Photo-Photography. Also look for still life photos.

See the bookshelf in room 22. Please leave the books in the Visual Arts building and return them to the shelf as soon as you have finished with them.

Tailor the subject matter to your personal photography and educational goals. Communications majors might make an editorial or advertising photo. A nursing student could produce a composition promoting some aspect of health care or a comment about drug addiction. A religion major might set up a liturgical or alter piece. A theater student might photograph a scale model of a set. An education student might set up a visual aide to help teach a concept. An architectural student might photograph a scale model in order to facilitate a perspective presentation drawing. Art students might be inspired by the stylistic and subject matter content prevalent in artwork produced for other classes.

Avoid making a photograph to promote products or causes inconsistent with your own values. Give some thought to the implied intention of the photograph. Why will the viewer think you selected the subjects and the style you did?

You may use any area in the Visual Arts building, but you must tidy up and replace anything you moved in order to do the setup. We have one infinity table with background paper in Rm. 20 specifically for this assignment. Try not to damage the paper and keep it clean. For very small set ups we have a copy stand in Rm. 20 which may be used for its lights by adding your own background paper. You may also work elsewhere if you have a place. If you borrow lights, sign them out. Take them just before needed and return them immediately when finished not to exceed 12 hours.

Avoid clutter, or is there a reason to have clutter? An empty background may be best. Most compositions are more dynamic if the main object is off center. Study the balance. Can over-lapping tie things together?

How can you divide space in order to create a pleasant variety of spaces both positive and negative? Are you look-looking at the negative spaces between objects? What is the effect of diagonals, curves, repeats, verticals, and horizontals? Could you use the rule of thirds or the golden mean?

White or light areas often tend to come forward. Tonal contrast between object and background can emphasize depth effects. Does any one thing stick out like a sore thumb because of its shape, texture, size, tone, or other visual characteristic? Do you want a closed composition with background space around your objects, or do you want an open composition where things are moving out the sides of your frame?

See Chapter the chapter in the text on Seeing Photographs and/or Langford's fine coverage of photographic composition to see if you have overlooked any helpful ideas.

Unless you feel a particular need to produce a grainy rendition, use T-max 100. A 10-exposure film should be more than adequate to bracket the exposures.

• Use any kind of lighting other than flash so you can "see" and visualize all the effects of the light and shadows. Because of the limited latitude of black and white photography the tonal effects of light and shadow tend to be much greater in prints than they appear in real life. Use what you have learned about reflectors and shades to improve the light quality. A black card can subtract light in the same way a white card can increase light. Clamp-on floodlights can be adjusted to any position.
• Avoid having any bright light hit your lens surface, as it will cause glare on the glass and reduce image quality. Use a gobo (a shade) to prevent direct light from hitting your lens.
• Paper too close to a bulb can start a fire. Be very careful to always allow bulbs to cool briefly before moving lights because the bulbs will burn out if they are bumped when hot. 

• Because of the very close range, use only the smallest f-stop your lens has (f-22, or f-16). Zoom lenses may allow f-32.
• At f-22 or 16 you can expect exposures to be very long. A tripod and cable release (or self-timer) is essential for this assignment.
• Read your depth of field indication on the lens to set the focus so it includes all the parts you need sharp. Most set- ups look best if the close parts are sharply in focus rather than blurry. It's easier to get by with distant parts blurry because it is a more natural expectation. It also adds an illusion of depth. Professionals do still-life work with a view camera so they can tilt the lens board, thus improving their depth of field.

•  Meter the darkest part of the scene in which you wish to show textural detail. Unless you are using a spot meter, the camera must be very close so it only sees the darkest area. If your dark area is too small the camera viewfinder includes some lighter areas. You will get a false reading. Create a larger dark area temporarily to get a meter reading. View it very carefully to be sure it matches the small dark area. Some photographers use a spot meter to include ONLY the area being metered. Set camera two stops darker than this reading and take the picture. Example: If reading is f-22 at 1/4 second, take the shot at f-22 at 1/15 second. At this setting the film still has enough latitude to include good shadow detail.

• Meter the lightest part of the scene in which you wish to show textual detail. This reading will be needed in order to know how long to develop the film. This indicates the contrast range in your scene.
• Keep a record of the both readings (darkest and lightest part of scene) to help decide on developing time. If your lightest highlights are too small to fill the viewfinder, create a temporary large area matching the small highlight area. Meter it for highlight tone.

• If you had 4 intervals between 5 stops when you metered the dark and light parts of the scene, you should use the normal (N) developing time. For this assignment, it is better to change the lighting to increase or decrease the contrast so you get more experience using the contrast adjustments below.
• If you metered more than 4 intervals (more contrast) you should reduce the developing time of the film (N - time). This decreases contrast in the negative.
• If you metered less than 4 intervals between the lightest and darkest area, you will need to increase developing time (N +time). This increases contrast in your negatives.

At 68 degrees it takes about 25% more time to increase the contrast by one stop and 20% less time to decrease the contrast by one stop with D-76 developer. Remember normal (N) contrast is 4 intervals (stops) between darkest and lightest textural information. These examples are estimates.

Examples to reduce negative contrast:

N - 1 STOP would require 8 minutes if the normal time were 10

N - 2 STOPS would require 6 minutes if normal time is 10

Examples for more contrast:

N + 1 STOP would require 12.5 minutes if normal time is 10

N + 2 STOPS would require 15 minutes if normal time is 10

KEEP A GOOD EXPOSURE RECORD

EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR OWN IDEAS - ENJOY