Lighting Assignments

I'm teaching a university level course in advanced commercial lighting and was wondering if anyone has any great assignment/project ideas. Maybe something from a course you have taught or taken. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks, Rob

shooting cars or vehicles of some type, in an outside enviroment. You'll have alot to combat and work with there.... Glare, hot spots, backgrounds, angles, diffusion techniques, lighting, etc....

Rob Davidson said:

I'm teaching a university level course in advanced commercial
lighting and was wondering if anyone has any great
assignment/project ideas. Maybe something from a course you have
taught or taken. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks, Rob

Click to expand...

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Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsake-photography.com
10D - D60 - Fuji S1
Canon 28.135IS, Canon 17.35
7 cats, 1 dog, and wife....

Off the top of my head, one of my assignments was this: We colaberated with the art dept. The art students studying commercail art drew layouts that needed some type of photo; person, product or place. and we as the photo students teamed up with that art student and produced the shot. Great 'real world' type of learning. We also had the printing dept. use some of the assignment to use as print sample their students could work on.

Mike

I'm not sure if this is good enough for "Advanced" students

how about a set of studies on objects
set 1: extremes

A black object.
A white object.
A silver object.
A clear object.

set 2. Hard and soft
A soft object like a blanket or teddy bear
A hard object
Make the soft object show it's softness think downey comercial

Try to make the hard object show it strength or durability, knives and Scissors are always good for this

set 3. rooms.

Take 1 room, make it look warm and cheery, make it look cold and menacing, pick another emotion to bring to the room.

--To follow the previous post, I used to teach a seminar at a University art department about lighting for photography and art students. The final project (a team thing) was to light a defined object (a tree, building face, a model, it changed each time) in three defined looks. Might be some combination of "soft, hard, ancient, modern, corporate, Picasso, etc."

Always interesting to see creative students light a tree as "Picasso", then "modern".
jdoyle

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! Good ideas. I'll be using them as I plan the course.
Thanks,
Rob

Car photography is interesting, because of the nature of their exteriors most of the shots are done on cloudy days, or the moments right after sun down. Event photographers obviously don't have this luxury, but these are rarely "product photos".

I think a more worthwhile assignment, if you have the resources, would be to rent a large studio in which you can roll in a car to be shot. You will probably need a ceiling that can be lowered, as well as large backdrops, and several large hot lights, as these shots are usually done at extremely high apertures (and long exposure times) to achieve the desired DOF.

This kind of experience is rare and because few photographers’ posses proficiency in such large scale studio work, the assignment becomes instantly more valuable to your students, as they become more valuable as photographers.

-Drew

pfiltz said:

Rob Davidson said:

I'm teaching a university level course in advanced commercial
lighting and was wondering if anyone has any great
assignment/project ideas. Maybe something from a course you have
taught or taken. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks, Rob

Click to expand...

--
Regards,
Phillip@keepsake
http://www.keepsake-photography.com
10D - D60 - Fuji S1
Canon 28.135IS, Canon 17.35
7 cats, 1 dog, and wife....

Click to expand...

drew adipietro wrote:
We do have a huge studio- so this could be an interesting group project- thanks!

make them use your car - and you will get a free car wash as well ...

;o)

alfred

Rob Davidson said:

drew adipietro wrote:
We do have a huge studio- so this could be an interesting group
project- thanks!

Click to expand...

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http://www.pbase.com/abudschitz
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pic a plain looking person, someone standard, and without changing the pose and expression, light him/her as a

sex god/godess
housewife/man
old person
young person
business man
ax murderer
alien

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Gaetan J.