:: exercise #2: clarifying your craft | 30 people pictures ::

SPECS

• Goal: To develop a critical eye to help us fine-tune our craft and be better photographers.
• Tools: Pen, journal, magazine images, images from your favorite photography sites.
• Light: N/A
• Location: Indoors or outdoors.
• Theme: CELEBRATION, COLLECTION and CRITIQUE
• Duration: open
• Subject(s): N/A

CHALLENGES

• Step 1: Write down a list of top 20 pictures of people you like most.
• Step 2: Write down these three words in your journal -- celebration, collection and critique. Leave space in between to add more notes as your progress.
• Step 3: Celebrate something that you naturally enjoy. Visit a museum exhibit, go to the library and look at various photo books, take a drive and study the pictures plastered on billboard signs. Slow down and pause with each picture you see.
• Step 4: Spend 45 minutes collecting pictures that inspire you the most from magazines -- tear & tape them into the journal.
• Step 5: Write down your own definition of what makes a people picture good. Read the 5 quotes in Orwig's book (quotes by Henry David Thoreau, Chris Buck, Evan Chong, Platon, Irving Penn). Take 15 minutes to craft an idea of your own.

PRODUCT

• A deeper understanding of what makes a photograph good and the inner strength to push yourself to make better photographs.
• A "quote" from you about what you think makes a people picture good.

For more tips and inspiration, please read Chris Orwig's "People Pictures."

**This is a tough one, but it will be immensely enjoyable in the end, I think. The difficult part will be coming up with an original idea about what makes a photograph good, without being influenced by the many brilliant thoughts already out there :-)
Also, since the exercise does not require a final image product (other than the journal), please feel free to add your favorite images (pls give proper credit) and/or upload your own**