AP Photography - AP Studio Art 2-D Design
Summer Assignment 2017 – 2018
Ms. Laurie Hunt
Due Date: Your images on a flash drive, and completed journal/sketchbook assignments, are due the first day of school. Late work will not be accepted.
Format: On your flash drive, create one main folder titled
“FirstIntialLastName_AP_Photo.” Inside your main folder, create separate folders for
each assignment number.
Please email me if you have questions over the summer at:
You will need:
•A digital camera
•A flash drive (4GB or larger). Save all images on a flash drive as well as in your Google Drive (share the folder with me).
Always backup your work, saving in at least two locations.
•An 8 x 10 (can be slight size variations) sketchbook / journal to jot ideas down, make sketches in, and do all written work below. You will be using a sketchbook journal throughout the school year, so get one that you are comfortable with.
•Photoshop CS6 (you can download a free 30 day trial at adobe.com).
Low resolution images will not be accepted.
In Photoshop, always edit all of your final images. Use levels and other basic
adjustments to make ALL your images reach their full potential. You may turn images to black and white if they have more impact in grayscale rather than in color.
These assignments are chosen to help you with your portfolio that will be sent in to the Advanced Placement Program of the College Board to be graded. Art is an ongoing process - it is critical to keep up artistic skills, because even the best can become rusty without practice. Therefore, your summer work is very important to your continued success in photography.
Summer grading will be based on idea, craftsmanship, being a visually successful work, and being completed on or before the due date.
Spend some time on the AP Central site. I suggest you look at student work, become
familiar with the parts of the portfolio, and read the scoring guidelines. We will use these throughout this course:
Below is the specific link to the AP Central Portfolio page. Here you can see the specific rubrics that you’ll be working towardsthroughout the year in your Quality,
Concentration and Breadth sections of your APPortfolio. You will benefit from becoming familiar with these rubrics, and beingdeliberate about setting your goals to achieve top results.
The following assignments should help you discover who you are as a photographerand what type of subject matter you want to photograph.
Assignment #1
Please choose 7 of the following assignments, and turn in your best 3-5 photos
demonstrating the 7 assignments to choose:
1. Study faces this summer. Take “character” portraits of someone whose face really
speaks to you personally.
2. Do a series of photos experimenting with motion – use a variety of long shutter
speeds, use panning to show motion, and freeze the action of your subject.
3. Take a series of photos of the same landscape, cityscape or beach scene at
different times of the day, capturing the changing light.
4. Photograph night scenes. Try some long exposure “light painting” or time-lapse
photography.
5. Work with silhouettes. Try a series and improve your composition with each new
photograph.
6. Study the work of a famous photographer that you admire. Emulate his/her style but with your own twist to make it your own …your own subject matter/concept.
7. Take a series of photos that present a social issue or something that you are
passionate about.
8. Set up an interesting still life of any related or unrelated items. Take a series of
photographs as though you were a fashion magazine/home magazine photographer
on assignment. Concentrate on texture, shape, composition, negative and positive
space, lighting…
9. Color - Go for the biggest pop, the most color impact you can imagine in a great
color photo. Maybe try a primary color scheme…or go for warms or cools…have fun
with this one!
10. Think outside the box…go to a weird location, or find some strange angles to a
seemingly normal situation or subject. Photograph it. Use juxtaposition to contrast
objects or people.
11. Photograph something that deals with perspective. Think of composition and
leading the eye into the work (leading lines) to your center of interest. (Make sure it’s creative and not cliché.)
12. Experiment with different ways to use framing in your photographs. Try for a series of different creative framing devices (hands, bicycle wheel, hair, etc).
13. Try using a screen or reflective surface in your work.
14. Work with people, people and more people: try posed shots in different lighting,
informal street portraits, group portraits, and people in positions where the background helps explain the photo. Use different light sources or backgrounds to vary the mood evoked.
15. Photograph rhythm/movement using pattern, line and repetition in architecture or nature.
16. Use at least 3 photos to create a montage or collage in Photoshop around a central theme of your choice. You may add text if it enhances or better communicates your theme.
ASSIGNMENT #2
Summer Photo Essay – Create a photo essay of 5-7 final images about an event, place, trip or adventure that you experience over the summer. Plan ahead so that you have your camera with you when you go somewhere or doing something interesting. Consider a photo essay telling a story from the beginning to end about a family trip, a mission trip or church outreach, a significant person, place or event that you encountered over the summer. Make sure to consider the strategies for visual variety: establishing shot (wide-angle introduction), medium, close-up details, portrait (one or two people), interaction (small groups of people doing something related to the subject of your story), signature (summary of story in one image), and clincher (closing shot). Think of this photojournalistic assignment as a story in National Geographic magazine.
ASSIGNMENT #3
Investigate the Elements (line, shape, form, space, color, value, tone, pattern and
texture) and Principles of Design (unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, repetition, proportion/scale and figure/ground relationship) found in nature and manmade environments. Remember to vary your perspective, camera angles, how close you are to your subject, composition, and lighting, to create the greatest impact. What elements or principles do you find yourself most drawn to? Choose your 3-5 favorites to be critiqued.
ASSIGNMENT #4
Use a magazine, website, library, or looking through books at a bookstore to explore the uses and abilities Photoshop has for enhancing and altering your digital photos. You need to present/demonstrate at least one new technique you discovered over the summer to the rest of the class. Site your source(s) and type out detailed instructions for the technique in a Word document. Save your Word document and images on your flash drive, showing your image before and after applying your newly discovered technique.
ASSIGNMENT #5
Complete least 14 pages of good, solid work in your journal / sketchbook. This work
consists of clippings (these are photos that you love or that inspire you) from magazines or other sources, old photographs, your ideas, thoughts, doodles, brain-storming lists, and sketches for ideas. Images or clippings should include notes on why you chose the ones you did, why were you drawn to it? Discuss the strongest design elements you see.Investigate compositional styles of other photographers past and present.
Regarding the concentration section of your AP portfolio, think about and develop your concentration ideas. Your Concentration section will be 12 images related to a specific visual idea that you investigate and explore, showing your growth, discovery and innovation in the process. Dedicate at least two pages of your journal/sketchbook to generating potential ideas that you are personally interested in. What are you passionate about? You may draw rough sketches, list potential ideas – whatever works best for you as you brainstorm. Brainstorming is always helpful in the creative, artistic process.
ASSIGNMENT #6
Photographer Studies: Do online or library research on any three of the following
photographers. Make a double page spread (you can use more room if needed) in
your journal/sketchbook on each photographer, and on it, include 2 printouts of their most well known works, with all credits given.
Also include:
-Their name; years born and died; type of photography; why they’re so well
known; how to recognize their work; websites or sources you used; why is that
photographer’s work worth looking at? What does it inspire?
Berenice Abbott Ansel Adams Diane Arbus
Eugene AtgetImogen Cunningham Edward Steichen
Alfred Stieglitz Robert CapaMargaret Bourke-White Paul Strand Edward Weston Dorothea Lange
Garry WinograndRobert DoisneauWalker Evans
Lewis HineHenri Cartier-Bresson Andy Goldsworthy
Eliot Porter Joel MeyerowitzJacob Riis
Paul Aponigro
ASSIGNMENT #7
Observation: Over the summer, you are required to visit at least one museum or gallery. Online museums and galleries do not qualify for this assignment. It is important for artists to spend time looking at the work of others, as well as staying current on what is out there. Create ideas for your own work using the work of others as inspiration (obviously not plagiarizing). Some places will forego admission fees if you tell them you are working on an assignment for school.
Info to gather for two images:
Artist:
Medium:
Date created:
Major elements/principles of design:
Compositional techniques:
Why did you choose this particular piece?
What is the subject matter (be specific)?
How could you incorporate what this artist has done in their work into your work?
Do a sketch or take a photo of the works and include them in your sketchbook. Also
add your ticket, armband, sticker, or receipt.
Top 12 Folder
At the end of your summer assignment, you are to choose your best 12 images that youphotographed this summer and save them in your Top 12 Folder. These 12 images willbe the start of the Breadth section of your AP portfolio. Breadth is “a variety of woksdemonstrating your understanding of the principles of 2-D design.” Be sure and choosea variety of works, and images that demonstrate the principles of design. Be deliberateabout seeing and using the elements and principles of design in your photos.
Tips, words of advice
Think outside the box...each of these themes/ideas/assignments can be considered in aliteral way or in a creative way. Be creative in your thinking. You should devote aminimum of 20 to each theme / assignment #. Most successful students shoot at least40-50 shots for each assignment, and then just turn in the best ones. This is a collegelevel class. Snapshots of your vacation will not be counted. Snapshots are great for your scrapbook and memories; they are not acceptable for this class. If you are taking yourcamera on vacation and plan to shoot some assignments, then make sure you arefocused on a theme that goes beyond sunsets, beach scenes, etc. For those of youwho love nature and scenic shots, you will need to think outside the box and createimages that cause the viewer to look at the scene in a new / different way.
Please note: This is not just “summer busy work.” If you take this seriously and do a goodjob on these assignments, rather than doing marginal work in a hurry, you will be able touse them for your AP exam portfolio. These assignments were designed to set you up forsuccess.
I hope you enjoy these summer assignments and that they help you develop your
creativity and vision as a photographer. You love photography, so engage and
challenge yourself in these assignments, and have fun!