Syllabus: Art 114
North Campus - Fall 2009
Instructor:
Campus class:
Times:
Days:
Kenji Tachibana
Room ED 2843B
6:00PM – 8:50PM
Tue & Thu
Tele: 206.526.0070
Equipment Requirements:
 Compact digital camera with digital film (memory card)
 Camera manual, battery, and charger
 DSLR camera not required nor recommended
 W ord processing application with ‘.doc’ or ‘.rtf’ file format for viewing Microsoft W ord™
documents
 PC or Mac computer with enough horsepower to run Adobe Photoshop™ CS3.
 Adobe Photoshop™ CS2, or CS3 (CS3 preferred and recommended)
If you don’t have a computer or the required software at home, you may use the NSCC Computer Lab.
Digital Camera and Accessories:
 Digital camera:
5 mega pixels minimum compact digital. 5 to 6 mp preferred. And
higher mega pixel or DSLR not required.
 Digital film:
512 MB minimum memory card. , 1 GB preferred, and 2 GB is better
especially for DSLR users.
 Image download: Generic USB memory card ‘Reader’ required. Camera direct to
computer USB connection not recommended.
 Battery:
Battery must be fully charged for every class session. Backup
battery set highly recommended. Also bring the battery charger to
every class session too.
 Camera manual: It’s one of your two class textbooks. The other is the 16 part
PowerPoint shows that takes you through the assignment shooting
process in a step-by-step manner.
Optional Equipment: Tripod
Most blurry pictures are the result of camera-shake. Having a good tripod can go a long way
towards taking sharp pictures. Although, don’t rush to buy one. A $50 bargain tripods are
usually flimsy (shaky) with plastic camera mounts that are hard to adjust precisely.
I’ll be teaching bracing, breathing, and handling techniques to improve camera steadiness. I
will also give tripod recommendations and usage demonstrations.
Fees: Art lab and Computer lab fees are required.
Skill Development:
1. Story Telling:
2. Technique:
Primary learning goals
Human interest and interpersonal communication.
Control over your tool.
 Make the image brightness believable (not dark or light)
 Make the image color realistic
 Make the image sharpness focused on the subject and to avoid camera
motion blur
3. Lighting:
Learn to see and to draw with light for form, presence, and separation.
4. Composition: Use strong design ideas to help convey story focused ideas. Also learn to
see your image as geometry of special and tonal breakup.
5. Writing:
Exhibit your critical thinking, analysis, and research results in writing.
6. Presentation: Repurpose your writing by presenting it in a conversational manner to
small and large groups.
7. Team Work: Learn to work in small and large groups
 To share
 To learn
 To be supportive
 To be supported
 As a resource for assistance and information
Grade Base:
1. Story Telling ……………………………………………. 50%
2. Technique ………………………………………………
10%
3. Lighting …………………………………………………. 10%
4. Composition ……………………………………………. 10%
5. Class attendance & participation …………………….
10%
6. Other miscellaneous stuff …………………………….
10%
Attendance: Each class session becomes a building block of knowledge, skill, and experience.
Get the most out of this class by:
 Attending every class to maximize your learning, minimize confusion, and to earn the
highest possible grade.
 Come to every class session on time and stay until the very end.
 Actively participate from the beginning to the end of each class throughout the course.
 If you’re late, any grades earned that class will be lowered by one full-grade point (a ‘B’
will become a ‘C’).
 For each classroom hour, spend at least the same amount of time studying from the
class textbooks, ‘dpreview.com’, figuring out your camera, and working on class
shooting assignments.
Class Design: It was created, evolved, and evolving with student learning in mind
This class and all the assignments have been evolving for over 5 years to meet student ‘Skill
Development Goals’. My focus is always to improve student success rate.
In a traditional writing class, the recommended write topic is about something you know well.
Applying that same idea to this class, capture images about subjects that you know well. The
story and subject choice is yours. But expect to go through a series of ‘Tight Layout’ re-shoots
to improve story telling.
Warning - Photography is very reality dependant. And weather is a big aspect of the reality
that you will be dealing with. Stay in touch with the weather throughout this quarter. It will
affect your location and lighting decisions. Tight Layout re-shoot will require the location and
lighting to be extremely similar.
Some students have found this class to be too scientific and/or tedious. Photography is part
science, part geometry, part art, and a lot of showmanship. And to do all of it well, a lot of
exacting practice is required. If you are not into practicing or have enough time to practice,
you will find this class too challenging.
Attitude: It’s everything
The worst reason for shooting assignments is to earn good grades. The best reason for
shooting is for the love of photography and telling your story. Do it as something personally
meaningful and important. Practice, test, research, shoot, and re-shoot to better tell your story.
Improve your technique because that is part of telling a better story.
Take Ownership:
Take ownership and become fully engaged with the class that you chose to take. Usually,
shooting assignments for the love of it results in getting the best grade possible for you. And
to take ownership, it can help to understand the reason for the assignment. And please be
assured that I have definite reasons behind every assignment.
If I don’t convey that to you, please continue to ask for clarification until you understand why
you need to do the shooting assignment.
Get Excited About Your Story:
If the story idea is blah to you, it surely won’t be interesting to others. Shoot ideas which
resonate for you at the gut level. If you’re excited about your story, some of that excitement
will show through in your image even if the technique isn’t flawless.
Better Technique:
If you know what story you want to tell, your team, classmates, and I will help you to tell it. I will
focus on the basic technique while your team and classmates help you with refining your story
idea.
Deliver the Goods: On time
Having a strong idea, capturing it skillfully will lose much of its luster if you miss delivering it on
time. W hen you deliver it on time, it becomes a shared class experience. If it’s late, it may not
be shared with others and you’re likely not to get any feedback.
Good Grades: They’re earned by you
1. It starts with attending every class and arriving on time.
2. It continues in the class room with active and positive participation.
3. Earn it by doing your best on every class and homework assignment.
 Do it with critical attention to every requirement.
 Do it with awareness so that you can ‘talk to us’ about it in class.
 Do it well and turn it in on time.
4. Late assignment
 Lose one full letter grade.
 Not accepted after one (1) week.
 Please don’t do this to yourself and the class.
Bad W ork Habit:
Some students procrastinate until the last minute to work on the weekly shooting
assignments. Or it may be the work schedule which makes it difficult to do the weekly
assignments on timely bases. Whatever the case, the results often reflect the last minute
hurried process.
Moreover, a last minute shoot may risk cancellation due to inclement weather or other
uncontrollable issues. And every time your assignment is late or not turned in at all, you’re
creating or reinforcing a bad habit. And, as everyone knows, bad habits are very hard to
overcome.
Time and Timing Consideration: Please be kind to yourself (life is too short not to)
If the timing and class requirements are too much for your real-life schedule, please consider
taking this class at another time. I also offer this class through the South Campus and their
times are different. Please don’t short change yourself by trying to fit this class into an
already overly tight personal schedule.
Grade: W eight
Early quarter assignment grades have very low grade factoring (1 to 3x) because you are new
to storytelling and digital camera. The early grades earned by you are only meant to be hints
about the skills that you need to improve.
Assignment grades will slowly acquire higher grade factoring until the midterm. After that, the
grade factoring will increase steadily by 10 to 30X.
Grade: Historical pattern
Even though the beginning assignment grades have low grade factoring, they seem to be a
reliable predictor for most students’ final class grades’. If you’re not happy with your grade at
the midterm, you will need to seriously improve your assignment and class performance.
Start by making an Office Hour appointment with me. Also consider doing some extra credit
work. All extra credit projects must be ‘signed off’ by me in advance. And there will be no extra
credit assignments accepted after the 8th week.
Class Sign-In:
You must sign-in by no later than 6:00PM. If you sign in anytime after the 6:00PM, you will be
considered ‘late’. A late grade factor of ‘-1’ will be applied to any assignment due and to the
class work for that class session. If you do not sign-in, you will be considered late for that
class session - please don’t do this to yourself!
Office Hour: By appointment only
Please make an appointment to talk to me for any reason which you consider personal.
Please call me at 206.527.0070. If I don’t answer, leave a short message. But, I will not be
returning calls. If you need to talk to me, please call back until I pick up the phone. You can
also make an appointment with me during the class session.