Create your own professional-level portrait photographs

Creating a Mood Board

Create a mood board
Your first assignment involves creating a mood board or a set of images that inspire your work. You will need to begin your work with a clear understanding of the final product before you make it. It would be like a sprinter running the race in his or her mind before actually stepping into the blocks. Mental preparation is essential (even though shoots often provide images that you never intended to make). Once you create the mood board, please post it under the "project" tab. A mood board is simply a collection of images that will help guide your creative process. This can be posted as either a collage jpeg or pdf, or by uploading several images to your project page in the online classroom.
Donny Nguyen's mood board.

Setting Up the Shot

Start shooting
Using the Contino video and an additional lecture on the "Psychology of Shooting," begin executing the photo shoots that you have been preparing for.

Making Selections

Select 6-10 images
You have made your selections, and now it is time to upload them to the community discussion board for praise and constructive critiques.
Share your progress in your project section to get feedback from other students

Submitting Final Project

Share your final portrait photo
Share your progress in your project section to get feedback from other students

Additional Resources

I have assembled a list of ten photographers that I feel you should know about. These are photographers that have provided me with real guidance as I defined, and continue to define, my own unique voice as a photographer.
Ideally this will help you create your mood/inspiration board.

Iris Van Gelder

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