Assignment and Editorial Class Experiences
For the past 10 weeks I’ve been taking a class in Assignment and Editorial Photography through the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle, WA. I take PCNW classes when I believe the class will be fun and interesting, and since my work last year with the Seattle Storm was essentially editorial work I figured a proper class in it might teach me a thing or two.
Little did I know what I was in for.
On the very first day Matthew Williams, our instructor, gave us a syllabus that said: “This is a challenging class, requiring 5-10 hours per week of out of class time for shooting, editing, reading,
writing, and research”.
I scoffed. After all, the last time I spent anywhere near that amount of time on individual assignments was Modern Algebra with Dr Roddy something like 16 years ago during my undergraduate degree. Now that was a hard class!
I shouldn’t have scoffed. Matthew was right.
From a work standpoint the class easily surpassed Modern Algebra. It even required more time on assignments than Black and White III. The work was different than B&WIII too: the assignments were challenging, as opposed to B&W3 where it was simply drudgery (I had problems with sprocket hole streaking, but that’s a story for another blog entry…)
I originally intended to blog about each assignment as they happened but they wound up being so much work I really didn’t have the time or desire to write anything up. Now that the class is over I’m going to make up for it with a series of posts about each assignment.
Before heading off into the per-assignment posts, I do need to give a big thank you to three people who really played a key role in my success in the class: Shan, Tory, and Sabrina. All three provided regular critique and feedback on my photos throughout the class, and were valued partners in ensuring my work was as good as possible prior to turning it in to Matthew. Thanks ladies!
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