OCA The Art of Photography Course Discussion Including Assignments and Submissions

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I use Flickr for my normal shots but didnt want my OCA shots all mixed in with them so opened a photobucket account purely forf course images. It works well and means you get much better qualiry images in your learning log compared with uploading them to blogger.

Thanks for the comments on the photos, I was pretty annoyed with the weather again as it was a horrible sky but the images worked out ok i think.
 
Muz said:
Hi folks what size of images do you guys upload for your blog 700mb? Also what width and height?
Thanks
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I use my phase account, link to the photos on there. The photos in the blog are medium size 400 pixels longest side, but link to the large ones which are 800 pixels longest side. You get to the bigger ones if you click on the pic.
 
I just link to my flickr account. I scale the pictures so that the longest side is 800px.
 
Cheers people seems like 800px longest side is the winner. I have finished assignment one and posted on my blog.

I have also kind of started a website more of a wee project than anything. But if you go to futurephoto.co.uk under assignments and contrast with any luck you should reach a gallery. let me know why u think.

Cheers
 
Muz said:
Cheers people seems like 800px longest side is the winner. I have finished assignment one and posted on my blog.

I have also kind of started a website more of a wee project than anything. But if you go to futurephoto.co.uk under assignments and contrast with any luck you should reach a gallery. let me know why u think.

Cheers
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I can see the gallery fine but the images are tiny, can barely see them even when clicking to go the individual view.

They look quite good from what I can see though! :thumbs:
 
Thanks for the comment I will get on that at some point and make the images bigger.

Cheers
Murray
 
I am finding the course very interesting and I am finding it great going out taking pictures for an actual subject rather satisfying.
 
chrism_scotland said:
Whats the content of the OCA course like? I'm looking for a course thats going to help me take better images and teach me how to use my camera better, and I know from reading around that this course is very highly regarded.
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The course is good, im only 4 projects in but the content is decent. The first part it relatively straight forward but if you stick with it it gets more indepth as the course rolls on.

When I was looking into taking the course i emailed a tutor to ask for some info, this is what he emailed back:
The Art of Photography course is written so that completer beginners should be able to cope OK. There are always some things that any one student might not be clear on and a quick e-mail to the tutor usually either clears this up or the tutor can recommend a book or web site that will answer the problem in some detail.

Shutter speed etc. is covered but technique and theory is always secondary to content and creativity so we want you to use the techniques you have explored in the projects to help you make meaningful and creative images, particularly in the assignments, not just to set you tasks where you have to make images to illustrate some technique or other.


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As I'm not able to print my own good quality photos for my exercises at home, I am looking to get them done else where, so will probably order them offline as I'm not having much look finding somewhere I can just go and get them printed off straight away at reasonable prices, Jessops want £4 a print, can anyone recommend any online or places that they have used to get yours printed off.:help:


many thanks


Mike
 
Hey Mike,

There are quite a few places around Telford where you could get your prints done mate. Telford Reprographics are pretty good, plus a friend of mine owns 3S Print & Design so pretty sure he would cut us a deal to print our stuff out.
 
hewhoknows said:
Hey Mike,

There are quite a few places around Telford where you could get your prints done mate. Telford Reprographics are pretty good, plus a friend of mine owns 3S Print & Design so pretty sure he would cut us a deal to print our stuff out.
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I looked at telford reprographics, and called them but they said thay dont print photos ! asking your mate sounds good, its crazy that you cant just go and get A4 photos printed,without ordering online.
 
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Gorbsteruk said:
I looked at telford reprographics, and called them but they said thay dont print photos ! asking your mate sounds good, its crazy that you cant just go and get A4 photos printed,without ordering online.
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Really, thats odd....hmmm.

Im actually in the process of buying a new A3 printer for my business so might ask the questoin in the Talk Equipment forum about best A3 photo printers and see if i can get something reasonable through my company :naughty:
 
Gorbsteruk said:
As I'm not able to print my own good quality photos for my exercises at home, I am looking to get them done else where, so will probably order them offline as I'm not having much look finding somewhere I can just go and get them printed off straight away at reasonable prices, Jessops want £4 a print, can anyone recommend any online or places that they have used to get yours printed off.:help:

many thanks

Mike
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I get mine done through photo box. 12x8 is just over £1 each.
 
Benj said:
I can see the gallery fine but the images are tiny, can barely see them even when clicking to go the individual view.

They look quite good from what I can see though! :thumbs:
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Hey that should be my website updated now take a look see what you guys think. Futurephoto.co.uk assignment and then contrast.

Cheers
 
Muz said:
Hey that should be my website updated now take a look see what you guys think. Futurephoto.co.uk assignment and then contrast.

Cheers
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Image sizes seem to be much better now mate, nice and large. Some descriptive text might be a good idea so the viewer knows what they are looking at the reasoning behind the photo??

Also, your main page links seem to be out of allignment a little. Off centre to the page and also the words 'contact' and 'us' are on top of each other???
 
Thanks for the heads up I will adjust that soon.

Anyone else having trouble getting outside to take pictures the weather is horrible.
 
Muz said:
Thanks for the heads up I will adjust that soon.

Anyone else having trouble getting outside to take pictures the weather is horrible.
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Yup! It sucks :(
 
Managed to get a few the other day with some nice blue skies. Was an absolutely gorgeous day today but I was at work :(
 
Muz said:
Thanks for the heads up I will adjust that soon.

Anyone else having trouble getting outside to take pictures the weather is horrible.
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Yup - trying to do colours. Go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, spent two weeks trying to get something decent. Frustrating.
 
Byker28i said:
Yup - trying to do colours. Go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, spent two weeks trying to get something decent. Frustrating.
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Tell me about it, went out last weekend to do some project photos and all i got was wind and drizzle. So didnt manage to do anything :razz:

Even more annoying was I got to location only to realise I forgot my one and only battery...D'oh!!! :bang::bang: I have now bought a backup so that doesnt happen again lol!!
 
Good weather today so am planning to get out for a days shooting for TAOP, knock a few exercises into touch :)

Anyone else planning to do anything today, if so what projects/assignment are you on?
 
Lucky for you it is raining and windy today for me. So I might have to try some exercises inside. I am just finished assignment 1 and starting with points.
 
Trying to get stuff done but I'm struggling with work/home issues. Got a 3d camera to trial this weekend before Monday. Going to be shooting with that tomorrow. Hopefully will have time for the next exercise tomorrow.
 
Byker28i said:
Trying to get stuff done but I'm struggling with work/home issues. Got a 3d camera to trial this weekend before Monday. Going to be shooting with that tomorrow. Hopefully will have time for the next exercise tomorrow.
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Yeah know how you feel, ive not managed to get any work done for around 2 weeks. Am dedicating today to finishing the last few projects before starting my 1st assignment next weekend.

Not great weather for taking pictures but cant go another weekend without doing something lol!
 
I'm about 4 weeks or 40 hours behind now. Rebuilding/ decorating the such so the pc is out of action so I'm on the iPad. Managed to do some owl shooting onthursday but nothing for the course. I've got half an exercise saved in draft..
 
According to the timetable I set myself I should have done assignment 1 by now. Instead I'm still to do the panning assignment! Life has gone a bit skew wiff. Still, got one project written up at least.
 
I'm curious. The site estimates you should spend 8 hrs a week study on the course, and that each course lasts 12 months each (is this true?!)

What's the average time to complete an assignment? How many assignments are there per course? (And how much time per week do you dedicate to the study?)

And if so, if you speed on ahead...can you complete each course intensively - and finish it early? Or is that not possible?

Sorry if they are silly questions. :D
 
Yes. I planed todo 10-15 hours a week but a new project at work has sidelined me. My original plan was to do each module in 6 months. I've spent about 2weeks on each assignment but that's because I've wanted to submit my best possible shots and some ideas don't always work.

Some projects take time. At the moment I'm onto colour and there's not been much around as I've only got the dark hours free.

I think a realistic timescale is about 5 years for the whole degree.
 
Byker28i said:
Yes. I planed todo 10-15 hours a week but a new project at work has sidelined me. My original plan was to do each module in 6 months. I've spent about 2weeks on each assignment but that's because I've wanted to submit my best possible shots and some ideas don't always work.

Some projects take time. At the moment I'm onto colour and there's not been much around as I've only got the dark hours free.

I think a realistic timescale is about 5 years for the whole degree.
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That was my thoughts too mate, around 5 years for the degree. I too would like to complete each singular course in 6 months but realistically its going to be more like 8-9 months per course.

Ive just spent the weekend doing the 'Vertical & Horizontal Frames' exercise. 20 + 20 shots (20 vertical/20 horizontal of the same subject) which took me a while to take, process and post on my learning log.

Happy to say all but 1 image is up there now, just got to write my conclusions which ill do tonight.

Let me know what you guys think of my shot: http://mattgilesphotography.blogspot.com/2011/02/project-5-vertical-horizontal-frames.html

:thumbs:
 
Looking really good. Nice set of shots, I really like the first bridge shot in portrait, yet you'd naturally think you'd shoot it portrait to fit it all in

I love this course for teaching me to look at things differently.

P.s. I'll be checking your shots often. We've friends in Shifnal so I know the area slightly.
 
Thanks for your comments mate, have been working hard to get some of the issues with my landscape photos sorted and think they are starting to look much better.

Was getting very soft images but learnt i was shooting at a too small aperture (f22 and higher) and experiencing diffraction after posting a few help messages in the forums here. Have been tryting to use hyperfocal focusing but couldnt get it working well so went with AF instead for these. These were all shot between f7.1 to f11 @ ISO 200 on my D90.

Friends in Shifnal hey, thats about 5 mins from where I live mate :)
 
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I have some more questions - sorry! :lol:

Thing is, I'm very tempted to take the course...but I already have a Ba degree...so it would be kinda redundant for getting a qualification. But it certainly seems the most intensive of all courses compared others for the value of money. (I'd love to take a masters but who the hell has that kinda cash? :eek:)

I've been reading a lot of these blogs (A LOT :P), and I'm curious do the learning blogs echo a lot of content outside of it? Or do they represent only part of the learning that you have done? And do the assignments that you hand in form something that is much larger than the blog? For example one blog has a few pictures to explore depth of field...but their would actual assignment require let's say...50 photos of different subjects, (or is it a direct mirror to the assigned work?) to explore different functions of dof?

I'm guess I'm asking in a nutshell - is there anything outside of all these blogs that the blogs don't show? Besides the critique and feedback of course!
 
What you see in my blog is probably about 10-20% of the photos taken. Each assignment took me 2-3 weeks. I thought I was quite experienced but I'm learning so much..
 
Byker28i said:
What you see in my blog is probably about 10-20% of the photos taken. Each assignment took me 2-3 weeks. I thought I was quite experienced but I'm learning so much..
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I understand that! But I mean how much of your -actual- handed in assignment-ment photos is reflected through the blog. That's just indicative of your own hard work to achieve good results. :)

I only ask this because I already have a BA (well I'll finish my final year soon). I'm just interested in structured learning - so I'm tempted to loosely borrow the OCA's learning structure and do the same thing myself. I'll miss out on an extra qualification, info packs, and tutor-feedback, but I can still reflect and learn. But if I felt like I was missing a lot, as those blogs only show a small fraction of the course, then I might reconsider it.

I guess I'm just getting a sense of what the assignments look like or include. If it's basically like the blog, but formally written and backed up with broad contextual theory - then I'll probably pass on it. If however, the assignment (regardless of how many photos you take to achieve its requirements) is far bigger than the blog (let's say the focusing section is actually five times bigger - and you have to get five different subjects and really push and experiment with use of dof for instance.)

How detailed, and thorough are the assignments? How much work do you actually hand in - on paper? And are the photos themselves actually marked? Or their ability to demonstrate the technical and artistic theory?
 
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OCA put up a sample so you can see.

http://www.oca-uk.com/data/course_pdfs/photography-1-art-of-photography.pdf

There's a fair bit of learning/reading then you do an exercise to reinforce the learning/proof. At the end of each section you do an assignment based on that section. 8-10 hours a week should enable two exercises a week to be done. Obviously the earlier ones are quite simple and can be rattled through a little quicker.

Marking - not as such at the moment but my learning log does get commented on by tutor and I get detailed feedback on it and it's used at the end of the course for marking.
 
Have fun. I've really enjoyed (and been frustrated) by both assignments.

Have lots of ideas, not just the one for each item and shoot each idea. I then printed them out at home and spread them out on the table to see what worked and discarded ones that didn't. I think I had about 36 final shots to select from, but then still went and shot two more.

Assignment 2, I shot about 600 shots to get the ones I wanted, but then I was experimenting with the lighting to get what I wanted.

I think both assignments took me about 2 weeks of most of my free time.
 
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