OCA The Art of Photography Course Discussion Including Assignments and Submissions

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Reidy36 said:
Productive day so far. I managed to get out and take the photographs for 4 of the exercises, and have written 2 up and added to my blog.
Got some housey type stuff to do now, but hoping i can make a start on the next exercise write up.
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Wow, that sounds good going.

I've fallen really behind lately but managed to get an exercise written up for the first time in about 2 months today so I'm pleased with that.
 
AlfyB said:
Wow, that sounds good going.

I've fallen really behind lately but managed to get an exercise written up for the first time in about 2 months today so I'm pleased with that.
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Had to change other bits like do saturday shop yesterday. Really want to write up other 2 exercises, but brain feels dead at the moment.
 
I'm currently shooting for two exercises and assignment 4 and 5 :D. Getting close to the end of :DPP now, I'm aiming to complete it next month.
 
Now that first one took longer than i wanted, so need to look more at how i manage both the photos and written side of things.

Saturday i took the photos for 4 exercises, of which i may need to redo one lot as not 100% with them and was more a case of wanting to get them done.

Do you try and get photos for 2-3 exercises at a time and then do the write ups or do you just do them one at a time?
 
Reidy36 said:
Now that first one took longer than i wanted, so need to look more at how i manage both the photos and written side of things.

Saturday i took the photos for 4 exercises, of which i may need to redo one lot as not 100% with them and was more a case of wanting to get them done.

Do you try and get photos for 2-3 exercises at a time and then do the write ups or do you just do them one at a time?
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I tend to get all shots for all exercises between assignments and do them all in one go (aka live on the computer). I keep notes on exercises and do a brief write up for them when I take them, normally in a bullet point form.

When I come to uploading, all the exercises have their separate folders with the notes so all I do is open up a folder, upload photos, go through the notes and rewrite them with some more elaboration.

I prefer to be out with the camera hence this approach where I try to do all the computer based work in a couple of long sessions.
 
faddius said:
I tend to get all shots for all exercises between assignments and do them all in one go (aka live on the computer). I keep notes on exercises and do a brief write up for them when I take them, normally in a bullet point form.

When I come to uploading, all the exercises have their separate folders with the notes so all I do is open up a folder, upload photos, go through the notes and rewrite them with some more elaboration.

I prefer to be out with the camera hence this approach where I try to do all the computer based work in a couple of long sessions.
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Bet that is hard going on the computer like that.
I am hoping to do it where i can do an hour or so of written work in the evening, keeping up to date with it, as i work funny hours so can't get a regular routine going.
 
faddius said:
I tend to get all shots for all exercises between assignments and do them all in one go (aka live on the computer). I keep notes on exercises and do a brief write up for them when I take them, normally in a bullet point form.

When I come to uploading, all the exercises have their separate folders with the notes so all I do is open up a folder, upload photos, go through the notes and rewrite them with some more elaboration.

I prefer to be out with the camera hence this approach where I try to do all the computer based work in a couple of long sessions.
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I did that for TAoP part 1, and added to my blog in 2 or 3 goes, but one time was at the computer all day one Sunday writing and processing / uploading images. Trying to do it in smaller bites for part2.
 
faddius said:
I tend to get all shots for all exercises between assignments and do them all in one go (aka live on the computer). I keep notes on exercises and do a brief write up for them when I take them, normally in a bullet point form.

When I come to uploading, all the exercises have their separate folders with the notes so all I do is open up a folder, upload photos, go through the notes and rewrite them with some more elaboration.

I prefer to be out with the camera hence this approach where I try to do all the computer based work in a couple of long sessions.
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The problem with this approach is that you may not be fully taking advantage of the self critique and reflection process doing each shoot and write-up in order that you can then take advantage of it in the next excericse. There may also be a danger of fitting photographs to the excercises.

We all work differently but I would personally recommend you have a chat with your tutor to understand his views. If you are both happy then great but just an observation all the same
 
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FrattonFreak said:
The problem with this approach is that you may not be fully taking advantage of the self critique and reflection process doing each shoot and write-up in order that you can then take advantage of it in the next excericse. There may also be a danger of fitting photographs to the excercises.

We all work differently but I would personally recommend you have a chat with your tutor to understand his views. If you are both happy then great but just an observation all the same
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Fair enough comments and I see where you're coming from, however my initial reflections are done via notes I keep in the exercise folder with the images. When I write them up, all I essentially do is take those notes and put them into proper sentences with very little extra (such as an introduction to the exercise).

It works for me, but people prefer different methods. I'm presuming my tutor has noticed this as it would be glaringly obvious from the dates items have been posted on my blog. However, I might try the 1 exercise from start to end approach and see how I get on, I might end up preferring it. Ill probably keep doing uploads in batches but ill give writing up the exercises fully a go rather than using notes & bullet points.

Not that it makes much difference right now, I've been having quite painful back problems so nearly all work has ground to a halt for the last 3 weeks. I can't even get to the shops without assistance from friends and its driving me absolutely nuts :bang:
 
Can someone please help me before my head explodes???
I am trying to get my blog menu sorted and make it easily navigable - is that even a word? I have looked at the custom menu support on wordpress and really don't get it.

Does anyone have an idiots guide to building a menu? All/any help would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Byker is your person for that.
Which theme are you using as some appear to be easier to use than others, i started on one theme but then changed over. Would love to help but only had mine a month or so anyway and would be like blind leading the blind.

Managed to get write ups done for 2 more exercises :clap:, not happy with images taken last week for another exercise, so hopefully will be making the most of a few hours tomorrow and getting images done for another 2-3 exercises. Fratton, i can see where you are coming from with doing them in order, this is what i am planning (well 2-3 at a time), however getting write ups done when i can as unfortunately can't guarantee free time during the week so catch up time at weekends.

Time for tv i think, i have done enough.
 
I am so :bang::bang: at the moment.

Got images done for 2 exercises (lots of images took just over 200 in total), thought great, get back, put them on PC and have a couple of hours decent TAOP time, but one of the pins in the card reader has bent. If i had known earlier could have grabbed one as was in a local Jessops for a wander round.

Think may get 2 so at least i know i have a spare.

Has anybody else had a productive weekend?
 
Still no progress at my end, as I'm still struggling with my back. I tried going out over the weekend with the camera and to see friends as I was going crazy being stuck at home but it would seem I've completely overdone it :bang:
 
faddius said:
Still no progress at my end, as I'm still struggling with my back. I tried going out over the weekend with the camera and to see friends as I was going crazy being stuck at home but it would seem I've completely overdone it :bang:
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Sorry to hear about your back. It has to be one of the worst as the pain can get unbearable.

Take it easy, are there any of the exercises you can do with in the confines of home?
 
Reidy36 said:
Sorry to hear about your back. It has to be one of the worst as the pain can get unbearable.

Take it easy, are there any of the exercises you can do with in the confines of home?
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I'm going to attempt some still life stuff tomorrow, as I'm more mobile than I was last week. Hopefully my back will co operate with me. I just dislike still life as the room I currently have to work in is quite restrictive. I need to have a good shuffle around of furniture I think, another job for when my back is better.
 
faddius said:
Fair enough comments and I see where you're coming from, however my initial reflections are done via notes I keep in the exercise folder with the images. When I write them up, all I essentially do is take those notes and put them into proper sentences with very little extra (such as an introduction to the exercise).

It works for me, but people prefer different methods. I'm presuming my tutor has noticed this as it would be glaringly obvious from the dates items have been posted on my blog. However, I might try the 1 exercise from start to end approach and see how I get on, I might end up preferring it. Ill probably keep doing uploads in batches but ill give writing up the exercises fully a go rather than using notes & bullet points.

Not that it makes much difference right now, I've been having quite painful back problems so nearly all work has ground to a halt for the last 3 weeks. I can't even get to the shops without assistance from friends and its driving me absolutely nuts :bang:
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Back - I did that a few months ago. Took about 3 weeks until it got back to normal. Too much weight in the gym did me!

Just dont rush into anything
 
FrattonFreak said:
Back - I did that a few months ago. Took about 3 weeks until it got back to normal. Too much weight in the gym did me!

Just dont rush into anything
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Yes, I've learnt that the hard way this weekend. I thought I was on the mend :bang:

At least the arse grove on my sofa is now absolutely spot on. :lol:
 
Moron Mark question:
The balance exercise, how do you do the drawings showing the boxes etc? probably easy but I am stupid :-)
Thanks all
 
Reidy36 said:
Moron Mark question:
The balance exercise, how do you do the drawings showing the boxes etc? probably easy but I am stupid :-)
Thanks all
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I just drew shapes using MS paint, I like paint :lol:

On another note, I've just spied this and didn't realise it was available. May be of use for anyone who has gotten a NUS card through the OCA, and like me, didn't realise it was available. You never know, it might kick me into gear and order myself an NUS card. Just a shame it's not valid on electronics.

Amazon student discount

Clicky for FAQ
 
gercam said:
Can someone please help me before my head explodes???
I am trying to get my blog menu sorted and make it easily navigable - is that even a word? I have looked at the custom menu support on wordpress and really don't get it.

Does anyone have an idiots guide to building a menu? All/any help would be greatly appreciated :)
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Reidy36 said:
Byker is your person for that.
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Sorry been busy with job interviews, away for the weekend etc.

I can point you at this useful guide to the basics: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Menu_User_Guide

I think that covers everything. To get the relevant menus you go into Appearance, Wudgets and drag and drop them into the menu bar you want them to appear in, on the right you have top, left, right, bottom.
The menu's layout is again really easy and I have mine in structured format.

If you get stuck just ask but the above guide should give you a step by step way.
 
faddius said:
I just drew shapes using MS paint, I like paint :lol:

On another note, I've just spied this and didn't realise it was available. May be of use for anyone who has gotten a NUS card through the OCA, and like me, didn't realise it was available. You never know, it might kick me into gear and order myself an NUS card. Just a shame it's not valid on electronics.

Amazon student discount

Clicky for FAQ
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Thanks, will try paint.

Worth asking shops if they do the discount, maplins give 10% I think it is, not much but saves a few pennies on card reader, Ethernet cables I have needed. Don't forget you get free fries with a big mac if you show your card ha ha
 
Byker28i said:
Sorry been busy with job interviews, away for the weekend etc.

I can point you at this useful guide to the basics: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Menu_User_Guide

I think that covers everything. To get the relevant menus you go into Appearance, Wudgets and drag and drop them into the menu bar you want them to appear in, on the right you have top, left, right, bottom.
The menu's layout is again really easy and I have mine in structured format.

If you get stuck just ask but the above guide should give you a step by step way.
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Thank you for this. In the meantime I have kindof taught myself and my head is still in place so must have done something right :)
 
To anybody who has just started the course.

Get Lightroom, i have got CS3 and was struggling big time as too technical, downloaded a free trial of Lightroom and it makes like so much better.

Skitch is simple to use for drawing on images.

One more exercise to go and then it's assignment 1.
 
faddius said:
Still no progress at my end, as I'm still struggling with my back. I tried going out over the weekend with the camera and to see friends as I was going crazy being stuck at home but it would seem I've completely overdone it :bang:
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Is there anything you can do at home? If you have a macro lens there is a lot of opportunities using say kitchen utensils / flowers etc

Perhaps even look at some of the future excercises to see if any can be done in doors.

Other suggestions are to read through the excercise / read some photography books / lens hunt for bargains on ebay / use some old images and experiment in photoshop or whatever tool you have / put together an xmas list with some photography books form the suggested book list

Cheers,

Warren
 
Just been on the Brighton study weekend, joined flickr, wrote two huge blog posts and may have got a new job. Quite a busy 4 or 5 days.
 
I'm well on the mend now, and i was out with the camera a few days ago, so I will be trying to get back into the habit of hunting down opportunities for exercises etc.

I have been lens hunting and I've upgraded my zoom. Even though its not relevant to where I am in the course, I plan on spending a day testing my new zoom in a wildlife hide at a local nature reserve. It's something I've wanted to give a go for a while, and with a 35mm effective reach of 600mm I hope I get some good results :thumbs:

Then ill be really digging in to try to catch up with my schedule for this course.
 
Byker28i said:
Just been on the Brighton study weekend, joined flickr, wrote two huge blog posts and may have got a new job. Quite a busy 4 or 5 days.
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That is excellent news. I did see in the papers down there they wanted male models to model the clothing in some of their shows with blacked out windows :lol::lol: do you get a discount....only joking. Well done on that one, bet you never expected a possible new job out of the weekend.

With regards to printing images for the exercises/assignments, who do you use? Don't know whether to print on my printer, or go somewhere like jessops/jacobs. Think i would have to collect as some of the posties round here are less than useless (not all, our regular ok), but get few bits of stuff not arrive, and wouldn't want that to happen with prints i was waiting on. Looked on Jessops website and seen i can download from pc and collect, or whether to go down with USB stick and just do from the machine.

On a good note, i have just finished the final exercise for part one, now making a list of ideas/images for the assignment.
 
At Jessops you can place an order on the machines in store, but it still takes at least an hour to get printed. Useful if you have some shopping to do as you can go and order the prints first and collect them when you're done. But if you're just going in to get prints I'd order them online first and go pick them up later. Their 1 hour service is far from cheap though.

Even with the risk of prints going walkies, online labs are significantly cheaper and generally better quality. I've been using photo box for the bulk of my prints since I fell out with dscl.
 
After trying a few places, I now get mine printed by DS colour labs, interestingly because photo box messed up three different sets of my prints. Took off my borders, poor colour profile etc. I've not had a problem with DSCL.
 
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Byker28i said:
After trying a few places, I now get mine printed by DS colour labs, interestingly because photo box messed up three different sets of my prints. Took off my borders, poor colour profile etc. I've not had a problem with DSCL.
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Seems we have had near opposite experiences then :lol:
 
Just going through the bits i have done so far.

When you have typed up your bits for the exercises, do you save a copy as a PDF? Do you have the images in the PDF or do you keep them separate?

I have been making a PDF of my blog page, once it has been done, but thinking the actual tutors won't want to see it like that (don't think i read stuff properly).

So what do you do?
 
My exercises go straight onto the blog. No PDFs, though I keep the jpeg and raw images archived in my folder system on the laptop.

Assignments are done in PDFs so I can email them straight over, but I still keep the raw and jpg images.

Oh forgot to mention, at the end of the assignment I have a page which titles each exercise in the run up to to that assignment, with the web address which is also hyperlinked.
 
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How many hours a weekd o you guys spend on it? I dont think i could allocate 8hours!!
 
8-12 on a good week, 4-6 on a quieter one.

My blog pages are just typed straight into wordpress and then backed up once a week.

For my formal assignment I produced pdf's for every blog entry and sent them in on a usb stick and put them into a folder structure mirroring the course notes, along with the prints, scrapbook images etc.
 
AlfyB said:
Quick google would have given you this - http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/need-to-add-hyperlink ;)

Hope that helps.
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Byker28i said:
On my Wordpress editor, there's a link icon, like a chain link. I just click that and there's boxes for the URL and what you *** the link text to be.
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Gents,

Sorry for the delay with this, but started a new blog just so i can play around and learn stuff.

Anyway, followed the instructions in the link that Alfy gave me, no joy. I can open the box in text not visual, click the link button, get the box up to add the url etc, it will then go in the post, however when i change to visual, there is no sign of it.

Byker, i can see the link button you are on about, but mine is greyed out, so unable to use it.

I am being a total moron here, they can teach monkeys to do this kind of stuff.

Help please :help::help:

Addition: My apologies, got it sorted now, time to go back to the zoo with the other chimps....
 
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Select the text you wan to turn into a link and then the link icon won't be greyed out. ;)
 
I am working towards Assignment one. When I received my materials I read right up to assignment one and was aware of the need for contrasting photos and have been taking photos along the way for these as the opportunity has arisen. Is it okay to use these as they have been taken since I started the course? Or do I need to set aside time and actually set up these photos?
 
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