DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
(rèves et cauchmares)
With one roll of 25 frames, try to capture some images that illustrate a dream you have had. Write out the story of the dream on a separate sheet of lined paper and turn it in with the assignment.
Some dreams are fun and happy, others are frightening and others are just little fragments of our daily lives bubbling up as we sleep. In this assignment, try to capture the “feeling” of a dream by using some non-standard techniques:
• Use a slow shutter speed (1/30th or 1/15th) and jiggle the camera as you expose the film.
• Shoot deliberately out of focus.
• Shoot from a crooked angle, so that nothing lines up at right angles.
• Cut off people, so that only parts of them appear in the frame, or so that they are too close to be in focus.
• Go to a creepy place that makes you feel weird and try to capture that feeling on film.
Pay attention to the entire frame of each shot, not just to the center of interest.
Reminders
- Be sure that you do each assignment with the current roll, rather than digging back into previous rolls for pictures that might fit the assignment.
- Each contact sheet you turn in should contain strips with a continuous sequence of frame numbers, and should have been taken within the assignment’s time frame.
- “Mixing and matching” among your own rolls is unacceptable, and borrowing from the rolls of your friends is plagiarism.
- Take several different shots of each idea, from different angles or with different compositions (horizontal, vertical, etc.) so that you can pick the best one later. In fact, take several different shots of each image, and change your exposure with each one. This is called “bracketing.” Take one exposure with the needle (or light) one aperture stop up, one with the exposure right on, and one with the needle or light one stop down. That way, you are sure to get at least one perfect exposure, even if your development is slightly off when you process the roll.