Need help w/ art assignment

[The_Traveler]

A simple Internet search on the terms gives both definitions, explanations and representative images.

If we ask people to read the manual as a signal that they are doing some of the work, I don't think that it is unrealistic to ask them to do a web search before asking for help.

I think that Compaq and others, rather than berating people and calling them - and me - liars, and other names for not helping, they should put their effort where their mouth is and do the work for the poster.



https://www.google.com/search?q=representation%2Fnaturalistic+image&aq=f&oq=representation%2Fnaturalistic+image&aqs=chrome.0.57j58j0j62l3.737j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=naturalistic+images&oq=naturalistic+image&gs_l=serp.1.1.0l2j0i30.15403.15949.0.18596.2.2.0.0.0.0.65.118.2.2.0...0.0...1c.1.8.psy-ab.SoU-rzEkWsE&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.dmQ&fp=f18f27e046486f57&biw=1680&bih=963

https://www.google.com/search?q=abs....0.57j0l3j62l2.588j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=non...0.57j0l2j62l3.1638j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Mully]

Hey I give the OP an A+ for holding up well to the demigods on here.

 

[texkam]

If the OP had said, "I'm a college student and I've gotten this assignment and I just don't even know how to go about looking for inspiration. Any suggestions?"

Then people would have been willing to help someone in their quest for ideas.

But the OP wanted the answers not help to research the questions.
Part of art is doing the thinking.
Doing the actual execution is not so difficult.

This! ^

My problem has always been that the OP appears lazy, unmotivated and disinterested in the class. My conclusions are based on their very words. Laying out their problem in a better way would have yielded better results IMHO. Others have learned this lesson and have found us "demigods" to be very giving. As far as some of us not being helpful, Review many of our past contributions on this forum and you'll find many of us to be quite generous with our time and experience. Yes, I believe the OP has now received a tremendous amount of both scholastic and moral guidance. Perhaps they'll share their results.

 

[manaheim]

This! ^

My problem has always been that the OP appears lazy, unmotivated and disinterested in the class. My conclusions are based on their very words. Laying out their problem in a better way would have yielded better results IMHO. Others have learned this lesson and have found us "demigods" to be very giving. As far as some of us not being helpful, Review many of our past contributions on this forum and you'll find many of us to be quite generous with our time and experience. Yes, I believe the OP has now received a tremendous amount of both scholastic and moral guidance. Perhaps they'll share their results.

Yes. That's totally it.

 

[rlemert]

If the OP had said, "I'm a college student and I've gotten this assignment and I just don't even know how to go about looking for inspiration. Any suggestions?"

Then people would have been willing to help someone in their quest for ideas.

But the OP wanted the answers not help to research the questions.
Part of art is doing the thinking.
Doing the actual execution is not so difficult.

And part of the 'art' of being an educator is knowing how to look beyond the words the student uses to get to the heart of the question - and to answer in a way that maintains the student's role in his or her own learning.

 

[manaheim]

Whatever the case, pix is right... We should let this drop. It would probably be better as an unattached philosophical conversation than one attached to a member.

Yeah, I know... I have that stupid green text so i have to try to behave.

 

[858Smith]

Uh, I got kind of bored reading through the thread. I just think it's really funny people are taking the time to bash me and my thread AND THEN continue to go on and on about it.

Thanks to those of you who are defending me and offered advice Your posts were definitely not boring I especially liked the demigods comment haha

 

[TCampbell]

I actually thought about responding... but didn't.

One of my other serious hobbies is astronomy. On the astronomy forums we will, from time to time, get a new user who will... out of the blue, as a -really- technical question. These are the sorts of questions that a genuine new user would never think of. It's always the "tell" that they're actually a college astronomy/physics student with a homework question. So there's this whole sticky thread on why we wont do your homework for you.

We might ask a few "leading" questions, but we wont give away the answers.

So when I saw this thread asking for ideas, I realized the "question" was too broad. It asked too much. I realize you didn't ask us to go shoot the photos and send them to you (although we have had a few of those), but it was the next thing to it.

What made this smack of "do my homework" for me was that you weren't asking for help with one thing... you were asking for help with all three things (especially the naturalistic image, which, frankly... shouldn't have been a stretch.)

I'd suggest you rephrase the questions to be more specific... to show the parts of the assignment you understand and the parts where you could use help. For example... had you said "I understand the concept of naturalistic, abstract, and non-objective photographs, but I'm struggling to understand how you use a camera to shoot a non-objective in such a way that the subject doesn't look an identifiable object.

THEN we could have asked you leading questions about how to take a photo of something indirectly...using distorted reflections, liquids, broken, textured, or frosted glass, glass with colored grease on it (think "vaseline with food coloring", etc.) or doing long exposures while randomly moving the camera which was pointed at bright colored objects.

Had you done that, we would have said "ok... this guy will take care of his naturalistic photo and his abstract photo ... and knows what a non-objective photo is but struggles to understand techniques to create one." NOW it's a little less about the creativity (although coming up with ideas to deliberately distort the image is part of the creativity) and more about understanding techniques.

I will say that I agree with the "demigods". They're not cruel. They really ARE doing you a favor by forcing you to think about it yourself.

I have a good friend who happens to be a nun (the nun-part doesn't factor into the story). Her dad was an artist. When she was a young girl she wanted to learn more about art. One day he sat her in the front yard, which was full a beautiful front garden... and he asked her what color the front door was. She said "white" (it was white). He told her she was wrong... and to try again... look more carefully. She kept going on in every way in which the door was quite obviously "white" or at least a "dingy white" or "off white" or "eggshell" ... always some word for "white".

Her father made in her sit in the front yard and stare at the door until she could tell him what color the door was.

After quite a long while... she finally opened her eyes and realized... it was NOT WHITE. It was everything... it was blues and yellows, and greens... it was the glows of all the other colors in the yard. Had she merely grabbed the "white" paint to color that door, it'd have looked awful. If she wanted to make a painting of the door, she would need a lot different colors.

While it was a struggle to get her to "see", it was an experience she had to learn for herself. It's not just the "seeing" that's important... it's the "learning to see".

 

[858Smith]

I actually thought about responding... but didn't.

One of my other serious hobbies is astronomy. On the astronomy forums we will, from time to time, get a new user who will... out of the blue, as a -really- technical question. These are the sorts of questions that a genuine new user would never think of. It's always the "tell" that they're actually a college astronomy/physics student with a homework question. So there's this whole sticky thread on why we wont do your homework for you.

We might ask a few "leading" questions, but we wont give away the answers.

So when I saw this thread asking for ideas, I realized the "question" was too broad. It asked too much. I realize you didn't ask us to go shoot the photos and send them to you (although we have had a few of those), but it was the next thing to it.

What made this smack of "do my homework" for me was that you weren't asking for help with one thing... you were asking for help with all three things (especially the naturalistic image, which, frankly... shouldn't have been a stretch.)

I'd suggest you rephrase the questions to be more specific... to show the parts of the assignment you understand and the parts where you could use help. For example... had you said "I understand the concept of naturalistic, abstract, and non-objective photographs, but I'm struggling to understand how you use a camera to shoot a non-objective in such a way that the subject doesn't look an identifiable object.

THEN we could have asked you leading questions about how to take a photo of something indirectly...using distorted reflections, liquids, broken, textured, or frosted glass, glass with colored grease on it (think "vaseline with food coloring", etc.) or doing long exposures while randomly moving the camera which was pointed at bright colored objects.

Had you don't that, we would have said "ok... this guy will take care of his naturalistic photo and his abstract photo ... and knows what a non-objective photo is but struggles to understand techniques to create one." NOW it's a little less about the creativity (although coming up with ideas to deliberately distort the image is part of the creativity) and more about understanding techniques.

I will say that I agree with the "demigods". They're not cruel. They really ARE doing you a favor by forcing you to think about it yourself.

I have a good friend who happens to be a nun (the nun-part doesn't factor into the story). Her dad was an artist. When she was a young girl she wanted to learn more about art. One day he sat her in the front yard, which was full a beautiful front garden... and he asked her what color the front door was. She said "white" (it was white). He told her she was wrong... and to try again... look more carefully. She kept going on in every way in which the door was quite obviously "white" or at least a "dingy white" or "off white" or "eggshell" ... always some word for "white".

Her father made in her sit in the front yard and stare at the door until she could tell him what color the door was.

After quite a long while... she finally opened her eyes and realized... it was NOT WHITE. It was everything... it was blues and yellows, and greens... it was the glows of all the other colors in the yard. Had she merely grabbed the "white" paint to color that door, it'd have looked awful. If she wanted to make a painting of the door, she would need a lot different colors.

While it was a struggle to get her to "see", it was an experience she had to learn for herself. It's not just the "seeing" that's important... it's the "learning to see".

I completely understand what you mean, and when I asked the question, I really didn't think twice, or think it was wrong.

Had someone explained to me exactly what you just said, I would've apologized, and thought to myself, "wow, they definitely have a point," but they didn't. They flat out called me lazy and stupid, when in actuality, I'm not. I just didn't realize it was "getting someone to do my homework". I appreciate you talking to me like a PERSON, and explaining why you won't offer suggestions

Thanks for the story. I understand the moral of it

 

[Photographiend]

When I was taking 2D design in college one of the assignments was so intimidating I actually dropped out because I was too ashamed not to be able to produce something.

We were supposed to draw a desert scape where all the plant life was skeletal. Like actual bones. The teacher even brought in a skeleton for us to practice sketching from...



After I dropped out I couldn't do any art until I had done the assignment to my own satisfaction...



Believe me I know how overwhelming art assignments can be.

Just hang in there. Best bet is to go out and take a bunch of pictures then go through them and see what best fits.

 

[manaheim]

I'm not going to re-read the thread, but I do t think anyone called you anything even close to lazy and stupid.

In fact we didn't do much different than the guy in the story. We told you no- do it yourself.

 

[rexbobcat]

It's like we're slightly offended that he would even ask for help with his homework. How appalling.

I wish I was as smart as everybody else...

 

[The_Traveler]

I actually thought about responding... but didn't.

While it was a struggle to get her to "see", it was an experience she had to learn for herself. It's not just the "seeing" that's important... it's the "learning to see".

I completely understand what you mean, and when I asked the question, I really didn't think twice, or think it was wrong.

Had someone explained to me exactly what you just said, I would've apologized, and thought to myself, "wow, they definitely have a point," but they didn't. They flat out called me lazy and stupid, when in actuality, I'm not. I just didn't realize it was "getting someone to do my homework". I appreciate you talking to me like a PERSON, and explaining why you won't offer suggestions

Thanks for the story. I understand the moral of it

This is rather ironic. The example above outlined exactly what happened here and the OP doesn't get.
Even though people pointed out the answer to her several times, she didn't start ever actually thinking.
She was put in front of 'the white door' from the second response on.
It was not until someone spelled out the entire issue in great detail so that she didn't have to think about anything, did she 'get it'.
The OP hasn't yet learnt the moral of the anecdote which is that when confronted with a problem or an ambiguous issue, one has to think for herself.

 

[texkam]

they must be bored or trying to up their post count.

I was obviously either bored or just trying to up my post count here.
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/308923-taking-pics-theater.html

I noticed that about some people on this forum. Don't know why they didn't just not reply.

As the saying goes ... Be careful what you ask for ...

I do t think anyone called you anything even close to lazy and stupid. In fact we didn't do much different than the guy in the story. We told you no- do it yourself.

So now we're misrepresenting peoples comments. Perhaps, as been suggested by the mod, it's time to simply move on.

 

[Compaq]

You just don't say "no" to people who ask for help. It's up to you how you help them. "We helped by making her think on her own." No, you did not. If that was the case, this thread would not play out the way it did. Even Ray Charles would be able to make that observation. There exists a term for helping people think on their own, it's called "being pedagogic".

I don't want to put words in the OP's mouth, nor do I presume to understand how this thread affected her. So, if the OP did indeed learn her lesson from the (in my opinion) off-putting responses, then I am in the wrong, obviously.

BTW, if a text is misinterpreted, it means, 99 % of the time, that the text is poorly crafted. If the text is poorly crafted to evoke "misinterpretations", which are then strongly refuted by the writer, we're talking about low-moral. General observation.