Greetings!

My name is Alyssa Cruz. I am currently a junior and I am majoring Graphic Design. Currently, I have a lot of part-time positions at Albertus. I am a tech tutor, writing tutor, and an intern for the Marketing Department.

This class was required for my major. However, I am very excited about it. I have always loved photography and being able to capture special moments. I believe that this class will help improve my skills as well as gain insightful knowledge that I can take with me in the future. 

                                                                      Hello everyone!
My name is Gaby Reyes; I am in my junior year here at Albertus Magnus College as a General Psychology major and am looking forward to taking this class very much. I have always loved photography but never knew how to maneuver a camera to its full potential; so, having the opportunity to take this course is very exciting for me. I chose to take a self portrait with my cameras timer that reflects who I am and what I love to do more than anything. I love anything "DIY," and anything I can create myself. I am currently working on this mosaic coffee table and I have put my all into it as I do with any project I get invested in. My self portrait represents me as a creative and I hope this course will only continue to inspire me to be creative and capture it all. I look forward to learning new things with you all and seeing how everyone else perceives each weeks assignment compared to my own. Thanks for reading -Gaby

Greetings Class!

My name is Elyse Russell, and this class marks the beginning of the end of my senior year at Albertus. I received my Associate's in Business Management in 2015 and this year I will be completing my Bachelors in Sociology. 

I am a single mother of two, ages 4 and 4 weeks. I included my 4 week old son in my self portrait because he is constantly attached to me anyway.

I am a huge fan of art; this is my first photography class! My art passions include sketching and painting which I have done since I was about the age of 5. So, I am very much looking forward to adding photography to my art ventures!

Good evening,

My name is Celeste Cheatem. I am a single mother of two. I have a nineteen year old daughter that is currently in her second year at the University of Connecticut and a twenty-five year old son that has given me two beautiful grandchildren. My granddaughter is five and my grandson is 5 months. I have taken this class as an elective. This will be my last class before I receive my Bachelor's degree in business management. I am currently working full time at Hartford Healthcare systems in their revenue cycle department. But in my spare time, I am making and selling candles, body butters, lip balms and other beauty products.

Hi my name is Paula, I'm looking forward to seeing what this class is all about. I currently work full time with people with drug and alcohol addictions and I go to school fulltime along with being a wife and a mom.  I have a passion for taking pictures and storing memories, but I know there's more to photography than just beautiful pictures lol.

Self Portrait

Hello class my name is Erika and I am a full-time Preschool Teacher and a part-time Case Manager. I am also a full-time student at Albertus studying Human Service and I will be done in December 🎉🎉🎉🎉.  I needed an elective and I thought photography would be very interesting being that I love taking pictures and looking at different scenery so I hope to gain more knowledge about photography by the time the end of the mode. I plan to attend Springfield College in Springfield Massachusetts next year in September to gain my Masters in Social Work. Please excuse my self portrait picture that was taken with my cell phone because I am waiting on the battery charger that I could not find for my Nikon camera. But it will be in on Tuesday.

Self Portrait

Hello, my name is Yanisha Virgo. I'm a fun loving person, who likes to reading. I like surfing the web and spending time with my husband of nearly 4 years. I'm not currently employed but I'm very active at my church. This is my second year at Albertus and I'm pursuing a career in Computer Information Systems. I'm planning on going for my bachelor's degree once I receive my associates. In high school, I was familiar with Photoshop but it seems like so long ago. I'm hoping to jog my memory and I'm also excited to see what this class has to offer.

Natasha's Self Portrait

My name is Natasha Rivera-LaButhie.  I am a 34 yr old married woman with 4 children and work in a multitude of platforms. I work in cosmetology, research, and community service among other things. Google is my oyster at this point in my career which houses my most recent works over the past 5 years.  I am pursing my Bachelors in Business Management with a focus on Multimedia and Marketing. This is my second year.  One of my hobbies is being an admin for a Facebook game group in which I create flyers and posters for events daily.  I am also the head of marketing in my job, so I spend time doing most of the photography, flyers, and creating of marketing and media materials as a result.  I have always been fascinated by photography, taking it as a course all 4 years of high school.  I enjoyed cutting my own film and loading up the black and white camera.  I enjoyed being able to sit in a dark room and make the art I created magically appear on paper. I am looking forward to this course more than anyone could know as I have never used photoshop beyond the capacity of making overlays.  I created this image by using depth effect, removing my original image, reusing it with a filter and cropping it back on the original background.  This photo represents many sleepless nights over the past few days (I have a 13 month old who still wakes at night).  However, the need to go out and explore the world as I can rest in the grave. I look forward to spending this mod with all of you and getting to know you through your work.
Best regards,
Natasha  

Self Portrait

Hello,
My name is Stephanie Garcia and Mod 1 starts my senior year at Albertus Magnus. When I started this journey a few years ago, graduation seemed so far away and now it's almost here! I work full time, go to school full time fully online and I am a wife. I am really looking forward to this class. I love to take pictures but I would love to learn how to take better pictures and edit them. I purchased the camera below a few years ago on black friday for a great price but don't know how to use it to it's full potential so I am excited to see what else it can do!

Welcome to Digital Photography Class!

Welcome to the Digital Photography online class.  Digital Photography is a natural to offer as an online class because of the ease in creating and posting your work electronically.  I find eLearning to be cumbersome in general and have decided to publish the course syllabus on my own website, http://jnevins.com, and run the entire experience using the web, and Google's Blogger. Albertus is part of the Google Apps for Education universe and Blogger is part of that.  Your Albertus login works perfectly with the blog.  eLearning currently does not have the capacity to hold the number of images you’ll be posting as part of this class. It's slide show functionality is non-existent and it's design is clunky and unattractive... there I've said it!  :)

Class runs from Aug 28th until Oct. 21st. All work needs to be completed by then.

There are four elements we need to juggle in order for this to be a successful experience for everyone...

1.  The class syllabus... here are all the assignments and links to readings that you will need to work through the problems for each week of the class. The syllabus is found with this address:  jnevins.com/digitalphotographysyllabusonline.htm or click on the link in the upper right hand side of the blog.. While you are at it, browse around the rest of my site to get to know me better.  I have posted a portfolio of my photography, links for finding galleries and museums online, my teaching philosophy and more. The assignment for each week is posted on it.  Read it carefully and work to incorporate the main idea into your work that week. The link for the syllabus is in the upper right hand side of the blog.

2.  The Class Blog.  (Here) This is where we will build a sense of community.  It is important to post examples of your work each week as well as comments about your images to accompany the images posted as well as comment on the work of others in the class... you can ask questions to me personally anytime via email, but here is a public place to offer suggestions, ask questions and just generally where we can create a class environment.  Blogger is very easy to post to...
Your grade is based on your posts to the blog and more importantly your portfolio of photographs, illustrating your understanding and completion of the assignment for each week. Attendance is taken each week on Monday morning, accounting for the work you have posted for the previous week.  If no work is found, 2 absences are recorded on the Albertus electronic system.  The college is very strict about attendance and when you have 4 absences, they remove you from class and basically remove you also from the college.  Please don't let that happen.

 I have added you to the class blog … you need to respond to the link that Blogger.com sent you in order to become a member of the class blog. Once you are a member, you can post here.  I'd prefer to stay in contact with you via regular email. Please email me at jnevins@albertus.edu or  jnevins@jnevins.com. You may call me at home anytime (up until 9 pm)  if you would like to talk personally or to help solve a technical issue that would be harder via email. It is very important to get all technical issues solved and out of the way at the outset, in the first week. Just email me that you would like to talk to me and either send me your phone number or ask for mine...

3.  Photoshop CS2... This is available free with a lifetime serial number as Adobe no longer wants to officially "support" it.  You can do everything for class with this version.  http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/  Be sure to copy the serial number ad observe if you are downloading the Windows version or the Mac version. Note: later versions of the MAC Operating System may not support CS2 so you should then download the current version... there is a free download good for 7 days...After that there is a monthly charge... $9.99/month for students.  You just need a .edu email address.  If you prefer everyone can get the latest version of Photoshop CC 2017... There is a monthly fee.  You can rent it on a month to month basis or for the year, billed monthly.  There is no required (and expensive) textbook required for the class so Photoshop is affordable viewed that way.  Download it here: www.adobe.com/downloads

Taking pictures each week is just the first step!  You need to edit each picture you care about for light, focal point, contrast, color balance, etc.  I have videos linked in the upper right hand side of the blog to show you how. This is why Photoshop is important to have.

This first week, we must iron out all of the technical issues to be sure that you are up to speed.  I have asked for you to post a creative self portrait and to tell us something about yourself.  This is an art course and its primary focus will be on your portfolio as the basis for your assessment.  Study the syllabus to get a sense of what I will be looking for.  Links I have posted to visual images and readings are an important component of the class... I'll be looking at how you are in dialog with the images and ideas linked in the syllabus as a component of your grade.  Also important is that I get a sense of your  spending time at the assignments and are growing in the medium of photography as the course unfolds. Posting your best 6 - 10 images you are creating to the class blog each week is vital to your success in this class.  Use the comment button to respond to your classmates posts.  One of the strong points of using this blog is the ability to post comments  as well.  I am expecting 7 images per week as the bare minimum… (6 that really fulfill the intent of the assignment and more like 10 would be a better number… this is digital!)

With my wife Debbie in France a couple of summers ago....Married 42 years this June!

Any comments, suggestions, or observations as to how I can smooth the way for you as we get going will be welcome.  My goal is your success and your feeling that this was well worth your time.

Looking forward to launching this new class!

Best wishes,

Jerry