Residency – Minneapolis Community and Technical College – John Johnston – 4 hrs
This week in lab things went pretty smoothly. The students essentially have open lab hours during class and a few other days throughout the week. Most students are proficient printers and are capable of troubleshooting things on their own. It’s been nice to hang around during this time and get to know the students better as we have been getting more comfortable as a class. None of the students in the course art majoring in art or have any experience in photography but watching them problem solve and create work they feel good about has been a great experience.
In lecture this week we went over negative hygiene. Up until this point in the course we have not stressed over negatives or pictures being scratched or dirtied because it’s a pretty easy fix and not entirely important when learning to print. We discussed ways in which to get grime off of a negative and how to properly handle them. We also introduced spotting photographs. Spotting is a technique used to “erase” or cover up blemished that may be imbedded in the negative and not able to clean off. In the age of photoshop, spotting seems like an incredibly tedious and difficult task. I personally am horrible at it and it’s a do as a say not as a do sort of situation. From here on out we will be making sure photos aren’t just printed well and nicely composed, but also we will be looking at the cleanliness of the final print.