I teach my fellow photographers how to incorporate the Elements of Visual Design into their photography. I also show how to use specific devices to gain visual interest, i.e., Visual Tension, Shadows, Vanishing Points, Negative Space, and Silhouettes. I teach online with the BPSOP, and I conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around the planet, and the knowledge of these elements is what they will walk away with.

Form, Pattern, Texture, Shape, Balance and most important Line are the basic elements, and over the four week online class, we work on putting these elements on what I call the Artist Palette. By the end of the class, these photographers are now armed with the ingredients to “make” strong photos. These photographers are painters who have chosen the camera as their medium.

As I’m constantly reminding my students, a camera on a tripod is just like a blank canvas on an easel. Since my background is not in photography but in painting and design, I show them the way I use to use these elements when I had a paintbrush I my hand, and how to make the transition to the camera.

I love to show what my classes did during the four weeks and I hope you will be as impressed as I am with the fruits of their labor.

Take a look:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban, and check out my upcoming workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me some time.  Keep those photos and questions coming to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique of you image.

JoeB

I teach two online classes with the PPSOP that centers around the Elements of Visual Design, and how to incorporate them into your photography. In my part I class we work on Negative Space, Vanishing Points, Depth, Shape, Pattern, Visual Tension, Texture, Light, and Color.I also teach these in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops i conduct around the planet.

In my Part II class, which is a continuation, we work on Line ( the most important of all the elements), Form, creating Shadows and Silhouettes, and more on Light and Color. We also work on ways to see things that are not obvious to most people’s eyes…”Not what is, but what could be”, is the class mantra.

The following slideshow consists of images from both my part I and II class, and if you compare notes you’ll see these elements used in creative ways by my fellow photographers that are learning how to see differently. Keeping in mind that these students are not professionals, but people that have started to use the Elements to their benefitwhen composing their photos.

Enjoy:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my ever-changing workshop schedule at the top of this blog. I have one spot left for my “Springtime in Portugal” workshop May 21st. I have my Maine Media Workshop coming up July 26th, which will be my 27th year.

Keep those photos and questions coming in to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a video critique.

JoeB

I recently returned from teaching at the Julia Dean Workshop in Hollywood, CA. It was my third time out there, and I always enjoy shooting there…except for the traffic!!! The diversity of subject matters is refreshing and it always shows in my student’s photos when we critique them from day to day.

As is always the case, whether it be with my online students at the PPSOP or my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, I show fellow photographers how to incorporate the elements of visual design and good composition into their imagery. Each person is given an imaginary ‘Artist Palette’ with nothing on it. During the course of the five-day workshop we work on: Line, Negative Space, Vanishing Points, Perspective, Texture, Pattern, Form, Shape, Light and Color, and how to introduce them into their thought process, finally ending up in their composition.

We also work on the six principles of Gestalt I’ve written about in an article for Adorama.

For these amateur photographers whose passion lies not only in their love for the craft but in their need to take their photos “up a notch”, the results only after five days are impressive, and the level of creativity is comparably to the majority of working professional out there working as I write this post.

The above featured photo was taken during a workshop trip to the LA County museum of Art.

Here are some of their images…enjoy as I have:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my new 2013 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

Don’t forget to send a photo and a question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com.

JoeB

I just finished a week at the Maine Media Workshop, teaching my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” class. It was my seventeenth year, and it was still as much fun as it was in the eighties. I always pick the same week, as it’s the same time as the Lobster Festival just down the road in Rockland, and the State Fair in Bangor. I pick this week so it  gives my class something else to shoot besides small fishing villages, lighthouses, beautiful scenery, local artists, old historical houses and barns, and flowers in full bloom..as if that isn’t enough!!!

I had a full workshop, and as usual there were students that have also take my online class with the PPSOP,  so the diversity of the photos shot and submitted for a review were interesting, and it made for a good time in between the daily morning and evening shoots. As always, my class is about teaching photographers how to incorporate the elements of visual design and composition into their imagery. Negative Space, Vanishing points, Perspective, Tension, Patterns, Texture, Line, Shape, Form, Light , and Color are the elements that my students walk away with that are now found on their  new ‘Artist Palette’.

The photo featured above was taken by a student that not only was in my Maine Media Workshop class, but enrolled in both my part I and part II online class, as well as my six month mentoring program. Pam’s  an exceptional photographer that’s now on her way to making photography not just a passion, but a potential career as well.

Below is a slideshow of some of the student’s work, and you’ll be as impressed with these photos as I am; these were taken over a five day span.

Enjoy:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and stay tuned for my 2013 workshop schedule. Come shoot with me sometime.

Don’t forget to submit a question and photo to: AskJoeB@gmail.com

JoeB

Each month I teach a class with the PPSOP. It’s an online four week class, and each month I usually get twenty to twenty five participants; and they’re more than likely just like you. That is, they’re amateur photographers passionate  about photography, and want to take their images up to the next level but just don’t know how to go about it.

Both in my online class and my “Stretching your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I teach students how to incorporate the Elements of Visual Design and Composition into their image making. Negative Space, Vanishing Point, Perspective, Line, Texture, Pattern, Form, Shape, Light and Color are the elements that we work together on. Each week the class is given a different lesson to work on, while taking what they’ve learned in the prior lesson with them to the next week’s assignment. At the end of the four weeks, they walk away with an ‘Artist Palette’ with all these elements on it.

As the month progresses, the level of work changes with each day. Once each student embraces a particular element they can integrate in into their thought process and “make a picture” using it.

I want to share some of their wonderful pictures with you they have taken over the course of the four weeks, so you can see how their new Palette has helped take their imagery what I refer to in class as, “Up a notch”. What you see is a small representation of the work that was created. The level of work is incredible  and unfortunately there were just too many to show all of them, so I tried to represent all the elements that they learned how to use. Can you see them?

Enjoy!

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and I’m working on my 2013 workshop schedule, so stay tuned. Come shoot all the elements with me sometime.

Keep those questions and photos coming to: AskJoeB@gmail.com

JoeB

This is the first time I’ve written a post centered around one of my classes that I teach at the online school called the PPSOP. I usually showcase one of the assignments I give in the last week where I give each student a color and letter to go out and find. The reason for this assignment is to get them to start “seeing past first impressions” and be able to focus on a particular color or object. As I tell them and also my students attending my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, one of my favorite quotes was said by Henry David Thoreau. He said, “It’s not what you look at it’s what you see”.

However, this time I’m featuring photos from the first week until the last because it was one of my strongest group of students I’ve had since I began teaching online at the school.

Each week my class is given a different lesson and they all are about creating their Artist Palette. On this palette will soon be the elements of visual design and composition: Negative Space, Vanishing Point, Perspective, Visual Tension, Pattern, Balance, Texture, Shape, Line, and of course Light and Color. At the end of the four weeks, they’re armed with the means to create photographs not just in great light, but midday light and gray days.

Knowing how these elements work gives them the ability to dissect their individual work which is necessary if they want to take their imagery what I refer to as “Up a Notch”. Discussing their photos through the use of my video critiques clearly shows them a new path in which to lead their newly developed ‘Eye’ and thought process.

To me, following the guidelines of the Psychology of Gestalt (follow this link for my article in Adorama:http://www.adorama.com/alc/0013706/article/6-Principles-of-Gestalt-Psychology-That-Can-Improve-Your-Photography ) is important in creating memorable photographs, and it’s a big part of the information I give. The key is to take control of how the viewer perceives and processes our photos. Make him an active part by leading him around the frame, giving him ways to leave and enter our composition, having him keep discovering new things in our photo are a few ways to keep him around longer…just what we want him to do!!!

The following are just some of the images they took during the four week class, and as you will see the reason they look the way they do is because they’re chocked full of all the elements listed above that are now on their new ‘Artist Palette’. There’s so many more but impossible to show all of them.

Enjoy!

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

Don’t forget to send me a photo and question to: AskjoeB@gmail.com

JoeB