2nd Years are treated to an afternoon at Lighttools

Our second year class was treated to an afternoon of product information and demonstration at Lighttools this past Wednesday. Both Stephen and Monty were great hosts showing us their lineup of product including; Soft Egg Crates, their line up of LR flash units and their newest Soft Egg Crate product called  "CU Focus". Monty also took a few moments to demonstrate the use of Soft Egg Crates and how they enhance conventional softboxes. Dwayne was kind enough to stand in as our model so that we could see the effects of these lighting options.

All those who attended came away with some new insight into Lighttools lighting options and their extensive lineup of LR flash units. Thanks Stephen and Monty for taking the time to meet with our second years.

PHT 350 Couple's Portrait Assignment

Continuing with the theme based assignments for PHT 350 the second year students have successfully handed in their “Couple’s Portrait” assignment. Interpretations for this assignment were left in the hands of the students however, the image captured had to be taken under available light conditions with no use of flash to supplement. The results, as expected, were varied but a couple of them came away with a very nice “Couples” portrait. Enjoy.

Diane Herron

Patrick Zubiri

Amanda Luethi

PHT 350 Portrait Class_Outdoor Portrait

Our second year students are presently taking a class titled PHT 350 –Portraiture. This class is designed to introduce them to the fundamentals of portrait photography and the various lighting techniques used. The class starts with the basics of lighting and progresses to include outdoor, couples, portable flash, low key and high key techniques. Their second assignment titled “Outdoor Portrait” resulted in some very strong imagery being handed in. Three of the students work is below for your viewing pleasure.

Leah Bignell

Dwayne Martineau

Desiree Abt

Annual NAIT Print Display & Sale

The students and staff of the Photographic Technology Program would like to invite everyone to our annual Print Display & Sale. Each year the first and second year students print and display their favourite photographs and offer them for sale to the public. This years event is a one day sale slated for November 30th starting at 9:00 AM. A portion of the sales proceeds are to be donated to the "Edmonton Food Bank". Hope to see you there.

Open House 2010 - - NAIT Photo Goes Back to the 80's

NAIT's Open House 2010 runs from 9:00 am - 3:00 pm on Friday, October 15 and from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm on Saturday, October 16th.

For the traditional "big shoot" theme this year, the Photographic Technology students took a trip back to the 80's and a visit to a high school dance. So if you can remember the big hair, leg warmers and high school cliques of the 80's (or want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past . . . ) come and check out their display in the basement of H-wing photo studios. There will also be lots of images on display from recent times!

Prospective students will want to attend one of the "Info Sessions" planned for 11:00 am - Noon on each day in H005.

Congratulations to our graduating students!

NAIT Photographic Technology Graduate Showcase

Friday, April 23rd, 2010 / 2:30 – 5:00 pm

The graduating students of the Photographic Technology program will be showcasing their portfolios and photographic imagery at a Graduate Showcase event planned for Friday, April 23rd, from 2:30 – 5:00 pm in Room H005 of the NAIT Main Campus. We invite you to come and view the talent and work of our students.

CAPIC Assistant Workshop in NAIT Studios

Here Michele Ramberg (second from left) oversees the assembly of a lighting soft-box as she recruits students to participate in her demostration.

Darren Jacknisky of Bluefish Studios along with assistant Celena (centre) demonstrate how they go about setting up their equipment and getting the money shot. Michele Ramberg serves as the model.

This is a bit of a late entry but we'll go with it. On Saturday March 20th the Edmonton Chapter of CAPIC (The Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications) held their first Assistant Workshop. The venue was the Photographic Technology studios.

Among the presenters were a panel of six prominent local professional photographers including Curtis Trent, Curtis Comeau, Michele Ramberg, Chris Stambaugh, Nathanael Sapara and Darren Jacknisky. The panel members answered a number of student questions on assisting. Lunch was included and provided a good opportunity for students to mingle with the professionals.

After lunch came individual demonstrations by Michele, Chris and Darren along with his assistant, Celina. Chris talked to the students about wedding photography assisting and gave a good breakdown of what would be expected. Darren then presented with his full-time assistant Celina and they discussed and demonstrated how they would set up a shot. Michele was last but not least and recruited students to help her set up a shot for a magazine cover.

According to main organizer (and recent grad), Dorothy Carter, "It was a great turn out with 18 attendees!! I organized it for Edmonton with lots of help from Michele Ramberg, Brett Gilmour and Darren Jacknisky. For the Edmonton workshop we followed Calgary's outline for how the day would go. I'm just really pleased to see that CAPIC is growing and that we can offer a variety of events to the commercial community."

PHT 450 "One Light Portrait"

Students recently completed a “One Light” portrait assignment following the style of portrait photographer, Darton Drake, out of Chicago. They were to create a series of 5 or 6 portraits from a single session and present them in a collage form. The results were intriguing, with each student showing their own interpretation of the assignment. I hope that you enjoy viewing the ones presented below.

Nikita Gushue

Melissa Carriere

Zach Ayotte

Miriam Den Oudsten

Karmen Meyer

Jessica Loughlin

Jeanetter Janzen

NAIT Photo Student Wins Edmonton Journal Photo Contest

We were pleased to hear that 2nd Year Photo Student Karmen Meyer was the 1st Place winner in the recent Edmonton Journal photo contest for post-secondary students. Karmen won the contest with one of the images from her third semester photo thesis. The Journal ran an excellent story about Karmen on the front page of the Saturday, March 13 edition. To read the story, click here.

Congratulations Karmen! Here's the winning image . . .

Major Photo Conference at NAIT

California photographer Dane Sanders addresses the symposium.

The Photographic Technology program was pleased to host the recent Exposure Photography Symposium at NAIT. This four day event was organized by the Alberta and Saskatchewan chapters of the Professional Photographers of Canada and featured four speakers, an image competition with 260 photographs, national PPOC accreditation judging, national PPOC executive meetings, a Gala Awards evening, and social events. The event was a major success thanks to the concerted efforts of the organizing committee, led by Chairperson Ian Grant.

Tyler Meade from Kamloops demonstrates his commercial location photography technique.

All twenty 2nd Year students entered images in the image competition. Their submissions were judged amongst the entries from the professional photographers and did very well with 3 Merit Awards and 29 Acceptance Awards. The three major student awards for the competition went to: Brendan Klem (NAIT) for the General category; Trevor Burns (NAIT) for the Portrait category; and Arete Edmunds for the Commercial category. The Commercial Photographer of the Year Award went to Corey Hochachka of St. Alberta (a NAIT graduate), and the Portrait Photographer of the Year Award went to Kathy Walker of Red Cliff, Alberta. Congratulations to these individuals, and to all of the category winners.

Photo History Students Tour Archives

On Feb. 12, the students in PHT210 Evolution of Photography, a second semester course, were treated to a field trip tour of the Provincial Archives of Alberta. Here the students got to see first hand some of the historical photographic materials and products they learn about in class. The tour was very interesting and informative. Many thanks to our gracious and knowledgable hosts for the tour, Terry O'Riordan (right), Audiovisual Conservator and Katie Roth (2nd from right), Reprographic Technician.

PHT 450 Executive Portrait

Our second years are back and continuing their lighting fundamentals education in their last lighting class called "PHT450 Portrait Lighting II". The class is taught by Ian Grant and highlights the fundamentals of executive, glamour, group and child portraiture. Their first assignment was based on the Executive Portrait theme and gave them the opportunity to capture an "executive" in their work environment. Some of the samples of their work appears below for you to enjoy.

Jeanette Janzen

Jessica Loughlin

Kari Knapp

Miriam Den Oudsten

Yesan Ham

Zach Ayotte

NAIT Photo Grad, Dale MacMillan, featured in Techlife Magazine

We're always proud to see our graduates get recognition for their talents and their accomplishments. The just-released issue of NAIT's techlife magazine has an article on sports photography tips and features Dale MacMillan, a 1994 graduate of our program. Dale is an accomplished photographer in many areas and is especially well known for the quality of his sports imagery. Have a look at the techlife article and Dale's website.

NAIT Students Winners - - Bridgestone Photo Contest

Bridgestone Canada has announced the winners of their eighth annual Bridgestone Photo contest. This contest has photographic students from across the country, representing 11 colleges, competing for prizes and cash awards totalling nearly $40,000.

Each of the participating photographic programs receives a First, Second, and Third prize amongst their entries and an overall Grand Prize winner and Honourable Mentions are selected from the entries. Students from both first and second year classes of NAIT's Photographic Technology program entered the competition. While we didn't win the national awards, we are still proud of the entries and our three winners. The first second and third place awards from NAIT are represented below. All of the winning photos from across the country can be viewed at http://www.bridgestonephoto.com/eng/index.asp?id=2009winners .

Congratulations to our winners!

First Place for NAIT . . . First Year student Amanda Matskiw

Second Place for NAIT . . . Second Year Student Miriam Den Oudsten

Third Place for NAIT . . . First Year Student Patrick Zubiri

A Photo Contest for Junior High and High School Students in the Edmonton Area

You've probably heard about Canadian astronaut Dr. Roberta Bondar, but did you know that she is also a physician, scientist, environmental educator, author and celebrated professional photographer? Dr. Bondar is coming to NAIT as this year's "Women in Technology" guest speaker. Along with Dr. Bondar's visit, NAIT is sponsoring a photo contest for Edmononton area Junior and Senior High School students.

The theme of the photo contest is "Inspiration" and details on the contest can be found at http://www.nait.ca/59100.htm .

Sources of inspiration are different for everyone. For one it could be outer space, for another it could be inner strength. Take a picture of whatever gets YOU going – a person, a place, an experience, a challenge, an adventure – and post it on NAIT’s Facebook page to show the world. You could win some inspirational prizes!

Thesis Night "Teaser"

Reminder - - Our "Annual Thesis Night" event occurs on Monday, Feb. 1st / 7:00 pm in the Shaw Theatre on the NAIT main campus. Check the earlier (Jan. 18th) post for the poster & details.

The Photographic Thesis course / project has the students exploring a chosen topic through the production of 15 - 20 images on their theme. The following are just a few samples of the varied themes and imagery that you can expect to see as the students present their images "on the big screen". Twenty students will be presenting their results . . . come and see what they have created.

Yesan Hem - - designed original movie posters for fictitious movies of varied genres.

Nikita Gushue - -  chose to create tributes to people in the entertainment world.

 

Jeanette Janzen - - photographed fifteen individuals who live on the streets of Edmonton, chosen to illustrate specific characteristics such as persistence, humour, gentlenesss, strength, and more.

 Gord Heatley - - focused his camera and his attention to the theme of "Marking Time".

Karmen Meyer - - took her joy of reading as the impetus to create photographs that reflect stories she has read, with the depictions being led by a scene, or an emotion, or a motif from the story.

 

Bobbi Ryan - - went with a theme of "umbrellas".

Kristen Bass - - chose the theme of "Timeless Vanity" which was her homage to the work of fashion photographers from the 1920's through to the 1960's.

Kevin Stachniak - - photographed "Alberta Wild", landscapes from around the province.

The preceding images give some sense of the variety, and the quality of the photographic imagery that you can expect at the Annual Thesis Night. Join us if you can.

Annual Thesis Night - February 1st, 2010

The Photographic Technology program is once again pleased to present the outstanding results of the third semester Photographic Thesis project. The event this year is scheduled for Monday, February 1st beginning at 7:00 pm in the Shaw Theatre (X123) on the NAIT Main Campus. The show will run approximately 1.5 hours and there will be a chance to visit and interact with the students after the showing. We invite you to join us.

Vue Weekly Article on the Photographic Technology Program

The current issue of Vue Weekly, "Edmonton's 100% Independent News & Entertainment Weekly", features an article on the NAIT Photographic Technology program in the Education section. Have a look at the article.

Computer Tech Editorial Portrait

As part of the PHT 350 Portrait course I demonstrate the principals for each of the portrait concepts taught in class. The last concept "Editorial Portrait" I decided to use one of our staff members who has been on an exercise mission since late June. Henry, our Computer Tech, has been riding to work and swimming each day as part of his exercise regime. To celebrate his success I asked if he would mind being a subject for my "Editorial" demonstration. Below is the final result and my interpretation of his success - enjoy

PHT 350 Editorial Portrait

Happy New Year everyone. The second year students have completed there third semester portrait couse. The last assignment was an "Editorial"assignment that was left to each student to interpret in their own way. As you will see from the images shown below the interpretation was very individual. Thanks for viewing our portrait assignments from last fall. We look forward to presenting new submissions this next semester.

Bobbi Ryan

Jeanette Janzen

Tami Paul

Karmen Meyer