Photography/Imaging courses, Skagit

About Photography/Imaging courses, Skagit

This group is for image placement and comments by all members of photography and digital imaging classes facilitated by Larry Bullis at Skagit Valley College, former students from Tacoma Community College, and interested members of the public.

This site is external to the courses themselves. These courses are conducted on the ground and sometimes online through Blackboard.

This site is available to past students as well. General public is invited also, presuming that those interested will find their way to it.

Participants need to be aware that:

By posting any image to this group pool, you are releasing that image for public discussion, both on Flickr, and on Circle-of-Confusion.net. You also accept and permit the discussions, including the images, to be stored for continued use, now and in the future, to illustrate ideas, techniques, or principles. If images are subsequently removed from the group pool, there can be no guarantee that the image will not persist on Circle-of-Confusion.net. If you don't want them discussed, don't post them.

---------- Art 184, Digital Imaging---------

The Art 184 Digital Imaging course on the Mt. Vernon, Washington campus of Skagit Valley College began as an experiment, at a time when a remodel had eliminated our wet photo lab for over a year. I thought it would be interesting to try a studio art course online. It grew into a (well, sometimes) highly active discussion group. The last session, in the spring of 2006, was absolutely wonderful.

The theory of the course:

Several lines operated in parallel.

We discussed ideas about visual and cultural awareness, critical thinking, and seeing. We attempted to encourage dialog between the viewer and the art, the artist and the subject, the artist and the medium, and so forth. This discussion was meant to proceed at a level that is far beyond what one will find in most community college courses; indeed, it was sometimes a lot like a graduate seminar.

We also discussed technical matters. This, however, was not the purpose of the course. We dealt with them as they come up in the course of the work.

Grades were given (reluctantly, because the "instructor" regards them as not particularly relevent) on the basis, primarily, of participation in the class discussions. In most courses, it is impossible to use this criterion, but in an online course such as this, it is entirely possible because the software keeps count of accesses and posts.

Because the format of Blackboard software is not ideal for posting and discussing images, I added a blog, "circle-of-confusion.net". If you wish to join the discussion, and find that registration is not open, please send a message to Larry Bullis at "bullis@alumni.reed.edu"

As of Summer '06, we have put Art 184 on ice. While some quarters were fantastic and deeply satisfying, other times were impossible. A course like this depends upon the participants. Students who regard education as a passive activity where knowledge is poured into them by an authority simply can't handle this kind of a course, because they don't know how, or don't wish to take on responsibility. Unfortunately, our system of "education" appears to be geared toward this passive attitude. We may again offer the course, but if we do, prerequisites will be installed and it will be reorganized to eliminate the likelyhood that persons seeking "how to" information will enroll. It has the potential to be a great course.

In the interim, both the Flickr site and the Circle of Confusion are open to students in my traditional photography courses, to the general public, and past students. My hope is that we can transcend the general "I like it" of "you should have..." levels common in most such sites.

The world of the intellect is not an idle conceit. It is about real things; about what it is to be human. Photography is only a language. It is important to understand the language and use it responsibly. You are welcome here, and you have the opportunity to participate in a discussion of substance, but it is up to you to express what really matters and it is your right to expect to be taken seriously. Despite how that probably sounds, it does not exclude humor.

http://circle-of-confusion.net/