Photography

The most infamous assignment at my photo school was simply called the “36 people assignment”.

This was at the beginning of our 3rd semester in “small format class” (but was more like an intro to photojournalism.) We had just started shooting and printing with color negative 35mm film (moving from mostly b&w medium format). We had just learned how to use an off-camera flash.

The assignment:

• Go out and find 36 people. They need to be total strangers (obviously, myself and others cheated using some friends and family)

• shoot a portrait of each person at least 3/4 crop, if not closer.

• use a 35mm camera with a wide lens (28mm or wider). This forced you to be physically close to the person.

• Photograph them using color negative film (100-400iso)

• Use an off-camera flash. Either handheld with a remote trigger or hotshoe/pc cord, or with a light stand. (Vivitar 285 HV preferred)

• get “caption info”: their name, age, what they’re doing/why they’re where they’re at, and an interesting fact about themselves

• process your film (free at my school’s photo lab)

• make color darkroom contact prints of all your rolls

• make 11x19in prints of your 5 best portraits (color darkroom/enlargers with a CN process roller machine. Chems/processing free, but you pay for paper)

• You have 3 weeks to turn all of this in. It amounts to about a 1/4th of your grade.

I had been majoring in photojournalism up until this point. Bombed the assignment. Realized I’m way too socially anxious. Changed my major to technical photography (called biocom), then changed again to commercial photography.