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OPC Courses

The "OPC Courses" category contains course descriptions and other relevant information for photography courses offered through OLLI at GMU.

OLLI Photo Club – GRC Photography

December 21, 2018 by George Bradshaw

Welcome to Get It Right in the Camera (GRC) Photography

Welcome to our Intermediate DSLR Photography course (F102). We’ll be meeting in the Tallwood Annex on Tuesdays from 9:40 to 11:05.

This course is designed for those who attended the 2018 summer “GRC Photography” course. Through weekly assignments we will strive to capture the best possible photo while concentrating on content, arrangement, and exposure of whatever is in the picture space, before the application of any post‐processing. Instruction will focus primarily on use of digital single‐lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. Attendees will be encouraged to use the manual rather than an automatic camera mode. Both technical and artistic intermediate level instruction will be adjusted to the needs of attendees. Class participants will capture at least 20 images each week, selecting their best four photos each week for individualized instructor comment followed by interactive classroom review. The assignment for discussion during the first class will be sent in advance to attendees.

Dan Feighery holds a BS in physics from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a master’s in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.  He has attended photography courses at Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University.  He founded the OLLI Photography Club and has taught OLLI photography classes.

 

File Naming Convention for OPC Courses

The file naming convention for OLLI Photo Club (OPC) courses is similar to that used for the OPC’s routine galleries:

  • The filename contains two fields: the photographer’s name and the image’s title,
  • The title field of a filename will include up to two elements: the image’s descriptive title, and in some cases, a Photo ID to ensure filename uniqueness,
  • “hyphens”, preceded and followed by a “space” character, will separate the two fields, and
  • The title field may contain “spaces.”

 

The filename format for this course only is

LastnameFirstinitial - Title [ PhotoID ]

The brackets ( “[“ and “]” ) indicate an optional element in the filename.  This optional element is used only to ensure filename uniqueness.  The course’s instructor may require use of a particular form of the PhotoID.

Examples:

          When the title is unique

          SmithJ - Beautiful Trees.jpg

 

          When duplicate titles must be made unique

          SmithJ - Beautiful Trees 1.jpg

          SmithJ - Beautiful Trees 2.jpg

 

          When the camera’s filename is used to ensure uniqueness

          SmithJ - Beautiful Trees IMG_1234.jpg

          SmithJ - Beautiful Trees IMG_5678.jpg

 

          Other filename formats that will not be used in this course

          IMG_1234.jpg
          IMG_1234-Edit-1.jpg
          yyyymmdd-hhmmss.jpg

 

Notes:

The only characters allowed in a filename for this course are alphanumerics, “spaces,” “hyphens,” and, for camera filename elements only, “underbar.”

The “.jpg” suffix is normally appended by your PC’s software.

“PhotoID” is only required when needing to distinguish among multiple photos.

The last three examples are just for information purposes.  They are other typical file naming formats designed to ensure uniqueness of file names, the first being a camera-generated filename, the second indicating the existence of an external photo “editor” such as PhotoShop, and the third a date and time stamp.

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Uploading Instructions for OPC Courses

  1. Create a JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg) photo named according to the "File Naming Convention" specified for the gallery. Note: Depending upon your workflow, you may not want to change the name of an original JPEG file; in this case, change the name of a copy of the original file.
  2. Enter the "upload link" into your browser to show the OPC’s "Upload to ‘Gallery’ ” window.  Note: some courses have a "Sandbox" gallery to practice the upload process. You will receive an email from the instructor with an upload link for a Sandbox gallery (if used in the course) and for a gallery specific to each session of the course.
  3. Drag and drop your photo file(s) into the window using the file manager of your PC:
    1. in Microsoft Windows, the file manager is File Explorer;
    2. in Apple macOS, the file manager is Finder.
  4. Wait until the upload completes and click the "Done" button.
  5. View your images at the appropriate OPC gallery. For example, this course's galleries are maintained at the OPC photo repository (https://olliphotoclubgmu.smugmug.com), and the galleries can be found via the following menu sequence:

          > Galleries
          > Special
          > OLLI Courses
          > "Name of Course"

          For example, the "Name of Course" for the practice gallery (Sandbox) is:

          > "Course name abbreviation" Sandbox

              (e.g., "GRC Sandbox" or "DCF Sandbox")

          And the "Name of Course" for an assignment gallery is:

          > "Course name abbreviation" YYYYMMDD

              (e.g., "GRC 20190122," "DCF 20180918," etc.)

 

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Filed Under: OPC Courses, Photography Club

OLLI Photo Club – Intermediate DSLR Photography

August 28, 2018 by George Bradshaw

Welcome to Intermediate DSLR Photography

Welcome to our Intermediate DSLR Photography course (F105). We’ll be meeting in the Tallwood Annex on Tuesdays from 9:40 to 11:05. This course will have a photo assignment announced each week.

In these photography sessions our primary focus will be on getting it right with a camera. The course is designed for individuals who are proficient in using their adjustable digital cameras and might like to work more on visual design. The instructor will concentrate on the elements and principles of art as they apply to photography. Attendees will complete weekly shooting assignments and present their digital (.jpg) images (preferably right out of the camera) for peer review and discussion. A shooting assignment for review during the first class will be sent in advance to all attendees.

Dan Feighery earned a BS in physics from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a master’s in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He was the founder of the OLLI Photography Club and has taught various photography courses over the past several years. Photography has been one of his hobbies for the past seven decades

 

File Naming Convention for OPC Courses

Photo file names have the following format (note there are no “spaces” in the file name):

.....LastnameFirstinitial-PhotoID  (Format for this Course)

Examples:

.....SmithJ-Unique_Title.jpg

.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees.jpg

.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees_1.jpg
.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees_2.jpg

.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees-IMG_1234.jpg
.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees-IMG_1235.jpg

Other Formats:

.....IMG_1234.jpg
.....IMG_1234-Edit-1.jpg
.....yyyymmdd-hhmmss.jpg

 

Notes:

The “.jpg” suffix is normally appended by your PC’s software. “PhotoID” is required to distinguish among multiple photos.

The file name contains no "spaces." "Hyphens" are used to separate fields. Elements within fields may be separated by the underscore character (_), for example, some camera systems use special characters such as the underscore for file names.  All other characters are alpha-numeric.

In the examples above, the file name with the PhotoID of "Unique_Title" could be as simple as

.....SmithJ-Beautiful_Trees.jpg;

however, if there are two photos of trees the PhotoIDs must be unique, such as

.....Beautiful_Trees_1 and Beautiful_Trees_2.

This is the method which may be used in the camera course.

The last three examples, just for information, are other typical file naming formats designed to ensure uniqueness of file names, the first being a camera-generated filename, the second indicating the existence of an external photo “editor” such as PhotoShop, and the third a date and time.

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Uploading Instructions for OPC Courses

  1. Create a JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg) photo named according to the "File Naming Convention"specified for the gallery. Note: Depending upon your workflow, you may not want to change the name of an original JPEG file; in this case, change the name of a copy of the original file.
  2. Enter the "upload link" into your browserto show the OPC’s "Upload to ‘Gallery’ ” window. Note: the upload link to the “Sandbox” gallery used for practicing the upload process is https://olliphotoclubgmu.smugmug.com/upload/ZW2n5D/s0.  You will receive an upload link to the upload gallery for each session of the course in an email.
  3. Drag and drop your photo file(s) into the windowusing the file manager of your PC:
    1. in Microsoft Windows, the file manager is File Explorer;
    2. in Apple macOS, the file manager is Finder.
  4. Wait until the upload completesand click the "Done" button.
  5. View your imagesat the appropriate OPC gallery. For example, this course's galleries are maintained at the OPC photo repository (https://olliphotoclubgmu.smugmug.com); the galleries can be found via the following menu sequence:

..........> Galleries
..........> Special
..........> OLLI Courses
..........> "Name of Course"

..........The practice gallery, for example, is then found at this menu item:

..........> "Course name abbreviation" Sandbox (e.g., "GRC Sandbox" or "DCF Sandbox")

 

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Filed Under: OPC Courses, Photography Club

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