Seminar Success Story

Uma the dog by Eli Weissman
After coming out of the darkroom my senior year of high school I remember thinking, “There is something different in this photo from any other I have taken before.” I had just printed a photograph of my dog Uma, happily prancing around the beach at Crissy Field in San Francisco. Although I didn’t follow any of the photographic rules I had learned at school, the photo somehow managed to capture the energy and timelessness of the moment. I wondered what on earth had led to such a creation. It would not be long before I found out.
I still remember the first day of Professor David Wright’s class, Photography as a Fine Art. Waiting with anxiety outside a small classroom on the third floor of the Bancroft library, I was greeted by the smiling face of a new classmate, Allison Porterfield. Little did I know, but Porterfield, just a year later, would become the photography editor of the Daily Cal (the student-run newspaper that has a readership of 30,000). Happily, I learned that this Freshman and Sophomore seminar would be capped at just eight students. After introductions, the Professor began explaining how the class works.
The Campanile and empty Sproul by Eli Weissman

Students are expected to read and view designated material regarding a different photographer each week, produce black and white photographs in the style of the photographer, and write a short paper comparing and critiquing the photography master’s photos and their own photographs that they have just taken. It may seem like a lot of work, but diving so deeply into the minds of such great artists gives one an incomparable feeling of having actually met the person. And the intimacy drives one to want to do the work. As Robbie Crabtree, a former student and current Daily Cal photographer, puts it, “Professor Wright would lecture as if he were personal friends with all the photographers, and we would really be able to see from their perspective.”

The second week of class, we studied Arnold Genthe (a San Francisco photographer who took street scene photos in Chinatown, and recorded the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake), and I remember stepping into the classroom with some hesitation. I had worked hard to understand Genthe’s patient photographic style and hoped I had done a satisfactory job. Yet, the photographs I produced could hardly be considered beautiful works of art. They didn’t follow the highly touted “Rule of Thirds” (in which the subject is placed a third of the way from the left or right, and a third of the way from the top or bottom of the frame, so that it isn’t in the center), the scenes appeared relatively disorganized, and the subject was a rather dull scene from the Solano Avenue Stroll. Nervousness filled the air as Professor Wright thoughtfully placed a hand under his chin and interpreted each student’s work.

On this particular occasion, Wright smiled and mentioned that I had done a pretty good job of replicating Genthe’s style. I let out a sigh of relief and we moved onto another student’s work.

Quickly I grew to understand that what made these photographs good was not that they were perfectly balanced or somewhat picturesque (because they certainly weren’t), but that they captured interesting moments, as I had seen them.

Photograph by Eli Weissman of students protesting sweatshop labor

Professor Wright was teaching us something that very few people understand about photography. “There is no equation for a good photograph,” Porterfield said, repeating one of Wright’s most firmly held beliefs. That isn’t to say that Wright encourages cutting off heads or shooting photos at an awkward angle. On the contrary, he would often “suggest that if you moved over a little to the right or left, you could have eliminated some annoying obstruction or have gotten a slightly better angle,” said Salgu Wissmath, a former student and current Daily Cal assistant photo editor.

The photo I had taken a year earlier of Uma the dog is reasonably composed and, I believe, has a fabulous subject. However, neither of these things are what make it a good photograph. The look of complete and utter joy on Uma’s face, the tension in her muscles, the wetness of her fur, the waves at the side of the frame, and the dogs and man playing in the background are all part of a scene that could not be duplicated. With the right preparation and a little luck I had captured something that was more than a picturesque subject; it was an unforgettable moment. And now, thanks to Professor Wright’s class, six Daily Cal photographers understand that there is much more to a good photo than nice lighting and a pretty scene.

-Eli Weissman, Student

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