Assignment #9 - Read, Break Down, and Curate Images for a Moodboard

One of the most under looked skills in photography is building visual literacy.

Let's start with a formal definition of what that is, which I got from good ol'Google.

Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media. Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture.

Simply put, the more "visually literate" an individual is the more they will be able to create meaningful, incredible images. (Yes, this includes how you structure your lighting for your food photography)

And to be a more visually literate individual you would first need to be someone who looks at a lot of images, consistently. Right? And not just merely look at them but study them.

Evolving your understanding of why certain elements in some images may work and why some maybe don't. In doing this, you may essentially build this skill of knowing (almost intuitively) what works in your images and what doesn't. And also, being able to apply that knowledge into your shoot so that you can execute a photograph based on what you saw.

This is what I'll be asking you to practice in this assignment: how to read and break down images and then be able to curate them into a mood board. And we're going to be using the brief that I provided in the first assignment of this module.

So, your assignment is as follows

Using the verbiage, concepts, and/or themes that you developed in your brainstorm and in your subject analysis, seek and collect images that inspire the themes or concepts you have for your client's shoot. Then, using the images you've collected, create a mood board with images that speak to and resonate with the brief that was given to you.

I know that may have sounded like a lot so here is this assignment broken down in steps:

Step 1: Gather Your Images.

The first step is to simply gather all of the images from the internet that inspired you and I shared 4 ways you can collect images from all over the internet: Pinterest, Instagram, ShareX, and taking pictures with your phone.

Step 2: Analyze and Contextualize the Images

Read and break down the images you collected. Write what stood out in each image and how it does/will pertain to your project.

Step 3: Curate and Assemble the Moodboard

Review and select which images to be a part of your mood board. The number of images (or even pages of images) needed will depend on how complex the shoot is. Get used to culling and curating images for a mood board and executing the shoot from that. To make this as simple as possible for now, I recommend storing your saved or screenshotted images in a folder on your computer.

For this assignment's submission, take a screenshot of that folder opened in Adobe Bridge (Grid View) and post the screenshot in our Discord server.

Here's an example of a mood board I had created for the bundt cake shoot.

Here are the final results from my shoot.

Good luck and looking forward to seeing what you create! Reach out in the community if you have any questions.

When you're ready I'll see you in the next lesson!