nici /Art 80 d

Art80d Section ideas and activities

These are my ideas for exercises and activitites in section that I think will help students get a better understanding of photography. The idea is to get them comfortable with their cameras, give them a vocabulary to talk about composition, and get them to start thinking critically about thier own work.

Things to cover in section:

• Camera Basics
• Exposure
• Vocabulary of Composition
• Angle of View
• Visual Elements
• Negative Space

Exercise Ideas

Camera Basics
Go over a diagram of exposure specifically with the aperture, shutterspeed, and film speed functions emphasized. Have a hand out of questions that students answer by examining their own camera.

Equivalent Exposures
Have students create an equivalent exposure strip and then fill in a work sheet of exposure questions. Then have them use their cameras to determine exposure of a particular object.

Compositional Elements
Photocopy photos by famous photographers the students will likely have heard of and have them break down the compositional elements, highlighting them with crayon or pen on the photographs. Done in groups and then presented to the class. Or done on transparencies over the photocopies so that they can show the original image to the class, then show their work on top of it. Still enlarged photocopies?

Compositional Exercise
Have the students bring objects to class. The week before give each student a 3 x 5 card with a desired attribute. (Straight, round, tall, colorful, dark, etc...) Provide a bunch of scraps of cloth for use as backgrounds, group students into groups of three, divide the objects up amoungst them so that each group has three objects that they didn't bring and the objects have contrasting qualities. Have the groups debate within themselve the best arangment of the objects and then present to the class why they thought that was the best arangment. The goal is for a visually interesting photo.

Framing
Have students construct cropiing L's out of black construction paper and practice changing the framing on photos. Use large prints off my computer with lots of extra space. Or use one large print with many elements and have different groups figure out the framing that emphasized certain elements. Have them discuss how they could have changed the exposure setting to further emphasize that element. This is a good point to introduce negative space or go more in depth on it. The cropping L's are essentially letting them controll the negative space and they should be able to describe how this affects the image.

Angle of View
This is an outdoor exercise that requires the participants to take images. Students are broken up into pairs or triads and each set is assign a extreemly low or extreemly high viewpoint. For the high ones it's the birds eye view, for kicks call the different groups dirrerent bird name views. no eagle or they might try to get too high. Those groups get to bring chairs outside with them. The other groups get animal view points, if they have a pet of their own assign them that annimals view point to make it personal. They are then asked to take images from that view point. The students should present their images the next week in section.

Practice for the Narrative
Provide blank paper divided up into eight frames, on the main board list the basic elements that they can use, give each student a 3x5 card with a desired type of story, have them sketch out their stories and then pass around the papers and have other students write down what they think the story is about. Then discuss what compositional elements had which effects. Could be done in groups, must bring in colored pencils in case color becomes important.