Middle School photography lesson ideas?

[Derrel]

Honestly...bringing in "art" is probably not an essential idea. Photography does not have to be about "art". In fact, much photography is definitely NOT "art"...it is "photography". In much the same way as lessons in handwriting and penmanship are not about "writing", as in writing as literature. At the introductory level of middle school, the practical how-to-do-photography lessons need not be concerned with creating "art", nor "Art" with a capital 'A'.

 

[TCampbell]

Throw in something on depth-of-field and let them play with different aperture sizes.

e.g. have everyone line up. Hand the camera to a student who stands at one end of the line and have them take a photo that gets (a) just one person in focus and (b) as many people as possible in focus... to recognize that there's a relationship between the size of the aperture opening and the size of the depth of field.

 

[amolitor]

Honestly...bringing in "art" is probably not an essential idea. Photography does not have to be about "art". In fact, much photography is definitely NOT "art"...it is "photography". In much the same way as lessons in handwriting and penmanship are not about "writing", as in writing as literature. At the introductory level of middle school, the practical how-to-do-photography lessons need not be concerned with creating "art", nor "Art" with a capital 'A'.

But... it's an art class

 

[Derrel]

Honestly...bringing in "art" is probably not an essential idea. Photography does not have to be about "art". In fact, much photography is definitely NOT "art"...it is "photography". In much the same way as lessons in handwriting and penmanship are not about "writing", as in writing as literature. At the introductory level of middle school, the practical how-to-do-photography lessons need not be concerned with creating "art", nor "Art" with a capital 'A'.

But... it's an art class

Well...they need to learn technique in order to be able to translate their "vision" into tangible photos. No need to muddy the waters. We will leave the discussion of, "Is photography really art?" back in 1855, where it belongs!!!

 

[amolitor]

Nobody ELSE seems to be willing to leave it there

 

[Derrel]

I am verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry "old-fashioned". ;-)

 

[Designer]

I am verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry "old-fashioned". ;-)

(another aside) If that's code for "conservative", then I've got you all beat.

(on topic) I think it is appropriate to consider the art of photography at the same time as the craft of photography. Develop the whole student, and all that.

 

[chuckdee]

I remember an assignment in high school photography where we had to do the alphabet. Basically you have to find objects that are shaped like all the letters of the alphabet, and you could not take a photo of an actual letter.

It was a good exercise in learning to see shapes.

I second this.




____________________
Chuck Dee - AKA Chris
"My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain." - Helmut Newton
www.bellissimofoto.com
commercial buildings

 

[TCampbell]

If you want to emphasize the art, you might want to describe and demonstrate differences between a "documentary" style of photography (taking photos of things, places, events, etc. that actually exist in real life) vs. a non-documentary style ... e.g. photo impressionism, etc.

I hesitate to use the term "art photography" because the moment I do, someone will mention examples of photojournalistic documentary photography that now hang in museums as art. (e.g. Alfred Eisenstaedt and the VJ Day ticker tape photo of the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square or Jousuf Karsh and his famous photo of the Winston Churchill scowl.) So I use the term "non-documentary" to make it clear that regardless of where you draw the line on what qualifies as "art", the photograph itself is fiction and doesn't depict a real-world thing.

I think most people tend to shoot with a documentary style, but there is this other world of photography where the images in the photographs aren't real. They don't represent events that occurred, or people or places that actually exist. It's not photo-journalistic as if we're recording history with a camera. instead the images are motivated by the same things that motivate other artists and they may be surreal... intended to provoke thoughts, wonderment or emotions.

You've already touched on light painting and multi-strobic photos using a bulb setting. We used to do double exposures (now not so common since you can do the same thing with photoshop).

You could do oil & water photos... or food coloring and milk photos. You could introduce them to techniques to produce starlight/diffraction spikes, misty/spot-diffusion effects, etc.

 

[MiFleur]

I think my idea for this class boils down to making it about *seeing*.

So much of art is about technique, mixing paints, applying paint, how do I glue this thing, and so on. While you certainly CAN spend a great deal of time learning about technique in photography, photography is unique in the visual arts that you don't HAVE to master a bunch of technique to get to first base. You can produce SOMETHING with a button press.

Odds are the kids are learning loads of techniques all the time, so photography could be used as a unique opportunity to spend some time mostly looking, and seeing, and thinking about what we're seeing.

I work with kids and I do art with them, I agree so much with you that the technical stuff, they learn very easily, but learning to see, is a different ball game. Thanks for your suggestion, I will use it tomorrow!

 

[texkam]

making it about *seeing*

+1.

Grade schoolers are good at "doing". Step 1, 2, 3. They want to please. Middle schoolers need to be able to see stuff. They have a very short attention span and need to be constantly engaged. High school and college kids get into the "whys" and "why nots".

 

[unpopular]

I was taught photography by doing assignments which were intended to develop vision through technique. Art students will want to have control over what they photograph, so having a group of kids, all of them standing around photographing a bust of Sigmund Freud or Stalin won't achieve this. It's better to have broad concepts, showing examples of the objective and allowing students to interpret the objective within their vision.

As one of only a few people here who actually have a formal art education, there are ways to teach both technique and process/vision simultaneously. The key is to teach broad compositional concepts, like line, form, repetition, texture, shading, placement, perspective (DOF) etc. sure, you need to teach a little bit of technique, maybe a few 10 minute lectures on camera control followed by a quiz, but most of the technique will be learned naturally on the field and with questions like 'why is it so blue, though'. This is an introductory class, so the point isn't o create great works, it's to teach concepts.

 

[Designer]

One particular advantage in having students photograph the same object is that it becomes a teaching tool. When everyone is finished, they all see the results of their classmates and hear comments from the instructor.

For me, the most informative part of an assigned project was to hear ALL of the comments of the jurors, including those directed at my classmates' projects. I think I learned more by listening than by doing the project. Meanwhile, most of my classmates showed up for their review and left immediately afterward.

If I were the teacher, that's how I would do it.

 

[Feathers]

Thank you all once again for taking the time to reply to my query. I appreciate all your ideas and help. Perhaps when my new group of classes get into the photography unit I can share some of the work we come up with.

 

[Designer]

Perhaps when my new group of classes get into the photography unit I can share some of the work we come up with.

Yes, please. We are all invested now.