Photography
COURSE DESCRIPTION
.50 Fine Arts credit Lab Fee: $35.00 (Additional expenses may be incurred, depending on amount of material used.)
Students will supply their own digital and 35mm cameras, memory cards, batteries, and cables.
*All students are expected to KNOW how to operate their cameras prior to the class (how to take a picture, how to upload, how to load film, remove film, etc.)
This semester-long course introduces students to photography as an art form. Students learn compositional skills through the study of the elements of art. Students explore the history of traditional photography as well as techniques and methods used by contemporary digital photographers. This course includes lessons in photo editing/manipulation using Photoshop software (first half) as well as traditional black and white film photography and basic darkroom techniques (second half). Researching and writing about photographers is an essential course component. Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) history, VPA criticism, and VPA production are required components of any class which offers a fine arts credit. Analytic writing is required in all classes.
STANDARDS & WEIGHTS
There are many different aspects to a visual art grade. We use the National Core Art Standards to design, teach, and assess our curriculum:
CREATING- conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work (50%)
PERFORMING/PRESENTING/PRODUCING- Realizing artistic ideas and work through interpretation and presentation (30%)
RESPONDING- Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning (10%)
CONNECTING- Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context (10%)
“You learn to see by practice. It’s just like playing tennis—you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can’t be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.”
—Eliot Porter
For the first half of the class students are expected to have a digital camera. For the second half of the class students will provide their own 35mm film camera. This is important. If you do not have a camera it impossible for you to be successful in this class.
Here is a link to a site with PDF versions of operating manuals for many cameras. Look for your camera here and do some reading about it. I do not know how each of your cameras work so it is up to you to figure yours out.
In order to take great photos...
Keep your camera handy and always be looking for things to shoot.
Start looking at the world as a source of great photographs.
Look at everything as if you are seeing it for the first time.
View many photographs by many photographers and ask yourself if you like them and why?
©2014 Julie Blackmon. All Rights Reserved
