Category: Photographs

DE is done!

5/8/2015

This has been an awesome semester with my High School students as we explored manual settings on a camera to create an array of images. From exploring shutter to aperture, DOF and painting with light, students really pushed their cameras to the limit to create images that explored a variety of ideas and concepts.

For our last class, students shared a presentation that compared their work to the work of artists we studied in class and also presented their final series that explored a larger concept or theme of their choice using techniques explored in the previous assignments. We also finalized our Spring display in the Van Singel Fine Arts Center that showcases the BCPS k-12 program.

Tara: The Littlest Zoo

In her series, Tara explored the transformative quality of these small plastic figurines when placed in various scenarios. Here are two examples from her series that capture the essence of the project.

Jason: deflated hapiness

In Jason's series, he had a model pose with a yellow balloon acting as the face put on regardless of true feelings. Here are two from his collection.

Holly: "Youth" by Daughter

Holly used a song to inspire her final work of images. Each picture represented a part of the song, illustrating the lyrics through the use of light, shadow, and motion. Here are two examples.

Denise: Night Lights

In her series, Denise went downtown and captured the city by night. Here are two of her pieces in the series of eight.

Sarah: Identity Lost

Sarah worked with the theme of identity and addiction in her series of clouded visions of her model in various stages of being overwhelmed. Here are two from her series.

Kenton: Mood Music

In Kenton's work, he used friends and church members to highlight his love of music. Using an array of warm and cool tones in the work, Kenton also used color to express feelings he found in his subjects. Here are two from the series.

I am so proud of their accomplishments and know they are going to lead creative lives that take them on all kinds of interesting adventures.

0 Comments

Capturing Motion

2/20/2015

0 Comments

Dual Enrollment students worked with the concept of motion for their last assignment. Here are some examples of the types of images they made:

Sarah used a slower shutter speed to capture this view from the second floor of the GRAM during the MAEA Region 9 show.

Kenton used a faster shutter to capture this moment of the stream of water frozen in space.

Tara uses panning to show movement of her brother.

Denise used a slower shutter speed to paint with light in the background of this figurine of Lady Liberty.

Holly used a slower shutter speed, a timer, and a tripod to capture this self portrait in motion.

Jason used a slower shutter speed to create this image.

0 Comments

Assignment 1 and Photo Challenges

2/6/2015

0 Comments

I am very excited that I have the opportunity to teach Dual Enrollment classes through Kendall College of Art and Design. This semester I am teaching students an Introduction to Photography course where they will learn a variety of ways to capture images. Our first assignment was all about perspective and point of view. The results offered a variety of solutions that showed new aspects of the everyday.

Sara Y.

Kenton R.

Denise M.

Holly M.

Tara M.

Jason K.

In addition to formal assignments, I have been giving students challenges that help them better apply the concepts being discussed during class lecture and in the reading.

Snow Challenge

We had two snow days in the last week, so I challenged students to take pictures that characterized the snow. Here are two examples of the types of images students made when they were stuck home from school due to the snow days.

Tara M.

Sara Y.

Panning Challenge

We are moving onto our next assignment, which deals with the concept of motion. Last class we went over a variety of photographers who use this concept in their work and then discussed the basics around the use of shutter speed to capture motion. Although they do not have to specifically incorporate any panning motion images in their next assignment, I wanted to challenge students to do one with people and the other with an object. Here are three results:

Kenton R.

Tara M.

Sara Y.

0 Comments

Finishing out Photo

5/11/2013

0 Comments

Students finished out their Dual Enrollment class this week with a presentation of the assignments given as they relate to the Artists we studied. Students were challenged to create a presentation with a tool of their choice (iMovie, PowerPoint, Google Presentation, Prezi, etc.) and then present their work to the class. When presenting, students explained how each image was made and the process of selecting a companion Artist's image to correlate with it. It was fun to see how the student created images related to the works we studied in class and how students presented on subject, composition, and overall mood of their works.

0 Comments

for Valentine's day...

2/14/2013

0 Comments

For the past three years, I have had the privilege to teach Dual Enrollment classes for Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University to our High School Junior and Seniors. I taught 3D my first year, Color last year, and this year I am teaching Intro to Photo for Non-Majors. We started the term using Digital SLR cameras and will be moving onto traditional black and white processing in a couple of weeks.

For our first project, we focused on perspective and point of view. Our second project, which was handed in today, was all about movement. I decided to select an image from each student to showcase their efforts. It was a great critique today, with a lot of interesting and exciting experiments happening with the use Manual mode on the camera. One of the most satisfying moments during critique today was hearing a student express how much they have learned about their camera by turning off the Auto-mode. I am really excited to see what happens in our next project when we move into the darkroom.