Photography activities for high schoolers.

October 6, 2013 9:55 PM

I am teaching photography to a bunch of 16 and 17 year olds. Most of them are novices. What kind of activities can I do with them during the months between now and March when it's pouring rain in Vancouver?

I teach public school, which means we have VERY limited resources. Everyone has a DSLR camera, and we do have about 10 computers to use, but we don't have Photoshop (we've been using Pixlr), and we don't have any other supplies besides the camera (nor can we afford them). What kind of stuff can I do with them indoors during the winter?

posted by figaro to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Is there a curriculum? Is this your first year teaching this class or are there resources from prior years?
I've never taught photography but I've worked in high schools and it doesn't sound like you need to reinvent the wheel for this class. I guess you could start by thinking about how far along you will be in the school year & to what end, and do you want the kids to be technically proficient with the camera first, or do you want some kind of creative theme?
For technical, maybe a sequence comparing f-stop or lighting; For creative, a series capturing specific emotions?
posted by TDIpod at 10:10 PM on October 6, 2013

Macro photography is the obvious one. Portraits and candids of one another. White box shots, if you have $10. (You can do these with kinds of lamps, which is what I do.) It is also fun to re-create classic paintings if you can work with the theater department (if there is one.)
posted by DarlingBri at 10:18 PM on October 6, 2013

Can you get a large roll of (colored or kraft) paper from somewhere to make a seamless/photobooth type setup? This could be a good way to teach technical stuff like f-stop, shutter speed, and lighting comparisons.

Assuming the classroom has either a bulletin board and thumbtacks or some kind of magnetized chalkboard/dry erase board, all you should need is the roll of paper.
posted by Sara C. at 10:19 PM on October 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Stop motion would be fun.
posted by meta87 at 10:28 PM on October 6, 2013

If you're looking for specific projects, I'd second the last part of TDIpod's answer.
If you're all on DSLR, then "People, places, things." is a good way to learn photography.

Do a series using different f-stops (probably a still life of 'Meaningful Things').
Do a series of a single subject in different lighting (probably a portrait, in natural, incandescent, fluorescent, reflected, and in-frame light sources).
Do a series of a place that is 'Your Space' (can be anything, really appeals to teens).

Do a series illustrating a descriptive word pulled from a hat (I'd use adverbs rather than adjectives - 'incredibly' is more evocative than 'incredible') Have the students keep their words secret, and see if the other students can guess what was being illustrated.

Have group critiques when everyone puts their work up on the wall so everyone can talk and exchange ideas.
posted by mdrew at 10:58 PM on October 6, 2013

The most important thing I learned in the beginning of my photography studies was that I had to move myself around to get the right shot, sometimes in totally ridiculous ways. Have your kids shoot the same scene from totally different angles and locations in a room, crouched down on the floor, climbed up on top of (secure!) high things, where the scene is backlit and where it's at 3/4s and so on. This could be like a one day team thing where people trade off being subjects and photographers, if the class is the right fit for that. Anyway, giving myself permission to look ridiculous while holding the camera made the biggest immediate difference to my work, and it did the same for the work of most of my classmates. I noticed this in high school, twice, and college three separate times for each different intro photo class I took. (It was always for a different final medium, with new to photo people every time.)
posted by Mizu at 1:06 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well you could try to round up some old-cameras, buy some b/w film and try find some basic darkroom equipment on craigslist. Teach them actual nuts-and-bolts photography. There might also be some local resource (private museum, club, second-hand photo dude...) who could lend you some equipment.

Otherwise, teach them how to side-step the default settings of a DSLR in and how to make awesome, spooky, extra-realistic shots in poor light/weather conditions.
posted by Namlit at 1:37 AM on October 7, 2013

The photography class at the local high school took portraits of senior citizens at a local nursing home last winter (a friend's son was one of the students and said everyone had a great time). A grant of $500 for the 60 students covered the cost of printing and frames.
posted by bCat at 4:43 AM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

You could still work on composition, e.g. rule of thirds stuff and how it applies to portraits / closeups etc. Also you could do assignments on the elements of art. Have them break into groups and work on different elements then arrange a walkaround so everyone can get inspired. Rinse and repeat, or have them combine different elements. You could analyse other photographers' work (good for inspiration) . You could have them work on still lifes and portraits.

As for not having photoshop, picasa will cover a lot of the basics and is free. Plus there are other alternatives.

If you want alternative challenges, this site is good for helping to break the creative wall.

Hope some of that is useful.
posted by mukade at 4:51 AM on October 7, 2013

A great project in my high school photo class was that my teacher brought in a bunch of photos from magazines -- fashion, portrait, still life, etc. We had to choose one and imitate it. It was such a good learning experience. I had a fashion photo, and I still remember directing my "model" and trying to get the same framing and the same focus differential between the foreground and background.
posted by xo at 6:24 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think a standard highschool photography course includes a series of subjects - water, reflection, architecture, etc.

The suggest above to have them shoot from lots of different angles, and learning that "your zoom is your legs" is an excellent one.
posted by colin_l at 6:25 AM on October 7, 2013

Build a pinhole camera?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:22 AM on October 7, 2013

Get a copy of the book *Light: Science and Magic* and work through the setups therein. it's all about studio lighting and they will learn a lot.
posted by kindall at 8:48 AM on October 7, 2013

Have them take a set of photos of an everyday item as if they were going to sell it online (eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, etc.). It's a big part of what I do, and I think it's an interesting project: Any one object can be approached a bunch of different ways, some things are deceptively tricky to get a good shot of (coins and sunglasses come to mind), a good set of photographs can make a huge difference in selling price, and it's not unlikely that some of your students will be doing it for real at some point.

I've taken plenty of photography classes and they always had a bias towards artistic or narrative photos. When I first started taking photos for selling stuff online I found that I could really only draw from the more technical side of what I had learned in my classes; learning what makes a good photo of, say, a bracelet early on would have been very helpful.
posted by clorox at 2:34 AM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, learning how to hold a camera still for longer exposures (1/45 +). Getting a good indoor shot without needing to crank up the ISO, use a flash, or rely on in-camera stabilization really widens what you can do with almost any camera.
posted by clorox at 2:45 AM on October 8, 2013