Forced Perspective Photography

I've been done with this school year for a little while now so I wanted to share some of my middle and high school students' work from Continuous Learning. 

I used choice boards for the majority of the 7 weeks and had most of the same choices for middle and high school students. I felt that the majority of the students would want some type of starting point as opposed to full choice and I made sure to include options that could be done on their computers, without internet, with art supplies, without art supplies, and that would take varying amounts of time so that the students could all choose something that would work best for them.

Several options incorporated photography since the majority of students have cell phones available for use. Forced perspective photography was one of the options. The middle school students especially seemed to enjoy this option and the opportunity to pull out childhood toys for models and props.

Siblings and pets also helped out!

Dear Photograph

One of the options for high school students, though not what you would think of as forced perspective, was "Dear Photograph". Students took a picture of a photo from the past in the present and then wrote a short letter to the photograph reflecting on how things have changed and stayed the same. I usually use this option as my senior students' final but due to moving online, I only had a few seniors. The students did a nice job and I enjoyed seeing what they wrote about the photos!

Photo Friday: Rule of Thirds

I have had students ask me about taking a photography class but my high school only offers 3 art classes. Because there is a real interest in photography, I decided to be more intentional about incorporating digital photography by starting "Photo Friday" in my Computer Graphics class. Each week Friday is reserved for photography and we've been working through understanding how to use the camera, how to make effective compositions, themes, etc. Some of the ideas have been based on photography assignments I had in the past and some have come from things the students want to learn or try out.

One of the earliest assignments we had was to focus on the Rule of Thirds. I gave a quick explanation about how the "dead center" can be kind of a boring place to put a focal point and shifting off to one of the "tic tac toe" lines or "power points" where they intersect can be more interesting. I also tell students that the rule is more of a suggestion because they can be broken intentionally to achieve an effect.

 

After discussing the concept, we set out around the school and campus to take pictures. I asked students to explore and to turn in 2 photos at the end of class- one portrait and one "other".

 

Now that I'm posting these it's obvious to me we need to work on actually turning the photos in!

Done List- 1st 2 Weeks of Summer Break

I like to make "Done Lists" when I feel I'm not getting much accomplished. My first 2 weeks of break have been very busy!

1. Helped with Jackson County Arts' Glory Days Art show.

2. Checked out some wheat fields. Wheat is not a super common crop in my county so I had never been in a wheat field before. I thought it was about time.

3. Watched my little guy "help" in my parents' garden. He loves dirt.

4. Harvest 12 peas. Not even 12 pea pods. 12 peas. I planted some vegetables in with my flowers this year just for fun. It has been so hot and windy with so little rain that even watering every day was not preventing my pea plants from drying up. The potato plants look really good. Something ate half my onion plants. I think I'll have some peppers and it looks like a few beans are going to make it. Something ate most of the leaves off the green bean plants and I didn't want to spray anything on them.

5. Attended the KAEA Board Retreat (day and a half long board meeting to plan for the coming year.) The retreat was in Wichita which is the location of our Fall Professional Development Conference. The theme will be Creating Vibrant Communities Through Art and Design. A large part of the conference will be held at City Arts which is a really cool place! I feel like we got a lot accomplished at the board meeting and came up with some cool ideas. 

Feigning boredom at the meeting to work on a photo assignment.

6. Turned board retreat into mini family vacation! We found out that there are a lot of fun things to do as a family in Wichita. My husband took our little guy to an awesome park and Exploration Place while I was in my meetings. Together, we went to Botanica, the Great Plains Nature Center, the Sedgwick County Zoo, and ate breakfast right off the runway of a private airport where we saw little planes take off and land.

Botanica had an amazing children's garden with lots of cool interactive features and a butterfly house. I knew that I would enjoy Botanica but my husband said he was surprised how much he enjoyed it.

7. Started my 3rd graduate course- Visual Culture and Studio Practice. The first assignment was photo self-portraits focusing on identity. We had to turn in 1 photo each in 3 categories- Head and Shoulders, Object (using an object to communicate something), and Environment. Here are some of my photos from the assignment.

Object

 Head and Shoulders

 Environment

8. Finished uploading student work to Artsonia for one school with about 100 pieces left to publish for my other. I will actually get it all done this year!

9. Lots of playing and cuddling and family time!

Creative Photography Week 3

My assignment last week was "Narrative".  I found a note I had scribbled to myself that said Little Gingerbread Man.  Luckily, I have access to a stuffed fox so that came in handy.  I baked gingerbread for the first time and altered the shape of the cookies as well as the decoration with royal icing to help tell the story.  I just have a few days left in this class!  It has been frustrating at times but I've mostly enjoyed it.  Our final assignment is a self-directed body of work.  I chose to work on photographing flowers at night.  I just have to narrow it down to 20 photos to turn in then I'll put the link here in case anyone is interested.  If you're not interested in photography, never fear!  I have more lessons and ideas to blog about and should have more time in July to get caught up from the school year.

Creative Photography Week 1: Self Portraits

Creative Photography Week 2: Shutter Speed

Creative Photography

I'm starting to work on my master's degree through the University of Nebraska at Kearney.  They have an all online Master's in Art Education program!  I was really excited when I read through the required courses, I could see myself using every sing one of them.  After that, there was no way I could do curriculum and instruction.

I'm enrolled in Creative Photography for the month of June. It has sometimes been a struggle to find time with a 6 month old, but I'm making it work!  I have to give myself little pep talks like I do with my students. 

Inner Monologue:

This is hard.

Duh.

That doesn't mean you can't do it! 

Anyway, thought I would share some of the photos from my first assignment which was about aperture and self portraits.