Sunday, September 5, 2010

Homework

John has been back in school for about two weeks now..and out of his six classes, one of them is Photography.

He came home the other day with a list of different things he has to take pictures of over this coming semester. Luckily, we live in an area where he has alot of opportunities to get pictures of these particular things (this is the syllabis that his teacher gave him to use) :

1. Use of line - Lines guide the eye such as sidewalks or paths or window panes. Lines could be the area where light meets shadow or a path of color in a flower bed. The lines do not have to be the object of the picture.

2. Use of texture - Texture is not a structural element like line or shape, but it add to a photo. Structure added feelings of hardness, softness, sharpness or slippery.

3. Shape or pattern - Round, square, triangles, etc, or repeating patterns.

4. Light and shadow - Combine light and shadow. Use back lighting to get light and dark, side lighting to get long shadows. We are looking for a shot with both dimly lit and brightly lit objects. Try black and white.

5. Motion - Move the camera while you shoot a moving object for a blurry back round. Use slow speed or shoot in dim light. The photo should indicate something in motion.

6. Perspective - Shoot from different angles than normal - get low, get high, shoot from behind or above things.

7. Things - Objects; animals, houses, toys, playgrounds

8. Places - Document some of your travel or places in your town like parks, buildings, stores, Main Street, etc.

9. People - You may not photograph other students at school. Examples: family, crowds people watching parades or watching animals at the zoo.

10. Events - Carnivals, school games, ceremonies, concerts, Christmas markets.

11. Breaking the rules - Placement of objects, exposure, focus, etc.

12. Color themes - Look for colorful objects, be creative.

13. Black & White - Some of you can use your cameras to create black and white photos. You can also use Photoshop. Good black and whites have areas of a good range of tones from dark black to white.

14. Landscapes - The countryside or cities in the distance. Think space with lines. Pay attention to where you place objects like trees or buildings in the photo.

Extra Fun: Try to find numbers and letters in nature and photograph them.

So, after reading that layout in terms of his pictures.. we ventured out around our neighborhood yesterday and let him go crazy with the camera. Once he was all finished, I scanned through his pictures and here's the best ones for two topics:

Objects (picture 1)