Teaching a Basic Photography Class

[jbstudios]

Can any of you give me any ideas on what to teach for a basic photography class. My friend has a dance studio and wants to offer more arts and has asked me to do photography for 6 weeks. Basically i have a 5 year old son and want to offer it from ages 5-17 in three classes. 30 min, 45 min, & an hour for the big kids. Any suggestions on books? what you would teach? Price? I am thinking i will provide disposable cameras for the 5-6 year olds just so they can start to get the idea of flash. any ideas would be great!

mrs jb

[jfrancho]

Camera operation and care, shooting posture, timing, and composition come to mind as far as real basic stuff for a very young shooter. An older child may want something a little more advanced, like using advanced features of a point and shoot. Not sure where your located, but classes like these usually go for $25-$75 here in western NY.

[scoundrel1728]

As long as you are talking one-time-use cameras, you can't get too much into the technical end, which is probably a good thing overall. For all of your courses, I would emphasize the elementary aspects of shooting, such as holding the camera steady, and the artistic aspects. For the younger students, keep it simple. That's also one of the lessons you need to teach: keep it simple.

That would encompass avoiding busy backgrounds and would also point forward to one of your other lessons: get close. Although sometimes beginners get too close and lose the context of what they are shooting, the more common fault is including too much and distracting the viewer's attention from the subject. Other rules you might emphasize is having your picture "tell a story," then perhaps the Rule of Thirds and including foreground as a frame if time permits.

On the semitechnical end of things, you might want to mention lighting and the different moods that different angles and sizes of lighting can produce, with emphasis on where the shadows fall, how deep and dark they are, and how sharp their edges are.

[cyclohexane]

Look on the brightside of things: we got certified by Metro ED for employment after taking the pilot version of a digital photography course at my high school, and it didn't cover everything in the above posts by jfrancho and scoundrel.

[scoundrel1728]

Originally Posted by cyclohexane

Look on the brightside of things: we got certified by Metro ED for employment after taking the pilot version of a digital photography course at my high school, and it didn't cover everything in the above posts by jfrancho and scoundrel.

True enough, but how do you explain the concept of exposure reciprocity to students who are still learning how to multiply and divide? How do you explain, except in qualitative terms, about exposure times, f stops, and ISO ratings and the relationship between them? I am also assuming that these children, especially the younger ones, will be using one-time-use cameras with a fixed focal length and probably fixed focus as well, much like a miniature version of the box cameras of yesteryear. Not an awful lot of settings on one of those to be confused by, but not much opportunity to practice the more advanced technical stuff either.

[cyclohexane]

I was trying to make a joke that your little paragraph covers more than was covered in our course- yet we already have a piece of paper to wave around as "proof of readiness for employment". LOL

[Blinky]

5 - 17 is a wide range, you'll have to tailor for each for sure. These are just some ideas that come to mind... nothing coherent.

At first I wanted to say 'composition, composition, composition', but then, the 5 - 10 years are likely to be naturals and should not be corrupted by compositional rules. For the 10 - 17 crowd I think composition can't be over-emphasized... it's like drawing, if we don't keep doing it through adolescence, we lose it.

Camera height and angle are also pretty important basic concepts...

focal point like the eyes for instance; depth of feild... with the older ones it would be good to go into what focus actually is (ranges of acceptable un-focus)

Kids of any age will have fun with self timers for shooting self and group portraits.

Range of visible luminosity and the limitations of what a camera can actually record (how to shoot scenes with snow and sand vs. in deep forrest, dark backgrounds)

Direction and quality of light and shadow

Color of light/Color balance/White balance, using a grey card. what 18% grey is.

How to hold a camera... still. Value of a camera support. Demonstrate the results of camera shake.

Using on-camera flash, bounce, diffusion... maybe brackets and modifiers.

Just food for thought. Good luck with the program, sounds like fun.

Chip

[Mark McCall]

I regularly speak at photography conventions and seminars all over the US.....

But I was brought back to earth by a Girl Scout troup who asked me to give them a photography lesson in order to receive their photography badge. Girls ranged in age from 7-10 years old.

We taught them the importance of composition, as well as basic techniques, like "getting the subject farter from the background", and "getting low for low subjects".

We plugged a cheap digital camera into a TV so that each student could see what they shot immediately after the exposure on the TV.
It turned into a party as several parents attended as well, with their own cameras in hand, wanting to learn something themselves.

The girls began to squeal with delight at a great shot, and laugh at the bad ones.

[scoundrel1728]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

We taught them the importance of composition, as well as basic techniques, like "getting the subject farter from the background", and "getting low for low subjects".

I suppose you would want to isolate such a subject temporarily for social as well as aesthetic reasons, especially if it happens to be a group shot.* * I could well imagine that the surrounding people would have forced and artificial smiles or they would be trying to suppress their mirth at the offending subject's embarrassment.

I like your idea of hooking up a demo camera to a large TV monitor.* When working with children especially, the dry lecture method doesn't work very well.* You must keep things fun.* Adults have a greater tolerance for lecturing but demonstrations and hands-on experiment still helps to drive the point home.

[FocusingOnFlorida]

I wonder how the classes went? I sent an email to see if there is an update.

[jbstudios]

the class actually went great. For the younger group 7-12. I bought disp cameras. Each student had one and for two of the classes i set up props (baby,animal,action we were by a playground,close ups, nature) i had them developed and we analyed them. They took 3-4 of each shot and i had them pick the best and why discussed all the blurry, things in the pictures etc. They picked the best and made a portfolio which was basically like a scrapbook. They matted the picture and if time labeled it. The first class we talked all about a camera (the disp) and the parts. They drew a camera and we talked about how to stand. It was great! The second class we kinda did the same. But had homework assignments. Like come back with pictures of rule of thirds after we talked about them. Each class they had a different assignment. The last class they hand colored a b&w photo. It was really fun to do, but actually a lot of work. I prepared too much which was probably a good thing.

[jfrancho]

Sounds like it was a good learning experience for both you and the students. Good to hear.

[FocusingOnFlorida]

I had a feeling the results would be interesting. Thank you for the update.