School Teaching

Earlier this year I was working at a local secondary school teaching a photography 'interest option' for the sixth form department. The interest option is a scheme the school runs for its oldest pupils on Friday afternoons as something fun and a bit of a break from their exam laden timetable. These options include ball room dancing, karate, bridge, amongst others, and of course photography. I was asked to organise a six week course, of one hour lessons, which would give them an enjoyable taster of photography, pertaining to the practical rather than the theoretical. I sought some advice from a friend who works as both a freelance and a teacher. With a rough idea of things to be covered I drew up a basic lesson plan, and then expanded this with considerations of time, feasibility, and levels of interactivity with the students. I then had a specific, useable, lesson by lesson plan, which would hopefully succeed in keeping the students attentive and involved with a variety of tasks and inspirations (see below). This plan also aimed to incorporate my objectives of what the students could get from the course, if they really engaged with it.

Developing our Photography

The aim of this course is to develop students’ understanding of the technical elements of photography, as well as increase their knowledge/appreciation of contemporary and historical photographic practices. As an outcome of this, the students will hopefully develop their own preferred style or ‘eye’, and then produce a small portfolio of their personal work.

Week 1: Understanding Light

·      Using studio lights – safe set up

·      Basics of exposure – shutter speed/aperture

·      Different types of light – hard/soft – white balance

·      Hwk: find some inspirational studio photography – ideas for a shoot.

Week 2: Studio Light 

·      Activity: group exercise - create our own studio shoot – bring props, draw up lighting plans.

Week 3: Understanding Composition

·      Recap/review of studio work – look for successful compositions

·      Look at/discuss photographers demonstrating composition

·      Activity: photographing around the school – looking at architecture and/or nature – consider perspective/form

·      Hwk: good picture/bad picture.

Week 4: What Makes a Good Photograph?

·      Everyone presents their research – say why they like/dislike

·      Lecture on subject/composition/light

·      Look at photographers who can inspire us (contemporary and historical)

·      Activity/Hwk: photographing people or photographing something that appeals to us – beginning to find our ‘eye’.

Week 5: Photoshop Introduction

·      Basics of selecting/brushes/layers/cropping/moving/cloning etc.

·      Start with basic adjustments, then go through tools palette

·      Different uses for Photoshop – examples

·      Hwk: continue personal photographic work.

Week 6: Photoshop Continued/Developing Personal Work.

·      Advanced Photoshop tailored to individuals’ ideas

·      Personal tutorials – reflection/development of work

·      Put together portfolios

·      Session is open to student requests. 

The sixth week was purposefully left open-ended so it could be tailored to what the students enjoyed, as it turned out what they wanted from photoshop was done in just one lesson and so I ended up turning the room into a camera obscura with them - a very exciting phenomenon to witness and learn about.

I repeated this programme a couple of times with different groups of students, and it felt to me that there was a definite improvement each time - I was more confident, the students were more engaged, most likely because I was delivering the lessons in a more succinct manner and getting them involved earlier on. This taught me of not only the short attention span of school pupils, but the importance of considering how an educator delivers their point. The same learning outcomes can be achieved by varying methods, and finding a method that encourages motivation seems to be key.

Although it was quite time consuming, I did enjoy the preparation work that went into this course. Having free reign over how and what information I would deliver was quite enlightening, I was able to gain inspiration for this from other educators, and from how I had been educated. The experience of having sole charge over the organisation and delivery of a course is one I am very glad to have acquired, as I imagine the prospect of taking on a similar task at a higher education level could be quite challenging.

Here are a few shots of some of the class experimenting with studio lights, and making the room obscura: