This week, the students were introduced to a few of the best known portrait photographers known within the medium. They received background knowledge on an artist, looked at work from the photographer, and engaged in a discussion on the craft. The students had the opportunity to work as both photographer and model in which they practiced working together in partners to emulate the unique photographer's style. They used their background knowledge of techniques learned from previous classes to frame their subject and enhance their images and incorporated them into their photo "shoot" while simultaneously taking on the focus of a well known photographer for inspiration in portrait photography.
The Kinders and First Graders learned about Annie Leibovitz and her ability to capture one's character through their expression and mood. They loved this lesson since it involved monster mouths (kid adapted of course) and once they found out that she photographed for Disney, they were all ears!
The task was that they were given the mouth and they needed to match the expression in their eyes to the mouth. The photographer would choose the mouth and have the model express the mood. For example, if given a scary looking mouth, the photographer would ask, "Give me scary eyes! Open them wide!" They had a blast!
The Kinders and First Graders learned about Annie Leibovitz and her ability to capture one's character through their expression and mood. They loved this lesson since it involved monster mouths (kid adapted of course) and once they found out that she photographed for Disney, they were all ears!
The task was that they were given the mouth and they needed to match the expression in their eyes to the mouth. The photographer would choose the mouth and have the model express the mood. For example, if given a scary looking mouth, the photographer would ask, "Give me scary eyes! Open them wide!" They had a blast!
First graders also did an art activity where they colored and cut expressions and glued them on a face template. They practiced arranging the pieces of the face, i.e. eyes and mouth, to make different expressions and see how the face changes. They discussed with each other the mood of their face based off expression they created. (See more pics on twitter: @photorobos or @huskylens
2nd-4th Graders were introduced to the amazing Irving Penn, an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. They practiced his simplistic style of black and white photography on a black and white backdrop with a variety of hand poses.
They worked on a partnership between the role of the photographer and the model and rotated back and forth emulating Penn's images as they were presented to them. I had the students stand in two lines facing each other with the photographer on one side and the model on the other. I walked down the isle showing one of Penn's images only to the photographer in which he/she had to communicate to his/her model what to do in order to match the image. The photographer was challenged on matching the pose, articulating his/her words, and making adjustments to the model as necessary.
The students showed productive struggle as they were challenged with articulating the poses to their models on how they wanted their images to look and what adjustments they needed to make in their hands and expressions and also with their own framing composition and focus. I walked behind and critiqued them on their aesthetics and asked questions while reshowing them the image such as, "Is the subject smiling in Penn's image?" and "Can your image be sharper?" The students were also working on prior learned techniques such as composition, exposure, and focus and now they had a chance to work one on one with a real life subject. Even though some parts of this lesson were a challenge for them, I think they had fun working toward achieving the end goal of "getting the shot" and being in the dark as the model not knowing what the pose was and trying to figure it out.
...and for some free choice posing. Only requirement was that there had to be some hand posing involved in some way. The photographer chose how he/she wanted the subject to pose and showed/communicated to the model the correct stance and adjusted accordingly. To see more images, check them out on twitter: @photorobos and/or @huskylens
5th and 6th grade was a little more on the serious side to photography. They were introduced to Steve McCurry, a phenomenal American Photojournalist who has done work for National Geographic and has won countless awards for his photojournalism and coverage of various wars throughout history. They learned about his purpose of telling a telling a story through photography with his travels to make a difference and the power of imagery across cultures. We focused in on his talented ability to capture the essence of one's soul through their eyes in a photograph and the power that eyes have in everyone. In an interview clip, McCurry speaks about the "Eloquence of the Eyes" and how important eye contact is between subject and photographer in portraiture. They were introduced to his most his most recognized portrait, "Afghan Girl, which was taken in a refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan in 1984.
The students were challenged to interact with their subject and capture a moment where they felt they really connected with them. I just kept telling them to focus on the eyes! Before hand, I helped them out a bit and gave them some portrait poses they could try such as the 45 degree angle, leaning against a wall, hiding one eye, filling the frame, and using the rule of thirds. Some of this, we had already covered in previous lessons and other content was new to them that they incorporated into this focus lesson. I will say, the students did a good job at this even though this was probably above some of their maturity level, I'm sure. I know they all were dying to do selfies and this is why I chose to do this particular task with them. It wasn't that they couldn't smile, but by sharing the images from Steve McCurry and taking a more a serious approach and from such an amazing photographer, they were able to see that portraiture has a some serious content to it and is more than just selfies than what they are use to.
Please keep checking out images and posts on twitter:@photorobos and/or @huskylens
More to come from Hedenkamp next week!
More to come from Hedenkamp next week!