One of the things that we look for in a good photo is that we want it to tell a story or convey a feeling. Today I’m challenging you to take some photos that demonstrate a feeling or idea. Your job will be to go and find a place/situation that best demonstrates one of the ideas/feelings below. YOU MAY NOT STAGE THIS – ie you can’t set up your shot, you have to find it AS IT IS in the school. For that reason, you likely will not be able to photograph anyone in this class, so you may have to seek out other people and enter into different spaces (ie you might not find them in the hall.) Wherever you go, make sure that you are not disturbing anyone and that they are ok with you using the photo for this assignment.

For example, if I wanted to demonstrate “stress,” I would try to find a teacher in the school who is planning or marking (believe me, I know all about that stress…) or a student who is studying or someone in the office with a big pile of paperwork on his/her desk, etc. I wouldn’t ask one of my friends to look stressed and take the photo, I would find a situation in the school and take a photo of it as it is.

You will bring your photos back and post them into the class Flickr group. Your classmates and I will then look at your photo and comment on how well you demonstrated the idea/feeling.

NOTE: once again I want you to use your camera set on MANUAL. I want you to think about what settings you’re going to choose for your Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. You may have to play around with those until you get the ideal setting for whatever location/setting you’re taking the photo in. That’s part of your learning. You should probably take the photo with different settings, because sometimes it’s hard to tell from the display on your camera which looks best. Look carefully at the light in the room/setting you choose, and think about whether you want to let lots of light into your camera or not, and whether you want your camera sensor to be super sensitive or not.

Your topics:

Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I encourage you to enjoy the true meaning of the season, so here are some ideas that should represent this time of year:

• faith
• charity
• generosity
• kindness/caring
• joy
• love

If you have another topic suggestion, please run it by me first, but I’m open to your ideas. Just look for a scene that portrays your topic and be prepared to tell us about your shot and how you set your camera.

My example

This needs to be done at school, TODAY.