This past month my fantastic students focused on composition in photography. This was a basic introduction to using an SLR digital camera, importing photos, and correcting/altering photos on Adobe Photoshop. We started out with our cell phones as a warm up, because lets be honest, they really are just small computers with cameras attached. And pretty decent ones.
To keep things simple our class focused on only five, of many, types of composition: Rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, simplicity and point of view. Below you can see our class padlet, which was a collaborative, cloud-based wall that enabled each student to share examples of the five types of compositions. These are photos they took that day during class, and a few vacations photos that they realized fit in a category with one or more of our types of composition.
After experimenting with our cell phones the girls were given an introduction to the Cannon Rebel T3i cameras that they would be using. We looked at the many functions of the camera, and the multiple options for automatic shooting. Since this class is meant to be an introduction only, we did not dive into shutter speed and aperture, however, I did spend a good amount of time explaining the concept. We also looked at the photos of my man, Man Ray, to get excited.
After experimenting with the cameras each student drew a piece of paper out of a bowl, and received their assignment. On each piece of paper I had written one type of composition, and one color. This was the inspiration for their project, and it was also their challenge. This one below was a student’s take on point of view in violet. Can you tell what the rest of them were? Leading Lines in red? Simplicity in blue?
Emma Teaches Art! 
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