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Designing a Course..need direction.


lucid image

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I hope I am posting this question in the most appropriate forum, but if

not, I would appreciate if the administrators put it in a more logical

position.

My question is in regards to the creation of my own photo workshop. I did

one last year which was strictly in-class and more education, with no 'hands-

on' instruction. I covered the basics of the digital world, from the basics of

the camera (week 1), through composition (week 2), very basic CS2 and elements

instruction (week 3), and output options (week 4). This time I would like to

be more intensive, with hands-on 'homework assignments' and a field trip, in

addition to the in-classroom instruction. My skeleton outline goes as follows:

 

Week 1: Understanding Manual Functions

Week 2: Composition

Week 3: Lighting

Week 4: ??/Field Trip

Week 5: In Class Review/Critical Viewing of Field Trip Pictures

 

My concerns are that a) I don't have a topic for week 4 and b) I don't know

if I feel completely confident about the outline. It needs something, maybe a

focus point, like 'Travel', or 'Photographing Your Family', I just don't know

what it needs, and I am really struggling. Since there are both students, and

educators on this board, I am confident I can get the direction I need. If

educators have suggestions on course outlines/topics I should address, or if

students can suggest topics they would really like to learn, I would be most

appreciative. Thanks so much for ANY help:-)

 

Sean

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I'm not sure who your class is geared for, but I'd consider a "Survey of photographic methods" which might include film, digital, medium and large format, and even Holgas or pinhole cameras, but perhaps in a way that highlights the creative aspects of each, and underscores that the camera is a tool for their vision. A little darkroom work wouldn't hurt either. Or even some Photoshop.
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Thanks! BTW, my course market has been, in the past beginner to intermediate photographers (1/3 of the class being REALLY beginners, but I would like to try to target this course to more serious-at least advanced beginners. I live in a small community, so being a little too exclusive in topic may not be fruitful to the numbers:-)
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I was a Creative Arts and Technologies student. CAAT

 

My campus has 2 photography classes.

 

B/W and digi. I didnt take the digital class but I did take all these other classes that photo students have to take.

 

The B/W is for learning the camera and darkroom, the digital is more alike an introduction to PhotoShop. The same instructor taught both.

 

Then then software gets a little more advanced Publication and Design Photoshop, illustrator, Indesign. It mostly is a class on design and sending the work to a pro-print shop. The photo students didnt need this class.

 

Then Computer graphicsI with a whole semester of PhotoShop, Illustrator. Photo students had this class.

 

This might sound funny. Video and editing. Yes the photo students had to take this class. It was learning the same stuff over like in photography but in motion. White balance, rule of 1/3 ect....

 

--------------

 

I think adding InDesign, and Illustrator classes would be good because I found myself taking pics for a lot for InDesign and drawing a lot of vectors for using in PhotoShop.

 

What I have heard from most of the photo students that I know is when they are looking for a job. In interviews the lack of web design skills and sometimes using InDesign.

 

One of my photo friends ended coming back for taking web design classes and ended up taking the rest of the classes that I did for a CAAT.

 

Now the student dean decided the photo students need web design and its required.

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>>> My concerns are that a) I don't have a topic for week 4 and b) I don't know if I feel completely confident about the outline. It needs something, maybe a focus point [. . . ] I would like to try to target this course to more serious-at least advanced beginners. <<<

 

If you are want to create an `hands on course` with some real guts, then you need to restructure the headings:

 

1. Understanding Manual Functions = Using the `M` Mode to Capture great Available Light Images.

 

Which sounds more interesting and `hands on`?

 

That then might become your `theme` for that week.

 

OK so you still ensure the students understand: Aperture; Shutter Speed; and ISO; and how they all interrelate: but you relate that in a studio set up with a big window and a couple of reflectors and a model: and get them to take PICTURES.

 

The most important issue with any `intensive` course is to harness the focus (pun intended) of the students from the beginning.

 

In the first instance the Course Titles must be enthusiastic and stimulating and in the second instance the students must begin taking pictures as soon as possible: especially if it is to show the relationship of the theory or camera functions being taught.

 

(i.e. `OK we shot the model with our aperture at F4: now take the same shot at F8 and look at it: it is darker, why? . . .) etc.

 

As you premise the course on available light in the first week, then you could move anywhere in the next week: you might have the link as DoF from week one to week two and get outside and look at groups and or single portraits on a rural setting.

 

Week 2 might include the word `composition` in the title, but think of something more stimulating than: `Week 2 COMPOSITION`.

 

Do NOT make your course read like the contents page of a text book.

 

I do not see the `need` for a `field trip`: each week should be a gigantic field experience, but you need to move no more than 10 feet to create it.

 

The evolution of digital capture and the fact that it is so cheap for the masses, and so easy and quick for image review, has redefined the Teaching of Photography and opened the door for educators to provide a multifacetted teaching approach where several methods of instruction can be projected simultaneously and are easily tolerated, even by the slowest of students: they simply block out the instructor`s voice; or the diagram in the overhead projector; or the lecture notes; if their fingers playing on the dial of the camera and their LCD is teaching them more quickly.

 

WW

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