Beyond the Basics Photography students learn by doing

The Beyond the Basics Photography class spent the morning learning and doing. The first part of class was spent learning about the composition of a good photo, selective focus, filling the frame, tone and color, and learning camera hardware basics. Then the class headed out to the garden to practice their new concepts.

The students are already working on Reinterpreting Your World, their first photojournalism project. The group was tasked with finding unique ways to express and interpret things like wind, texture, light, and emotion. This afternoon the group is learning about camera functions and manual exposure and will be introduced to their second assignment: Capturing Student and Classroom Life. Tomorrow, the group will download and edit their images, learn how to take a good portrait, and begin their third assignment: The Environmental Portrait.

“Tonight our class will be capturing student and classroom life,” instructor Julie Price said. “I want them to find what’s going on, find the visual things. Photography is all about finding smaller pieces that tell a bigger story.”  Her students are already applying their lessons.

“I have a really nice picture of a boy here in color,” Sidney Sparks of Ithaca High School said. “I would like to keep it in color because I like the contrast of the red in his shirt and the black of his glasses. But if something tragic were to happen to this boy, I would put this photo in black and white.”