Lesson: Constructed Vision: Constructing Value

Course: Visual Art Photography

Show Me Standards: FA1; FA2
National Standards: VA1; VA2
Teacher: Anna Osborn aosborn@sturgeon.k12.mo.us
Duration: One (1) 90 minutes meeting
Missouri Visual Arts GLE: Strands I:1.c; II:1.F; II.2.c

Lesson Objectives
• TLW correctly operate the basic functions of a digital camera (Function).
• TLW work collaboratively to construct a visual arrangement (Design).
• TLW manipulate a digital camera to create a purposeful, desired outcome (Technique).
• TLW create several images in which various qualities of “value” are demonstrated
(Formal).
• TLW describe various ways that a personal image has been affected by the purposeful
use of “value” (Aesthetics).

About this course.

The intention of Visual Art Photography is to introduce the student to the structure of art through
the medium of digital photography and digital image manipulation. We will explore the visual
design of photography, a process of learning new ways of seeing and creating through intentional
and purposeful arrangement of visual elements. Similar to the way young children experiment
with building
blocks, artists play with the "building blocks" of design, thoughtful arrangements of color, value,
space, texture, line, and shape...and in so doing, learn how to create meaningful images and
visual messages. This course is about design and how its principles and elements affect the way
we make art and look at the world around us. The curriculum is designed to impart a technical,
theoretical, and historical foundation to
the beginning photographic art maker. We make a lot of photographs: the initial curricular
emphasis is on the artist's options, focusing particularly on technique, image creation and
manipulation. The Elements of Art and the Principles of Design provide a sound platform of formal
composition while our assignments are a broad-based approach to meaning-making in art.
Collectively, we look at the work of many photographers. Slide lectures and discussions focus on
both traditional and contemporary aesthetic and social themes and issues surrounding the art of
photography. The primary aim of this course is to inspire student art makers to cultivate a deeper
appreciation and understanding of photography, while building the confidence to make self-
motivated photographic artworks.
Mental Set
This lesson is introduced to learners during the first semester of a one-year photography
foundations course. Consequently, learners have not yet developed a formal aesthetic and are
not yet comfortably literate in the use of digital cameras or the mechanics of Photoshop. A course
Blackboard site is a significant component of learning, sharing, discussion, and image archiving;
learners visit the Visual Art Photography Blackboard site during the first ten minutes of each class
meeting to read course-specific announcements, review that day’s objectives and goals, review
online readings, and to post any requisite written or visual assignments for teacher and/or peer
review.

Sharing the Objective and Purpose

Objectives are written on the white board every day and reviewed for intention and
purpose before studio work or discussion ensues. Objectives are also posted on each
day’s Blackboard page.

Modeling or Demonstration
This is the first studio course lesson assigned to students. During the next several weeks,
a great deal of emphasis is placed on formal and informal modeling, especially with
regard to technique, function, and concept. Demonstration is blended with peer-based
learning; functionally, learners are engaged in PBL activities, constructing knowledge built
upon personal and group strategies acquired from one lesson to the next.

Check for Understanding

Because this lesson is the first time many learners will have used a digital camera to construct
and arrange a photograph in an intentional and purposeful way, it is important to check the
following:
• Do learners have their camera set to the correct picture-taking function? (Should be to camera
mode, automatic)
• Do learners understand how to compensate exposure for darker or lighter values? (+/- settings)
• Are learners using the camera monitor to review images for arrangement and value? (Yes)
• What color palette is the learner utilizing? (Monochromatic color palette)
Learner understanding of the purpose and intention of this assignment must also be
checked:
• Are learners working collaboratively? (Yes)
• Are groups engaged in problem-solving? (Yes)
• Are groups experimenting with multiple visual solutions? (Yes)
• Are paper constructions engineered to be self-supporting? (Yes)
• Are learners using the camera to explore various points-of-view, compositional
arrangements, and changes in value to create personally meaningful images? (Yes - this
is the main point of the exercise!)

Practice
In practice, learners will be engaged in a series of collaborative and individual visual experiments
using a digital camera; a single, simple light source; paper, scissors, glue, and tape.

Creativity Lab Resources

• Student exemplars (on display during entire scope of lesson and following project)
• PowerPoint slide show of student exemplars along with works by practicing
photographers
• Blackboard archive of image exemplars, lessons, printable instructions
• 15 Digital Cameras
• Backdrops
• 15 PC workstations with Photoshop Elements 4.0
• 2 scanners
 • Misc. art materials
• 9 light-weight tripods
• Rechargeable AA batteries and charging stations
• Five sets of artificial lights, umbrellas, and stands
• White construction paper, scissors, glue, magic tape

Student-provided Materials
 Digital Camera (minimum of 5 mega pixels) if want to use their own,
 Camera Card (recommend: minimum of 512 MB),
 CD (for permanent archiving of finished images)

Sequence of Lesson Plan

• Students review Blackboard for daily reading and explanation of objectives.
• Slideshow and discussion of value creates purposeful effect in a photograph.
• Direction of Discussion:
What is “value?”
What do you see?
Photography is like any observational art form: developing an ability to “crop out” and
include only what is important. Photography is also an art form in which you can be
dissatisfied with “only” what is there, that you can, in fact, “construct” an image by adding,
subtracting, moving, manipulating the universe of your image. Artists make many
decisions and choices in their art making: what to leave in or out, point-of-view, the way in
which things are arranged, intentionally symbolism, light, color, value - and especially,
content, meaning and subject matter
• Introduction and demonstration of basic digital camera features (will change, depending upon
model used.)

Review and explain day’s objectives

Demonstrate:
 Care: How to hold and carry the camera
 Power on/off
 Camera/video setting
 Automatic setting
 Monochromatic setting
 Exposure compensation adjustment
 How to use the tripod
 How to record a picture (gently!)
 How to review a recorded photograph

Review lesson and specifications

• Work at a single large table so that group is roughly “circular” in arrangement.
• Distribute paper, scissors, glue, magic tape
• Explain that we are going to “construct” an image while exploring the properties of light
and value. We will do this by first collaborating to build a paper construction. Explain that
collaboration involves brainstorming and problem-solving.
• Instruct: Each person should take a single piece of paper. Using only scissors, each
person should create as many different self-supporting three-dimensional structures as
possible in five minutes.
• Stop activity. Briefly discuss what learners have done to initiate the activity.
• Instruct: Each person should combine their forms into a single self-supporting structure.
They may use as many or as few of the original structures as they deem necessary. The
structure should be engineered and should be visually “interesting.” The activity will last
five minutes.
 • Stop activity. Briefly discuss what it means for something to be visually “interesting.”
• Have each learner stand in front of their work. Have them move to their left, continuing
until teaches tells them to stop (arbitrarily, much like musical chairs.) Each learner should
be in front of someone else’s construction. Explain that the artifacts of art making aren’t
always “precious,” especially when working in a collaboration.
• Instruct: Each learner should manipulate the form in front of them in some way by
removing or adding to it. Each learner may add no more than a single sheet of paper
(which may be in parts or whole.) This activity should take five minutes.
• Stop activity. Divide the class into groups of three. Each learner should take the form in
front of them and gather with their assigned collaborators.
• Instruct: As a group, work together to combine the three forms into a single self-
supporting structure. Discuss how to engineer the structure as well as how to make it
visually “interesting.” The groups may use tape or glue. They may also incorporate an
additional piece of paper if they choose (which may be utilized in pieces or whole.)
Remind the group that “design is the opposite of chance,” that their activities are
intentional and purposeful, yet play and experimentation is always an important part of
discovery. This activity lasts 10 minutes.
• Stop activity. Briefly discuss how the collaboration has gone so far. What is working?
What isn’t? Explain that what began as a single person’s artifact has now become part of
a group vision. Have learners look closely at the properties of each form. Ask them to
describe the light, the shadow, how forms combine. If time permits, ask learners to use
“cropping L’s” or a window mat to frame a particularly interesting close up section.
• Instruct: learners will each use a camera to frame a particularly interesting close up
section of the construction. Each learner should carefully arrange the camera by using
the zoom, by adjusting point-of view, by adjusting the relative values, by changing the
background, by changing the light source (they may use the lighting at this point -
sometimes I use flashlights instead of lights and stands.) This activity lasts 10
minutes. Learners should continue to work in groups to assist each other while making
their individual photographs.
• Stop activity. Briefly discuss how the photographs differed from the paper constructions.
Is the paper construction the same artwork as the photograph ... or a new artwork
entirely? Who is the artist - the group of constructors or the photographer? Why? Or is
the series of photographs one artwork? What do the learners think we should explore
next?
• Explain that this activity was practice for a longer term art making project that will make
use of today’s learned knowledge and concepts but that their success will depend upon
synthesizing these concepts with new ones they will learn during the upcoming studio
sessions.
• Explain that in this upcoming project they will create a self-portrait using only personal
objects.
• Assign: for next class, bring in at least five personal objects that are small enough to be
held in one hand.
• Check for understanding of concepts and techniques.
• Clean up, rearrange tables, put away equipment, and sit.

Closure and Extension

Written/shared reflection, along with group review/display of work is of key importance to learners
as they develop a conceptual understanding of art making processes. Typically, seven or eight
works might be selected as student exemplars, printed to 30 x 36”, mounted for exhibition (this
course rotates new works out on display every ten days), and archived for inclusion in the Fine
Art Department’s permanent collection of student exemplars. One work of each student will be
selected and exhibited in an electronic exhibition. Practically speaking, each lesson has many entry
points yet there are few finite “end” points: learned knowledge is often synthesized by learners to
engage in subsequent visual problem-solving situations. Important note: This lesson is a “lead-in” to a
long term (five class day + out-of-class time) studio project in which learners will use the tools and concepts
from today’s learning to create a metaphorical self-portrait entirely from personal belongings.