Personal Photography Project (PCUBED!)

For *most* of the rest of the quarter, you will be working on a personal photography project around a topic of your choice.  I say *most* because a few days will be spent on other activities such as photographing Pre-K-2nd Grade Grandparents Day and reflecting on choices for your digital portfolios.

Because I want your personal photography projects to be awesomely unique and open-ended, I am not putting too many restrictions on this.  Here are my three non-negotiables:

• You shoot at least 75 pictures (you can shoot at school, home, or anywhere really) and include at least 6 pictures in your final display
• You use photo editing tools (iPhoto, Picnik, Photoshop) to enhance your images
• You put your heart into your project -> We should be able to tell that you care about this 

What can your project be about?  Anything...but it must be organized around a theme that matters or is interesting to you (not just random photos).  You can keep your images separate or combine them in one or more collages.  You can go black and white, sepia, full color, or a combination.  You can add text or not add text.  You can make your photos realistic or fantastical.  You can do all portraits, all landscapes, all still lives, all photojournalism, or a combination.

Here are some ideas for themes that I came up with:

• any of the 6 SPICES (simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, stewardship)
• competition
• confidence
• comfort
• beauty
• attitude
• hello
• goodbye
• music
• dance
• a sport
• creativity/imagination
• childhood
• happiness/joy
• friendship
• love
• knowledge
• challenge
• family
• fashion
• food
• perspective
• faith
• nature
• culture (yours or someone else's)
• loneliness
• fairy tales
• dreams
• adventure
• a day in the life of Upper School
• a body part (eyes? hands?) <- must be appropriate!
• furniture (chairs?  desks?)
• a color (pink?  green?)
• a sound (quiet?  loud?  laughter?)
• home
• tradition
• technology

We will display your photo essays at Elective Night on Friday, November 11th.  You will choose one image (or collage) to be printed 16x20.  You will choose another 5 or more images to be printed 4x6.  Each of you will get about one-third of a bulletin board column in the Auditorium.  We will need to choose the images by November 4th so that I have time to get them printed, on mats, and up on the Auditorium boards.

Today's task:

Brainstorm with a buddy.  Choose your theme.  Write at least one paragraph explaining your theme and why you want to work on it.  Make a list of ideas of shots for the theme.

Simplicity Photo Essays

Today I want you to spent about 25 minutes exploring iPhoto.  

1. Import all of your simplicity photos to iPhoto.  
2. Create an album in iPhoto called Simplicity Photo Essay by ____ (<- put your name there!)
3. Add the selected photos to the album.  
4. Explore the editing tools.  Don't be afraid to try things.  Cropping is an especially effective tool that can dramatically change a photograph.  You can always click "revert to original" if you mess it up too much and want to start over. 
5. To save changes to a photo, press COMMAND and S at the same time.

After 25 minutes, I will instruct you to start posting your photos to this blog.  Give your photo essay a title (it would be great if you could go beyond "My Simplicity Photo Essay" and then upload your chosen photos to the blog post.  You can write captions for you photos but you don't have to.  Make sure to include your first name somewhere in the post.