Title: Insta-Tales. Curriculum Areas Art and Photography Technology/ 21 st century skills

Transcription

1 Sarah Pagona- Title: Insta-Tales Curriculum Areas Art and Photography Technology/ 21 st century skills Introduction Have you ever wanted to integrate social media into your classroom? Want to introduce photography but don t have the resources? In this session, participants will create open-ended narrative photographs on smart phones and use Instagram as an educational platform to create and critique. Appropriate for all levels and budgets! Lesson extensions will be discussed. Objectives Integrate social media and 21 st century learning skills into classroom Become acquainted with the process of creating photographs Understand and analyze underlying narrative structures of photography Related Artwork Telling Tales PPt Materials (supplies) Smart phones or tablets Instagram App Discussion Why use social media? Discussion of 21 st century learning skills, active engagement through technology, technology as a tool for collaboration and communication, relevance to students lives, easy sharing platform, easy assessment What makes photography such an effective medium for conveying meaning? All photography is inherently narrative, but not explicitly so. Universal nature of images; image worth a thousand words. Western culture is socialized to read photographs from a very early age. How is meaning derived through storytelling? All narratives are based on events that are connected. The creator of the narrative choses which events to include or exclude to create meaning. Using symbols and archetypes images can tell universal stories of our connected existence. Look at photographs Studio Procedures Break down of narrative structure of photographs, looking at photographs critically. Look at the photograph by Anna Gaskell Untitled #3 (Turns Gravity). What is the story we see? What makes you derive this story? Gesture, emotion, connections, empathy, the connection to landscape/landscape as a metaphor, color theory and emotion with cool colors. Other images

2 to consider: Julie Blackmon, Book Club. Anna Gaskell Untitled #101 (A short Happenstance). Erwin Olaf, The Dancing School. Teach how to use Instagram effectively. Choosing the filter that fits the mood of the photo and why. Composing in a square. Creating a singular hashtag to connect images online. Check out my student s photos #rattlertales. Check out this session s photos #mcnaytales. In pairs or teams, create narrative photographs. Use two main strategies: strong emotion, and creating a connection between a person and a person and/or a person and an object. Share photographs with class members using social media app, Instagram. Critique together! What is the photographer s intent? Can you imagine the story? Was it successful? What could the artist do to be clearer? Sources Worth Consulting Photographers on Photography by Nathan Lyons McNay Telling Tales Exhibition Catalog Looking at Photographs Technology Notes Blog resources Try wordpress or edublogs. They are pretty user-friendly. I have both so you can see how they work

3 Telling tales Insta-Tales Sarah Pagona, Chair, Fine Arts Department Ronald Reagan High School 1

4 A narrative is an account of connected events. Narratives construct the events they connect. Narratives are open to interpretation. Narratives are related to the idea of context. Choosing what to include an what to leave out. Inclusion/ exclusion is what construction is about, but making good choices in this regard requires understanding of context. Narratives have beginning, middle, end. 2

5 Ask yourself: What story do I want to tell? What is the issue? What are the events/ moments? Whoa re the characters? What is the context? Two tips for constructing strong narratives 1. Add Conflicting Emotions Strong emotional feelings within a photograph are powerful, as they re very good at communicating what you want your photograph to say. There is no better way to relate to people than through emotion. 3

6 2. Build Relationships between the Content When subjects within an image portray a relationship with one another, they create a story. This can but doesn t have to be between people. 4

7 Anna Gaskell, Untitled #3 (Turns Gravity),

8 Anna Gaskell, Untitled #101 (A Short Story of Happenstance),

9 7

10 Julie Blackmon, Book Club,

11 Erwin Olaf, The Dancing School,

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13 References: Campbell, David. Photography and Narrative. Retrieved Sept from Bradley, Robert. 6 Easy Ways to Give your Photographs a Compelling Narrative. Retrieved from photodoto.com/6-easy-ways-to-give-your-photographs-acompelling-narrative. 11