Photography at Home

Here are three photography projects you can try at home.

 


You can download it from My Box net

As a PDF or a Word document

 Thank you to JayBird Illustration  who wrote the Word document. I have adapted it slightly 

You can find Jay Bird Illustration at  https://www.jaybirdillustration.com or follow on Instagram

Photography

A symbol resource to use in photography lessons

 

Andy Warhol Photography project

Paint.net is free to download  and is a useful free tool for photo editing.

We will be using it to do some self portraits Andy Warhol style in photography The instructions are below.
I found the written step by step instructions easier to follow than the video

http://oakdome.com/k5/lesson-plans/photo-editing/andy-warhol-pop-art-simple.php

Light painting

This week we have been taking photographs in the dark.
We had to use a couple of SLR cameras and tripods for these.The students worked in small groups creating images with lights and torches and some  props from Halloween.

 

Photography: Circles

Our second project this term has been Circles

I based it on an image found  on The Crafty Crow

We also used Paint.net to arrange the images . It is not as flexible as Photoshop but did allow us to add images in new layers.Once in they were difficult to move around and could only be moved by highlighting the images with the selecting tool.

We were very pleased with the results!

Snap! Mencap Photography competition

Mencap run a photography competition every year . The theme is My World
The closing date is 30th June 2011.

Mencap Snap! at Gunwarf Portsmouth

The Mencap Snap! Photography exhibition is currently on display at Gunwarf Quays,Portsmouth until the 17th November.
Also see blog entry: Snap Winners

Animation

I've watched a few animated Plasticine films and wanted to have a go with my group.
The only problem was that our fine motor skills were not up to scratch for making intricate models.
Plasticine is very hard to start with but if you hold it in a warm hand it soon becomes soft and pliable.
Softening the plasticine became an important job proudly owned by members of the group.
We were all very pleased with our plasticine film and you can watch the film below

Snap! Winners

Mencap Snap! 2010 competition has now finished and the winner announced. You can see the winning photos at The Guardian

Mencap are also taking the photos on tour so you can see them for yourself at the following locations:

London
Belfast
Newcastle
Portsmouth
Bedford
Liverpool
Birmingham

The film is complete!

I 've had a bit of trouble . My computer now uses Windows 7 and when I went to use Windows Movie maker it had gone. A google "whats happened to Movie maker?" revealed that I had to download it -which I did

Unfortunately its changed a bit. I couldn't get the frame speed to go under 1 second ! It took me several tries over a few weeks and another google "whats happened to Movie maker?" before I found out that to select the stop motion animation speed of 0.125 seconds per frame I had to type it in...problem solved and the film could be finished.
So below is our stop motion animation film : The Fisherman's tale

See my other blog entries on stop motion animation

Photograpy competition for people with a learning disability.

Image : Imagine symbols

Mencap has launched its film and photography competition SNAP ! The theme this year is what you do to be active: for example

- doing sports
- going for walks
- going to the park
- going swimming
- playing computer games

The competition is open to people with a learning disability and others but the photograph must be something to do with learning disability. Each photo or film should also have a story with it about why it was made .(about 100 words)

There is an easy read guide to finding the correct settings on the camera (fine)

Help with taking a good photograph /film can also be found at Oska Bright. The guidance is about making a film but I found it very useful for taking photos as well.

Making a film

We have started a new stop motion animation film . Our first job was to develop a story line. This needed some skill development so I started the process by using individual cartoon pictures from Comix Strips


There is an online Comic strip maker but I printed off individual pictures from the printables section (staff scribed for the students) -They just had to come up with the ideas.







Our next step was to create our own comic strip.This would help the students understand the importance of a story.
Under the 'direction' of a Learning Assistant the students created a story in 5 simple photographs e.g students want to play some music, they all have different ideas- when the music comes on its too loud- It gets turned down and everyone is happy.... We then made a PowerPoint- (we collaborated by viewing the Power Point on a large screen) and added dialogue. We were all very pleased with the result. This week we started on creating a story board for our film.



I followed the hints given on Making Stop Motion Movies. The Story board section suggested a structure which begins with the elements of the story followed by character development and finally creating the story board.
To finish we watched a 10 minute film suggested by Making Stop Motion Movies
Frog and Toad Behind the scenes
Also see my other blog entries on animation.

Film making

As reported in a previous blog we are making films. My Monday group have just finished a stop motion movie using plasticine. Here is a good guide to making a stop motion movie.





The Oska Bright site

has some guidelines on making films suitable for sharing with adults with a learning disability



And an example of a film made using plasticine models here


The only thing I need to know now is how to add music to a stop motion film. When I drag it to the storyboard it plays at extra fast speed!

Cameras and Flip Cams.

We have had some fun filming and taking pictures .
We have used a variety of improvised devices to secure cameras to wheel chairs.

But what I would like to do next is to make them switch enabled-something like the ones featured on RJ Cooper
or in Mat's Blog-

Animation

I am teaching photography and film at the moment to my students with learning disabilities.
We are exploring animation at the moment and we have made our first short films involving fish in fish bowls. We used Windows MovieMaker and a digital camera. It wasn't perfect.The tripod kept moving (now rectified with a sturdy tripod) and I could have done with viewing the blog entry:

Learn from and Create Animated Music Videos

from
Nik's Daily English Activities

especially the link to

Tutorial: Create a Stop-Motion Animation Movie using Digital Camera or WebCam

This gives clear directions on the frame speed to set and some tips on mounting the camera.

Ideas for Digital Cameras

Image: Mulberry Symbols

25 ways things to do with a digital images

I like this presentation. It has some very good ideas for ways to use images from a digital camera in the classroom.
Source : Ideas to Inspire

Photo shoot special

Gary Harvey has produced a great set of photographs featuring models with a learning disability
You can find these on Flickr at:

Gary Harvey Viewpoint Shoot 2009

Source: Mencap

Snap! Get involved SOON .

Mencap are running a photography competition. Photographs have to taken by someone with a learning disability or be of someone with a learning disability. See my previous blog entry. The closing date is March 9th.

I came across some good photos on The Big Tree blog showing This is Me,the exhibition of Snap!2008.

Snap! Get involved in this years competition

The photos from Mencap's Snap! 2008 are fantastic and are currently touring the country with visits to Birmingham's Chamberlain Square until the end of February, and then Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens from 1 March to 4 April. If you are not able to go and see them in person they can be viewed on The Guardian and Mencap websites.
Snap! 2009 photographic and short film competition is now open for entries .The photos/film can be the work of a person with a learning disability or be of a person with a learning disability (see the rules section ).The closing date is March 9th 2009.Further details can be found on Mencap website.