Lesson video

Hello, everybody.

It's so lovely to be here with you all today.

My name is Mrs. Barrasso, and I'm going to be with you for this next unit on photography.

I'm really looking forward to it.

And I hope you are too.

Maybe you already have a load of experience taking photographs or maybe you're quite new to it.

It doesn't matter because photography is actually a skill.

So I'm sure there's something we can all learn as beginners or to up-skill and develop our skillset as photographers.

So let's get started.

So before we start, you're going to need the following things.

You'll need a sketchbook and you will need that every week so we can record all of your wonderful learning in it.

It doesn't matter if it's one from shop or if it's one that you've made yourself with loose pieces of paper, whatever you have is absolutely fine.

You're also going to need a pencil, and of course, as it's a photography unit, you will need a camera or a device that has a camera inside it.

Such as a smartphone or a tablet.

The important thing here though, is to please make sure that you do have permission to use it if it's not yours, as I wouldn't want you to get into any trouble.

Press pause, take a moment to go and collect everything that you need, and come back when you're ready.

See you soon.

So let's just have a little look at what we're going to do today.

We've already introduced ourselves and gotten to know one another a little a bit better.

And then we're going to be doing the drawing warmup.

So we're going to start getting those creative juices flowing first in our lesson.

After that we're going to spend some time observing photographs which is a great art word for looking at and thinking on reflecting on something.

And we're going to finish with a little mini project on investigating spaces.

So you'll be doing that with your cameras.

And finally, we'll come back together to recap on what we have learned.

So, let's just talk about some key words, some key vocabulary that you're going to need in today's lesson.

So the first word is the word 'subject'.

Okay, that doesn't mean like Science or English which is how we might have already seen that word in a different context.

It actually refers to the thing that's being photographed.

So that could be a person.

It could be an animal.

It could be a landscape, could be just an animated object, whatever it is, that's the subject.

We're also going to use the word 'capture', which is to record something in pictures.

We capture it.

And also the word 'angle'.

The angle is the position at which the camera points toward the subject.

So the angle could be above or to the side, or, you know, that's the kind.

Okay, let's start with our warmup.

Here we go.

So, the challenge today is to look in the mirror and to draw your face without taking your line off the page.

Okay, that's your drawing warmup challenge today.

Now, if you're feeling extra, extra and you would like to have a double challenge today there's a double challenge too.

So you might want to try the challenge and then try the double challenge.

The double challenge is to draw your face starting from a different part, okay.

So you might want to start with your eye or your nose, but anyway, have a little have a little play.

Record all of this, draw in your sketchbook, and then come back to me at the end and we'll have a look at what you've done.

Okay.

Good luck.

Enjoy.

How did you find that? Was it a bit difficult? Wasn't it? I don't know about you, but I found it.

I kept forgetting.

I had to keep my pen on the page and I kept wanting to take it off.

So that was a little bit of a challenge.

Do you look a bit, a bit funny and a bit weird like I do? I don't mind admitting that my top left one was the first one I did and it's my I much preferred it when I drew from one part of the face so when I started with an eye or a nose first.

I felt that it actually helped me turn the face and it made it look a bit more real when I tried to do it the first time , I just looked straight on and I think it didn't look as, I don't think, I don't think it looks as good, but have a look at your work and have a little think, which one is your favourite? And why.

And did you have any challenges, any the other challenges drawing like this? So maybe take a moment now just to record some ideas in your sketch book.

This is my sketchbook page.

I've also given it a title which I've called single line faces.

And you can see I've just popped a little note in about my favourite and I've also labelled what I did with each one.

So, the first one was face first.

Then I drew the eye first, then I drew the nose first.

So I've just given them a label.

So I can respond to what I've done.

So if you want to do that now, I would do that.

So just like you have used your pencil to create an image, so too do photographers use their camera to capture an image.

And that could be anything that interests them that inspires them, that captures their creativity and imagination.

Could be people, landscapes, architecture.

There's endless possibilities.

And that's what's so exciting about this unit that we're working on at the moment.

So we're going to take a little bit of time now just to talk about cameras themselves.

Just so we've got a little bit of knowledge about what this tool is, this piece of technology in our hands.

So, cameras have three things.

They all have a lens.

Now I've got two cameras here.

The first one is a Polaroid that I've got.

And the second one is a smartphone, okay.

And both of these have a lens.

Now, on my further right, my lens is here on the front and it's a curved a little piece of glass on the inside.

Okay.

And now lens has a really special job.

Its job is to pull in all the light around it and then direct it towards whatever you're taking a picture of, the subject.

And if you look carefully on your smartphone, on the back, if you look inside, you'll be able to see the lens.

The careful a piece of glass.

That's an incredible piece of technology, an amazing important piece of technology, And it could look very, very small or it might look pretty big, okay.

But as long as it's got one, you're good to go for today.

The second thing they have is a flash.

Now a flash, the job of a flash is almost a little bit similar but also different to the lens.

If the room is too dark or the space where you're taking the photograph is too dark, it creates a light to brighten up the space just for a moment.

So you can capture a beautiful image.

Now, on my Polaroid, I've got this huge light here.

That's my flash.

And on my smartphone, my flash is actually just below, it's here.

And it's the same button I use when I'm using my torch.

That's what lights up.

So it just creates a moment to brighten the room, okay.

So we've got a lens that draws all the light in and directs it towards what we're taking a picture of.

And we've got a flash which just illuminates the room for a moment so we can capture a great picture of it's too dark.

And we've also got a view finder.

So again, on my Polaroid I have to look through, that's my view finder.

It's actually tiny.

Okay.

So you might have one of those today.

On my smartphone, my view finder is actually the entire screen.

So it could be a huge thing or it could be a tiny thing.

So you'll have to work with what you've got today but if you've got all of those three things, you're good to go for this entire unit.

One last thing that you might want to be aware of is most cameras also have a zooming mechanism.

So work out on your camera, what you might need to do to zoom.

On my smartphone, I've got a button that I can slide and I can zoom in and out.

On my Polaroid I can't zoom, but you might have another camera where you have either have buttons at the back or you might be able to zoom on the front.

Okay.

So let's just recap.

Which part of the camera illuminates the scene? Is it the lens or is it the flash? Have a little think now.

The lens or the flash? The flash is the correct answer.

I hope you got that.

I'm sure most of you did.

The flash.

The job of the flash, remember, is to brighten up, to illuminate the scene around us.

The job of the lens is to draw in any light that's around and direct it towards what we're taking a picture of.

So let's move on to the next part of our lesson which is on observing photographs.

I'm going to show you a photograph.

Well, two photographs actually, of the same subject but it's being captured in different ways.

So when you see the image take a moment just to have a look at it, to soak it all in and then we'll have a little talk through it.

So there we have it.

The same subject, so to speak, a bookshelf, or maybe it's a library.

But I wonder if you have any questions or any thoughts about these two different images of the same subject.

If you want to press pause now and record some ideas in this sketchbook, maybe questions or comments, please do and then come back to us.

Otherwise, I'm going to start to ask some questions myself to hopefully make us think.

So, maybe there's some questions you've heard the same as what you've got.

Maybe they're different ones.

So my first question is, what do these bookshelves say about the person who owns them? What type of person would want to read a book from each of these bookshelves? Which of these bookshelves would you rather choose a book from? Which one is the cosiest? Looking at the bookshelf in your room, which one looks most like the one in your bedroom? Are you the kind of crazy, chaotic, kind of scattered, cosy, everything's shoved in bookshelf or do you have everything organised and do you know where everything is? What different types of books do you think you might find on these two different bookshelves? I think I'll stop there with those questions but maybe you have some of your own.

If you want to take a moment now and record some ideas in your sketchbook, please do.

You might want to answer some of those questions and you might want to say this one looks just like mine or you might want to say, "I could imagine what type of book "I would find on that bookshelf "or what librarian or owner am I look after it." So if you want to do that, please do now and then come back to us.

Let's move on to the final part of our lesson, investigating spaces.

So I have a question.

My question is, what does a photograph of somebody's space say about someone? What does a photograph of someone's space say about someone? So I want to show you a photograph and then I thought we would observe it and analyse it a little bit and see what it might say about someone.

So, here's a picture, an image, photograph, of some Wellies.

What does this photograph tell you about the owners of the Wellies? If you want to press pause and just take a good moment to look, please do.

And then come back and we can talk all together.

Okay.

So, looking at these Wellies, well, what does it say about the owners? Well, I imagine that there's two owners because there's two pairs of Wellies and the one Wellies at the front, that black Wellies, they're kind of muddy.

So, I'm actually, I think there's a little bit of mud on the green Wellies too.

So it tells me that maybe these people live in the countryside or the park, gardens or fields.

I think it's interesting that the two Wellies are kind of stored differently, aren't they? The green Welles are stood upright and together in the corner.

And the black Wellies, maybe they've been kind of just either fallen off the roll or tossed into this room.

There are a lot dirtier, aren't they? Than the green Wellies.

So, I wonder if the black Wellie person either uses their Wellies a lot more often or maybe they don't clean them.

I don't know, either of those things.

And they've got fluffy socks at the top of there so maybe they have cold feet.

So yeah, that's what this one image of two Wellies, two pairs of Wellies, tells us about someone.

We can already gather so much information, can't we? And I don't mind admitting to you that this is actually my photograph and these are actually my Wellies.

And my wellies are the black ones and the other day and I came into my house and I looked at the state of our Wellies.

The green ones are my husband's and the black ones are mine.

And I thought to myself and I was already planning this project.

And I thought, "Oh my goodness, "Those Wellies show so much our personality because my husband puts his Wellies away very carefully every time he uses them.

And he doesn't use them as often as me.

And he always cleans them afterwards and I never clean mine and mine are always muddy and I'm always out and about.

And I just dropped them down and it really did show, I thought, our two personalities in just this one picture.

So I quickly, quickly snapped it, quickly captured it.

And there we have it.

So it comes back to my question, what does a photograph of someone's space say about someone? What does a photograph of someone's space say about someone? Just like that photograph of the Wellies show the type of people that lived in that house.

What does a photograph that you might take today, what would it show about you? So that's our next question.

What does your space say about you? That's going to be your activity today, to go around and photograph things in your space that would show who you are as a person.

That would show your identity, that would show your interests, your hobbies.

That would show the type of people or who lives at your house or how many people or the dynamic of the house.

It might show parts of your cultural heritage, your language, your religion, your traditions.

It could be anything that would show your space and you and the people who live in it.

Okay.

Now, one of the challenges I had is that I see my space every day.

So you're going to have to put on those new eyes today and go around with your camera.

And sometimes it helps to go around and look through your viewfinder and almost see it anew, see it fresh.

And imagine what someone who'd never seen it before might think just to see two pairs of Wellies, one lovely clean one, one standing up.

One dirty, strewn on the floor.

Those two different personalities captured in one image.

I wanted to quickly explain to you a little bit of my process, what I did.

So if you want to follow some of this, you can.

So I found something I wanted to take a picture of.

I found my subjects, which were the Wellies and I took several photographs.

I didn't just take one and I didn't try and get it perfect straight away.

I took several from different angles and I moved around.

And in one of the images, if you look at the top one, I actually got down really low to try and capture it the best that I could.

So, play with that, try from lots of different angles and see which is the one that you like the best.

Until I finally found the one I liked the best, which is the one there, on the right? Then, what I did, I just paid with some simple software on my smartphone.

So in my photos app, I just pressed edit.

And I just had a look to see what there was there.

So the image on the left has been unedited.

The one in the middle, I paid with the adjustments and I just looked at different things.

There were shadows, there was highlights.

There was colour, there was saturation.

And I actually, I just played.

That was the best thing that you can do.

Just have a go and play and you might want to save several versions of images and then compare them at the end to see which one you like the most.

The other thing I did, which is the image on the right there in black and white, is I also played with the filters app on my smartphone.

So you might want to have a little go of that as well.

That was also found in photos.

There was where I could edit and adjust things.

And there was also where I could apply filters.

So having little goals, see what you come up with and enjoy.

Let's just have a quick reminder of the task that you're going to go and do now.

You're going to use your camera to investigate your space.

Capture things in your space that would let other people see the kind of person you or you and your family are.

And then the challenge is there, to edit your favourite images afterwards.

Come back and see us once you've had a go.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Did you produce something beautiful and gorgeous, interesting? That shows off you, your personality who you are in your space? I'm sure you did.

I bet it's gorgeous.

And I'll be having a look at the hashtags as well.

I'm going to share those on the next slide.

So you can share your work with people with everyone else doing this project and I'll be able to see what you've done as well which I'm really looking forward to.

Before you go, let's just quickly recap on what we've done today.

'Cause we've done quite a bit in our introduction to photography lesson.

We have done a beautiful starter where we used a one line to draw a face.

To draw our face.

We have talked about a camera and we've learned some basic components of the camera and they're important function.

We did some analysing, reflecting and observations of photographs and we had some really deep, good questions about them.

We finished up one little mini project on our space.

Which was just fantastic.

Our next lesson is going to be really, really interesting.

So I can't wait to see you there.

It's all about light and we've got lots of fun things in store.

So, lovey, take care of yourself and I will see you soon.

Bye.

If you would like to please ask your parent or carer if you can show your work on Twitter, that way we can all see what you've done.

If not, please, if you can print it off stick it in your sketchbook and keep a little record there of everything you've created with us.