Syllabus for Digital Photography Course?
I am planning to teach an introductory and advanced digital photography class in the spring at the High School and Adult levels. Students will have some cameras (both SLR and “point and shoot) as well as PhotoShop CS available to them. Each course will be for 18 weeks with meetings of 110 minutes every other day.
I need a complete syllabus and course of study outline that should include goals, objectives, activities and performance indicators. A recommended text book and reference material would also be helpful.
I have taught photography for 32 years and wrote the curriculum for traditional photography for the state rubric in 1987. I am a firm believer in uniform “standards” so what students are being taught at one school can used by other schools as a guide to the students abilities. I am asking for specific curriculum, not philosophy here as I everyone has their opinion.
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As one who has taught photography on the college level, I would say that if you don’t already have a syllabus in your mind from an educational and experiential standpoint, you don’t need to be teaching the course.
I would suggest that you get them all started with manual 35mm SLR cameras (which are very cheap). They don’t need a bunch of lenses, just the basic one that they might have. Teach them that and send them out to discover on their own how things work. The main aspect of photography, however, is not camera operation, but composition. You can put the best camera made in the hand of a person without any knowledge of composition and he will amount to nothing. 99% of photography is between the ears - how you visualize things and what you do to make that visualization come true on the finished product. If you are teaching snap shots, how to take pictures at family reunions and on church camp trips, that is easy. To make an artist of someone is quite a different thing.
There has to be a Dummies book out there somewhere.
im sorry i never used cs…i went straight to cs2, so i do not know the difference in programs, as in what cs2 has that cs does not. keep that in mind as i answer this question.
the thing i love about the 1st computer photo class i took was learning the variety of things it can do.
like making a panoramic by slapping several images together. i still love making hdr images (and i can do this with film). layers are so important to learn about. i think i would have been lost if i didnt know i could create a new layer for levels, color balance, ect, without destroying the image.
i hope some of that helped.
Wow, you’re asking for a lot there. This will involve you taking on the burden of research and analysis.
I was able to track down the links to a syllabus page from my college (SAC). It’s going to take you hours and hours to research it and compile your own, but the following link should prove extremely helpful to you.
http://www.accd.edu/sac/j-p/mainsyllabipage.html
I’ve taken many photography and photojournalism courses at San Antonio College, and found them all to be very helpful.
Good luck.
20+years as pro shooter.
http://lamplightphoto.com