I already briefly went over my first day of school, but I wanted to talk about the first month or so some of the specific classes that I taught. I already briefly went over my first day of school, but I wanted to come back to it again and discuss some of the specific classes. Looking back on this has really shown me how much I have grown and learned in the past 7 years. It has really been an enlightening experience for me.

With nearly every class I taught, I would play the "what if" game.

As I entered the summer before my first year teaching, I was excited and I thought that I was prepared. My schedule was full; I would be teaching graphic design 1 and 2, digital photography, Art 1, 2, and 3, and yearbook. Writing it all out like that sounds overwhelming, but by the end of the summer, I had done some research and made some plans for the first month or two of class and I felt relatively confident.

I want to back up a little this semester and talk a bit about my first years of teaching to encourage those of you who might be in that situation currently and provide a little nostalgia for my veteran teachers!

It’s ALIVE! So you have taken still life photos, are you ready to delve into photographing something that moves?!

Finding texture in photography adds a certain appeal to your images. Everything you see has a texture, and photographing to capture that texture can make your images much more relatable to the viewer.

Still life photography can sometimes be seen as an ancient, lost art, but you see still life photography everywhere today.

Being as the definition of photography is literally “to draw with light” (in Latin), you better believe that controlling light is really important! There are lots of different directions we could study when talking about light in photography, but for now, we are just going to study one category: natural light.

Emphasizing negative space is an excellent tactic for a photographer. The negative space is the “not stuff” part of your image. It is what allows the viewer to really focus on the subject.

One of the most eye-catching things that you can do with your photography is use leading lines. These lines could look solid (like train tracks) or they could be “psychic”, like a person pointing across the picture at something. Whatever you choose to do, your lines should lead the eye into the picture.

Also known as close-up mode, macro mode is what allows you to get in super close on your images without getting blurry shots.