Educator’s Guide: Photography II with Emphasis on Post-Production
This guide will show you how to incorporate Photography: A 21st Century Practice’s innovative content into your introductory photography classroom, from the university level, to high school, and even in community education settings. The focus of this guide is courses like Digital Imaging, Photography II with an Emphasis on Post-Production, Introduction to Photoshop, etc.
You can also learn more about the book’s features and content strategy here and find an educator’s guide focused in Intro/Photography I here.
Guide to using P21 in your digital imaging course:
Chapter 6: Post-Production I and Chapter 7: Post-Production II: Use these chapters as the course’s backbone. If Lightroom was already taught in an introductory course, then you may use Chapter 6’s discussion of the program at your discretion. Use Chapter 7' as a checklist for all technical topics. The chapter’s demos can be used as starting points (practice files are available for download here), extending to demos of your own design (whole semester).
Special note on demo illustrations: these illustrations are complex and a digital version of the book is recommended for you and your students to zoom into details. You can also request a complete set of high-res illustration images for use in your classroom here.
Chapter 1: Devices, Chapter 3: Exposure, and Chapter 5: Light: A course on post-production doesn’t mean that no photos are taken—in fact, it’s best for students to practice their post-production skills on their own images. If students are not proficient with the basics of shooting their own images, this chapter can be either assigned as reading or taught in class meetings (optional).
Chapter 4: Composition: If your course emphasizes creating composite images (images made by putting together more than one image), guidance on composition will become valuable. Often, students learning to make composites either become too engrossed in technical details and neglect composition or go overboard in complexity and forget the power of simplicity. This chapter can be a good resource in keeping them grounded on formal elements, even when working in post-production. Planned for the book’s 2nd edition: a special section on composition for composite images (3 weeks; optional).
Suggested Activity: Spot the Comp:
Using the book’s art photographs, ask students to identify which are composites. You may make this a tournament, giving each correct answer certain points and deducting certain points for each incorrect answer. Winners can be rewarded with bonus points. The activity may be followed by students’ picking an artist who composites to research and report on. Note, artists who composite physically or chemically, as well as digitally, can be all included in the discussion. To composite is not new, it is merely a tradition inherited and elaborated on by Photoshop practitioners. A complete list of artists in the book who composite can be found here.
Chapter 8: Prints: This chapter illustrates the theory behind color spaces and can help guide students through their hands-on printing tasks in the lab (4 weeks).
Chapter 13: Computational Photography: Introduce stitching and HDR, two utilities in Photoshop that can greatly enhance a photographer’s production ability, yet are easy to learn (2 weeks).
Chapter 10: Development and Presentation: If a student-proposed final project is included in your course, use this chapter to guide students through the development cycle of a substantial project (2 weeks).
Chapter 14: Words: If writing an artist statement is required in your course, this chapter can serve as a primer on how artists use words to illuminate their visuals.
Want more ideas for how to use Photography: A 21st Century Practice in your classroom? See our features list and chapter descriptions.