Exposure Through Creative Use of Aperture or Shutter Speed

A High School Level Photography Lesson

Project Objective:

Students will learn about the exposure triangle and how to use aperture and shutter speed creatively to make story telling and visually interesting imagery. Students will continue to use the rules of composition, elements and principles, lighting techniques and will have a choice of project topic/subject matter, with the focus on story telling imagery.

Techniques:

Exposure techniques: Aperture/f-stop, depth of field, shutter speed, motion blur, motion capture, ISO, grain/digital noise

Digital Photography composition techniques: Fill the frame, rule of thirds, lead lines, point of view, symmetry/pattern, background

Lighting techniques: Hard/soft lighting, directional lighting, split light, butterfly lighting, short lighting, broad lighting, under light, Rembrandt lighting, back lighting.

Digital Editing techniques: Cropping, brightness/contrast, color adjustments, image resolution, file type

Media:

Digital Camera with manual settings or Cell Phone with aperture adjustment and shutter adjustment apps installed

Adobe Photoshop

Lighting as needed

Drawing Materials / Sketch

Concept or Theme:

Students will explore creation of story telling by practicing techniques with exposure. They will do this through discussion of the exposure triangle, large and small depth of field, motion blur and capture and artistic uses of it in current media, practice recognizing different techniques through the viewing of imagery and finally create a set of at least 20 photographs exploring their chosen subject while using creative photography with aperture or shutter speed adjustments.

Source Material:

Artists to look at:

Alan Shapiro

Ansel Adams

Mitchel Wu

Chris Burkard

Student Examples: