Season 2 Episode 2, Interview with Danielle Brannon, Photographer

Screen Shot 2019-06-15 at 12.33.56 AM On Season 2 episode 2, I had the opportunity to interview Danielle Brannon, photographer, in the Statesboro area. She is the photographer for the Averitt Art Center in Statesboro, GA, and a freelance photographer. I met Danielle while teaching in Bulloch County. On top of her photography business, she is an art teacher. I got some great tips on the business of photography and how she balances it all. To see more of Danielle’s photography visit her Instragram @danielle.brannon.photography.

Thanks for listening!

Graphic Design wk 8

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Still working on the same project. I’ll be introducing some new photo projects. Taking photos of small people. I bought them originally on Amazon, but they were really small so pay attention to the ratio size. I ended up going to Hobby Lobby so I could see them.

Then they will also work on product photo shoot. Athletic energy drink. I have my photo booth that we will use to set up with props.

Graphic Design wk 7

I’m going to have students watch a video on copyright and fair use. That is a must. Then we will also be doing some bellringers in Photoshop. How to select and replace a color. Then I have students working on a Lacrosse poster. I meant to start last week, but it was an odd week, so we did some green screen photography.

Artivive APP

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I’m super excited to try this with my animation class. I could do this with my graphics/photography class as well. About 4 months ago this app came out called Artivive. I think it takes art into a whole new realm. Animation and video bring a new dimension to the work. The app is available for android or iOS. Free!!! Every art teacher on a budget has got to love it. I’m thinking I’ve taught my animation students how to creating animations in Photoshop and then export as MP4 files. They we print out a frame from the animation then print out the symbol that activates the animation/video when you focus it with the app it plays. Sweet! Their animation will actually play on someone’s phone as long as they have the app. Also with my graphics/photography students we will make cinemagraphs. We print out a frame and then people can actually watch their cinemagraphs. How cool would that be? They are using this in major museums and galleries through out the world. #1 downloaded app in Singapore.

Graphic Design Week 4

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This Friday I went to my first soccer game. Never been before, so much more exciting when you know the players. Some of my students are on the team. I took some video of the game. Plus got some night shots. This shot you see is from practice earlier in the week. They will be using the photos I took to create an advertisement for Adidas. I think they will turn out pretty cool. We start with the mood boards and research on Tuesday. Monday gotta upload photos from the search for objects/shapes that look like letters. Then I think we have to back up files. Monday will be an easier day. The rest of the week learn some new photoshop skills: layer styles, adjustment layers, and color correction.

Graphic Design Week 3

studentexample I had my students this week finish their photoshop merge photos project. It’s really for them to get used to using the tools in Photoshop to take several photos and put them into one picture. I have a youtube playlist that you can follow with. PhotoMerge Youtube. I blurred out the student name they had to add type and use the Text Warp in PS.

The photos I got from Pexels.com
The site is free and you don’t need a login to get high res images. I also spoke with another graphics teacher and he has his students use FreeImages.com

Pexels you have to be careful because there could be certain images you don’t want your students to see. FreeImages images are appropriate, but my students had a hard time and would lose connection to the site.

If you want to use the same images that I used with my students.

Students turned in their work via Microsoft Teams. Found out there is a 50 MB size limit. I had them re-save as a JPG and upload their images. We also started a weekly back up files on their OneDrive. I think there isn’t a file limit since the school signed up for the accounts but we will see. Google Drive for personal use has a 15GB limit if you don’t have it for education.

We learned about Edward Weston Photographer. We took still life photos of fake eggs and silverware. I’m hoping to share some student examples once we color correct them.

Graphic Design/Photo week 1

The Black Square Problem Student Examples.

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I did this lesson with my high school students the first full week of graphic design/photo class. Computers were not all working and needed a lesson that students could do off the computers. I think it got them thinking about composition more. I think they made some better photos because of it.

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We also took photos of a pencil. How can you make a pencil look more interesting. Varying the composition and placement of it. That was towards the end of the week with the black square problem. I used Padlet to post the photos. You get 3 boards for free.

I also do the pencil photos because students are learning how to use Microsoft Teams. We are a Microsoft 365 school. It has similar features as Google for Edu. I’m getting used to it. I got the students to login to the student emails accounts. Create an email signature. Then I showed them how to access the Team I added them to. We don’t have cameras for the students they use their cell phones. They had to download the OneDrive App. Then we would upload their photos to the cloud storage. Then they downloaded them to their desktop. I’m disappointed the Microsoft Teams App doesn’t allow student to just attach the photo to their assignment from the phones. At this time you can do that using a desktop and a tablet. Worked on my iPad but not on their phones. Microsoft please change this! It’s practice. We switched to 365 at the beginning of the year. Most of my students didn’t know they had a student email account. That took a day. My classes are 44 min long. I make them do 2 practice turn in so it helps to cut down on questions.

I have a free downloadable PDF from my TPT store you are welcome to try with this lesson. Students sketch out their ideas for playful, order, bold, and tension.

Link to Black Square Problem PDF

Then I had them measure a 10 x 10 in square. The smaller white squares are 4.5 x 4.5 in squares. Then just cut and glue down to match their best sketches.

You could also consider doing this in Photoshop by opening the PDF file or Adobe Illustrator for a digital version and print out.

I can’t take credit for it I got the idea from a university website. I have no recall what school it was from. If you google search black square problem you will see tons of solutions.