Photography for Cascade Youth

Cascade School District #422

The goal of the project was to fully develop a photography program for Cascade Junior and Senior High School in Cascade. During the project period, a semester-long photography class tailored to our students’ interests was taught by our art teacher. Photography units were also integrated into yearbook and general art classes.

The photography and yearbook classes were for high school students while general art classes were for both middle school and high school students. This particular media was selected based on student enthusiasm for a photography pilot class the year before.

Students became familiar with camera settings, learn about aperture, exposure, and different lenses. Students learned composition, lighting and design skills and developed portfolios demonstrating these skills as well as showcasing their own artistic interests and expression.

We also shared their work via our school newsletter.

The Essential Question that guided our projects’ focus was:

How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective?

This photography class focused on “Creating” Anchor Standard # 2 as students learned photography skills then infused their work with their own creativity, learned how to refine their work and express themselves through their work.

Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and art-making approaches

Through experimentation, practice, and persistence, students demonstrated acquisition of skills and knowledge in photography.

At the conclusion of the project, students responded to questions related to the identified Standards:

How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective?

Group feedback sessions really helped our students learn from each other and support each other in their creative journeys.

Student portfolios clearly showed the growth in their skills as they refined their work, tried new techniques and became more confident in their skills.

Impact

By the end of the project, students felt confident in their skills and were taking on new challenges to express themselves within their work. It was exciting to see the evolution of their work.

Despite using their phones constantly for taking pictures, students expressed how much they liked working with cameras and getting to focus on class-based projects.

Reflection

The hardest part of this project was the fact that the art teacher who started this project tragically passed away before school started.

The new art teacher took on the challenge of filling this role and establishing a program that she was not as familiar with. We were so lucky that Kristina Rowley, the previous art teacher had already developed the curriculum, which made it easy for Rachael Fouts, the new art teacher to follow even though she had less photography experience.

It was important to allow Rachael the time to also make the program her own and have enough prep time to launch the program.