Our Homeschool Photography Class

Project 365 – #151

As most of you know, I am participating in the Mommytography 365 Project this year.  It’s really been a fun, eye-opening experience for me.  Because of this project, Munchkin and I decided that we wanted to learn more about photography this year.

Since I wanted this class to be a homeschool elective for Munchkin, I went to work seeing what resources were readily available for us.  I wanted something that was in depth, but not cumbersome.  We needed to learn about the camera and digital photography, but we weren’t trying to become professional photographers.

It took a little time, but I found some great resources.  We’ve taken a little break from the class while Daddy is home, but we plan on starting back up again this week.  One thing that we’ve definitely learned is the importance of knowing your camera and taking pictures.  We definitely have a lot to learn…

Our Photography Class Resources:

1. Fundamentals of Digital Photography with John Greengo at Creative Live

Fundamentals of Digital Photography is our primary resource for our photography class.  We watch the prerecorded lessons, and then do the assignments.  John uses lots of visuals in his presentations which makes it much easier to understand concepts.  I’ve had several “oh, that’s what that means” moments already.

2. Photography for Kids! by Michael Ebert and Sandra Abend

Photography for Kids! starts off with an introduction to photography.  It goes a little into the history of photography before talking about the basics of pictures and cameras.  From there, the book goes into how to use the camera (setting and features) and how to take better pictures.  The book is filled with beautiful examples and pictures.  The pictures help spark the imagination on what to photograph.  The book is packed with ideas and actively encourages the reader to get out there and try taking pictures of a variety of subjects.  Everything is written in a way that allows kids to understand the concepts.  The larger font allows for easier reading.  The book concludes with glossary of terms.

This book is a great addition to our class.  I plan on creating some photography assignments for Munchkin based upon the suggestions in Photography for Kids!.

3. Capture by Rand * Broughton * Quintenz-Fiedler

I think of Capture like a digital photography textbook as well as an idea book for pictures.  The full color (or black and white pictures) give nice examples of creative pictures, and they help explain the text in some points in the book.  It starts out by explaining the different types of cameras and then goes into specific aspects of cameras (sensors, lenses, exposure).  After the basics are finished, the books dives into more specific digital photography issues such as digital exposure, digital capture workflow (how to process digital pictures), saving captured images, image editing, and photo storage.  The final section of the book is more technical aspects of digital photography including advanced lighting techniques.  The book concludes with a glossary.

Some of the information was definitely over my head at this point in time, but it makes a great text supplement to our online class.  After I get better with my photography skills and really know my camera and understand all the manual settings, some of the things covered will probably make more sense.

4. Digital Photo Magazine

I received a subscription to this magazine when it was offered free online.  There are a massive number of ads, but there are some really good articles as well.  I’m using the information in the magazines selectively as it applies to what we are learning.

Munchkin is still debating if she wants me to make a lapbook or notebooking pages for this class.  So far, I haven’t had her do any written work, but I think I may need to create something to help her remember some of the details.  As you can tell, the class is rather fluid at this point, and we’re working things out as we go.  The goal is learning and understanding which means changing things up as necessary.

If you have any resources that you recommend for a class in digital photography, I’d love to hear about them!

This post is part of the Hip Homeschool Blog Hop!

I received a copy of Photography for Kids! and Capture from the publishers to help facilitate the writing of a frank and honest review. A positive review is not guaranteed, and all opinions are my own.