Photography A level teachers

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Hi guys

I've been a teacher for four years. My school would like me to start teaching photography A level and I'd like to try it. Nine students have signed up and it will start in September if I decide to stay here.

We're going to study the AQA course and I've been looking at the website to find out about setting a scheme of work.

I wondered if there were any photography teachers here who might be able to help with an initial SOW (ideally you'll teach AQA too) and perhaps we could link up in the future to share projects and help each other out.

We teach 9 lessons over a fortnight so I'll be looking at setting up an AS course first of all to take up all three terms and the exam prep.

Many thanks, looking forward to hearing from anyone who might be able to help

Chris
 
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Not a teacher, but I did write a review of taking an A Level (AQA) in photography at my local college here.

It seems to be a little different from the link in post #2, so I'm guessing every college/school does things a differently. Also, my thoughts were all in relation to taking the course as an evening class rather than full time.
 
Hello

Teacher of A Level and GCSE Photography here, although I teach the EDEXCEL course as opposed to AQA.

The forum is probably not the place to get into a discussion about SOW etc but I can ask my Head if I could come out and visit for a day. My timetable becomes quite light once the GCSE, AS and A2 students leave, so a visit is quite possible after half term.

Would that be of any help to you?

Cheers

Spooks
 
A PLEA

Can yu please try and turn out students who can actually take a photograph. I wanted to employ a photographer, not for one job, as a full time job to run the studio and do some location shoots - I had THREE BA graduates come for interview, show me their portfolio (very impressive, all three) and then I gave each a job to actually go and do. It was simple editorial stuff - WHY COULD'T ANY OF THEM TAKE A SINGLE FRAME IN FOCUS? I have no idea how those pictures in their portfolios were made, but given the job under pressure they couldn't do a simple job - absolutely useless the lot of them. One, a girl (no problem with that and she was the most promising of the lot) I sent to do the NEC Bike Show on press day....she came back from all day at the show with all the razamataz, lit bikes and models tospice things up.......I thik there were a handful of usable pictures. It was so bad I had ot go the following day as a salvage operation - no models, no fancy lighting on the new bikes being unvelied, and fighting with punters to try and see the bikes.....but I scraped by.

So please, by all means coach them to use their imagination, but teach them to get the safe shot first!
 
Yes, I've heard how useless they can be. A friend asked a few A levellers to come to this company to take some pictures for their website and NOBODY BROUGHT A CAMERA.

I've made up my mind, now. I'm actually leaving teaching this summer.
 
Lensflare said:
A PLEA

Can yu please try and turn out students who can actually take a photograph.......I have no idea how those pictures in their portfolios were made, but given the job under pressure they couldn't do a simple job - absolutely useless the lot of them.
Click to expand...

You may need to understand what they are looking to acheive during their higher education and what they have studied and practised during that time.
You can see they can take good photographs within the limits of their learning.

It would appear the sort of stuff you are after is not something they have done and they are looking to get experience in the real world?
 
Lensflare said:
A PLEA

Can yu please try and turn out students who can actually take a photograph. I wanted to employ a photographer, not for one job, as a full time job to run the studio and do some location shoots - I had THREE BA graduates come for interview, show me their portfolio (very impressive, all three) and then I gave each a job to actually go and do. It was simple editorial stuff - WHY COULD'T ANY OF THEM TAKE A SINGLE FRAME IN FOCUS? I have no idea how those pictures in their portfolios were made, but given the job under pressure they couldn't do a simple job - absolutely useless the lot of them. One, a girl (no problem with that and she was the most promising of the lot) I sent to do the NEC Bike Show on press day....she came back from all day at the show with all the razamataz, lit bikes and models tospice things up.......I thik there were a handful of usable pictures. It was so bad I had ot go the following day as a salvage operation - no models, no fancy lighting on the new bikes being unvelied, and fighting with punters to try and see the bikes.....but I scraped by.

So please, by all means coach them to use their imagination, but teach them to get the safe shot first!
Click to expand...

I was talking to a friend of my daughters who is in the last year of a photography degree. Apparently they have been told to use Jpeg not bother with RAW. Totally contrary to my understanding of how pro's operate.
 
BBR said:
I was talking to a friend of my daughters who is in the last year of a photography degree. Apparently they have been told to use Jpeg not bother with RAW. Totally contrary to my understanding of how pro's operate.
Click to expand...

It all depends on what they are doing..... sports shooter shoot jpeg for speed of transfer to their paper/editor .....

Studio shots can be shot in Jpeg if the settings are correct........

Most computers/mac/tablets etc will read jpegs with everyday software.......

There are a few reasons as to why they may be asked to shoot jpeg so best not generalise that it is for all subjects that they need to shoot raw.
 
BBR said:
I was talking to a friend of my daughters who is in the last year of a photography degree. Apparently they have been told to use Jpeg not bother with RAW. Totally contrary to my understanding of how pro's operate.
Click to expand...


It would be interesting to know what uni that is :)

As Tom said though.... was that general advice across the board, or for a specific task or brief? Nothing wrong with shooting JPEG for certain jobs.
 
I cant give you any advice from a teachers point of view but i do have some from being a student (although i did end up having to eplain a fair bit to people :p ). As one of the few people in my class who had had much photography experience at all it was quite painful watching teachers explaining thing badly and sometimes just wrongly (in fairness they were all primarily art teachers). But more than that it was the lack of teaching about photography, in the course i did most of the marks were really gained through photoshop work (development and artist reference + our final pieces), so that was what we did alot of, photoshop is such a hard thing to teach though and really requires alot of playing around with things. Problem was people didn't have great photos to begin with and were really limited by that.

My advice would be really spend the first month or so getting people to think hard about there composition lighting and general camera skills, then do the overview of how to process both subtle improving like contrast colour and other simple adjustments (techniques witch i know my teachers really missed) and the more extreme art styles that will be needed.

Id suggest you make yourself as good with photoshop as you can be and good at thinking through how to do new techniques. And drill in those assessment objectives, if people know how there graded it'll be alot easier for them to get marks.

Jack :thumbs:
 
Thanks Jack

Yep I know the feeling - the management here spring to mind - it's especially hard to swallow when they tell you how to teach YOUR lessons straight afterwards, too.

Luckily I'm a huge technical geek and would definitely spend the large part of the course looking at technique and theory. As a 'taster' session we printed out some contact sheets of various pics and asked the students to allocate words to each picture, it was really good and got them thinking about things differently.

I may do some part time teaching now but I've handed my notice in from my current position (head of geography) - we'll see what happens next year. This thread will still develop some interesting ideas and thoughts, though.

Cheers
ped
 
Sounds like i should have been at your school for doing it :) I guess i should have realised i was going to find it somewhat boring because i was probably going to be on of the better students, having taken an interest on my own for a year or too before. But when you know considerably more than some of your teachers, and many student picking it a abit of a dos lesson (which in comparison to my other subject is defiantly was, not that im complaining :D ) its just a bit hard to keep motivated. Then again it did push my creativity abit at the time. Kind of feels like it did alot to hurt my enthusiasm though as ive still being having that feeling that picking up my camera is a bit of a choir even though i love it when i do :(

I did wonder if it was the formal environment and exam style though, i think if it had been done as an after school/lunchtime alot of people would have enjoyed it more. I remember my freind saying he only really took it to learn to take good photos and he still says has no idea what one even looks like :bonk:

Heres the work i did for my AS if your interested:
Patterns project:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jclarke213/sets/72157629990882649/
Graffiti project:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jclarke213/sets/72157629990511765/

One idea id have like to seen done was give everybody the same photo to edit and try and see all the different results that people came up with :)

Jack :thumbs:
 
Lensflare said:
A PLEA

Can yu please try and turn out students who can actually take a photograph. I wanted to employ a photographer, not for one job, as a full time job to run the studio and do some location shoots - I had THREE BA graduates come for interview, show me their portfolio (very impressive, all three) and then I gave each a job to actually go and do. It was simple editorial stuff - WHY COULD'T ANY OF THEM TAKE A SINGLE FRAME IN FOCUS?
Click to expand...

A large majority of HE Photography courses are geared towards the arty side of things and critical theory. It's more about essay writing than training to be a professional working photographer.

Photographing professionally requires skills not easily taught on a college course - how to deal with difficult clients, how to establish and realise a clear brief, how to cope with disaster (bad weather), how to cope if your gear packs up mid-shoot, how to organise the logistics, how to deal with private security guards and police, etc etc etc.

Being able to take a decent photo in a controlled environment is one thing - doing it under pressure consistently in a real working environment is a whole different ball game!

Understanding the technical side of things is assumed and you should be able know your camera and lighting techniques backwards without even thinking.

I'm amazed how many photographers I see still using small diffusers with the flash tilted up outside, assuming that will somehow soften their light!
 
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