Sunday, October 5, 2025

Tues Oct 7

 Please complete all writing work and any old assignments before moving on to this new assignment. Check in with the teacher to make sure all of your work is complete.


LINK TO SAMPLE: car shoot angles
LINK TO SAMPLE: skatepark angle example





SKATEPARK SHOOT

When taking photos focus on:
  • Getting close enough to your subject
  • Framing the shot so you have clean backgrounds
  • Be aware of the assignment criteria
  • Make sure your shots are in focus
New Photo Assignment: Skate Park shoot  In this assignment students should focus on taking shots from different angles. The skate park makes an excellent backdrop for photos, so make sure you have a focal point in all of your shots. You could shoot people, skaters/bikers in action, objects or even the skate park itself...just make sure you remember your rules of composition while shooting. Try a variety of different types of shots. Also if you take any objects out to shoot they must get returned. 
( 10 shots = 20 marks)

Criteria: 10 well composed shots focusing on angles. You may need to take up to 30 photos to get 10 really good ones. Please edit your photos!
  • top down: looking down at your subject or object
  • looking up: up from the bowl at the person's feet hanging down
  • at ground level: get on your stomach and shooting  
  • dutch angle: please do not do more than one of these. Shooting on a tilt
  • horizontal: camera is horizontal
  • vertical: camera is in a vertical position
MAKE SURE ALL SHOTS HAVE A FOCAL POINT AND WATCH FOR CLUTTER IN THE BACKGROUND




Thursday, October 2, 2025

Friday Oct 3

Please make sur all  of  your work is backed up/saved on your ONE DRIVE

Please check your folders to make sure the following is fully completed and labeled. Make sure your name is on ALL writing

WRITING

  • Bucket list: 20 items, typed and handed in to teacher in paper form
  • Photo poem: handed in to teacher in paper form or in digital form as a jpeg in your folder on M drive
  • Bio: a description and info about you written in third person printed and handed in to the teacher
  • Setting: In progress, handed in to teacher for editing and then final copy
PHOTO
  • Headshots: 5 including one of yourself cropped and edited
  • Scavenger Hunt:10 shots (see Sept 11 post for details) make sure you label the photos
  • Step Downs: 5 different step downs using your phone
  • Videos: 5 see assignment below in progress

NEW assignment: ONLY COMPLETE THIS IF EVERYTHING ELSE IS DONE

  • 5 phone videos SHOT HORIZONTALLY 
  • someone walking toward the camera, someone walking away from the camera, opening a door, unlocking a locker, taking books out, and locking the locker back up. Each shot should be separate, not a running shot. UPLOAD to a folder called VIDEO 1.

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Thurs Oct 2

NEW  Writing ASSIGNMENT SETTING: You are going to write about a favourite place using the 5 senses. As you describe the place, I want to you to use words that create visuals, sounds, tastes, and a sense of touch. The idea here is to write creating an atmosphere or feeling. 

You may need to build a fictional story around this place or simply begin describing it. In this assignment students are to focus on the elements of setting ( time, place, description)  using the senses and the concept of show not tell. Be specific instead of saying the red car, try the 1970's red corvette, instead of running shoes try his purple air Jordan's.
  Criteria:
  • use show not tell
  • use the senses, sight, smell, touch, sound
  • 3/4 of a page minimum, typed
  • hand in to teacher for editing, then fix up
  • use specific language
Example of SHOW VS TELL
“Show, don’t tell” is using descriptive language to allow your reader to experience the story world, rather than explaining it to them with exposition. It allows the reader to visualize what the writer is communicating. For example, saying a room was cold is “telling.” Mentioning the frost on a windowpane or the thick socks your characters wear is “showing” the cold, but without saying it.

LINK to further readingSetting article: more info

Example:
from "The Old House at Home" (1940)
by Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996)
McSorley's bar is short, accommodating approximately ten elbows, and is shored up with iron pipes. To the left is a row of armchairs with their stiff backs against the wainscoting. The chairs are rickety; when a fat man is sitting in one, it squeaks like new shoes every time he takes a breath. The customers believe in sitting down; if there are vacant chairs, no one ever stands at the bar. Down the middle of the room is a row of battered tables. Their tops are always sticky with spilled ale. 

When describing a place in fiction, think about the sounds, smells and other sense details that distinguish it from others. Here is Dickens describing the industrial city of Coketown.

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black … It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.

AND from Harry Potter: The first several chapters of the book take place at the Dursleys' prim house on Privet Drive. The Dursleys' home may look polite and regular, with its "tidy front garden"  and its inhabitants' emphasis on behaving just like everyone else, but that doesn't make it a nice or welcoming place to live. In a way, it has just as much darkness and unhappiness as you might expect from a magical landscape. Nephew Harry is forced to live in a "cupboard under the stairs"  while the son of the house, Dudley, enjoys two bedrooms to himself. The Dursleys' house might look cheerful from the outside, but inside Harry sees only bleakness. 

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Mon Sept 23 A Day in the LIfe

Writing Assignment #3: Students are to write a bio telling about themselves including: interests, hobbies, likes/dislikes, favourite foods, fav. books, foods etc. This assignment should be written in third person. Ex. Jane is a shy girl who lives in Comox with her two cats named Goofy and Mittens. Jane enjoys knitting in her free time ……Length 1 paragraph


Criteria: detailed, specific writing ( 10 marks)
When finished, you are to find a partner in the class to read your paragraph to and get them to help you improve  the piece by offering suggestions. Make sure the assignment is typed and has your name on it.




 

Friday, September 19, 2025

Friday Sept 19

 

New Assignment: Step Down

Take 5 Step Down Phone Photos: you are to take 5 different photos using this technique. Make sure you have one or two selfie step downs.

10 marks. Put in folder called STEP DOWN


iphone camera hacks wide angle

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Thurs Sept 18

NEW Writing Assignment: Photo Poem

Plan to take a photo that has some space around it, (or use one you already have) focus on a subject that you think you can write a short poem on. The poem should be a least 6 lines long. Focus your poem on meaning not rhyme. I really do not like poems that have no meaning and meaningless rhyme. 
Your poem needs to be about something.


Think about the concept of simplicity with regard to the poem and the photo. Make sure your text is large enough to read. Below are 3 poems I wrote from  photos to show you as an example. SIZE 8.5 wide x 11 PLEASE PRINT OUT to Library Colour printer and place in your folder.

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Thurs Sept 11

 1. Review

2. Intro to Photoshop

NEW Assignment 1: Scavenger Hunt:

1. Something that moves in the wind

2. A texture that looks or feels soft

3. A circle that is in nature

4. A shadow/fire hydrant

5.  An object shot top down

6. A selfie with another person

7. A photo of a sunflower

8. Something that fills the frame of your camera

9. Something orange

10. An Isfeld logo or emblem