An Eye on the Garden

Using Cameras to Focus Learning

Outdoor oases serve up a visual feast of colors, forms, and phenomena. Inspired to try to capture the beauty and lush life of plants and their animate visitors, humans have long gazed at gardens, cameras in hand. Vivid and enticing images that fill garden magazines, calendars, books, and catalogs surely whet our appetites!

When youngsters photograph schoolyard gardens and habitats, they do more than merely freeze a moment in time for the yearbook or website. Add a camera to your outdoor teaching tools and open the shutters to a host of learning opportunities: sharpening observation skills, stimulating creative writing and art projects, documenting science investigations and understanding, and bringing presentations to life. Students can track the progress of school garden plantings through the seasons, document the life cycles of plants or butterflies, or create a photo-rich nature guide to the schoolyard habitat. Read on to learn how to engage students in sharpening their "visual literacy," photographically speaking.

An Eye on the Garden

First, a word about cameras. Digital versions make photography instantly gratifying and allow you to preview and save only the shots you want. A 35mm camera can generally produce higher resolution photos that are better for print projects. But even an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera or single-use ("throw away") unit, wielded with a bit of skill and patience, can preserve the image of beads of dew glistening on a spiderweb, or nab a succession of shots to illustrate how to build a compost pile.

Materials

Cardboard frames, cameras, paper, and pencils.

Learning to See: Photo Op Safari

Photo by Alice Knowlton, Middle School StudentSince observation is essential to all learning and maintenance activities in the garden, students already have a head start on this process. Adding a camera to the equation allows them to document their observations and experiment with seeing in different ways.

But there's more to an accurate representation of a fascinating scene or object than "point and shoot." Often, first efforts at taking photos are disappointing because "it looked a lot better than this in real life!" Taking photos before and after some coaching can be helpful for budding shutterbugs, because they can literally see the evidence of their improved skills.

To help students explore how our eyes take in scenes and begin to "think like a photographer," have them first spend some time sharpening their focus without using a camera. Here's how:

First Look1. Send students on a safari with pad and pencil to find and note or sketch several objects or areas in the school garden that grab their attention. Ask, What about the image or scene sparked your interest? You might push their thinking further by asking them to describe colors, light/shadows, shapes, textures, or patterns they noticed. (For instance, "The fuzzy part of the purple iris blossom caught my eye.")

2. Next, give each youngster a cardboard frame at least 1 inch wide with an opening the size of a standard print photo (say, 4 by 6 inches). Have them return to their finds, this time to view them through the frame. Ask students to note the difference in how the scene or object appears when limited by the opening in the cardboard.

Second LookThey should try shifting the field of view by moving closer to or further from the subject or moving the frame to include or exclude certain elements (e.g., shift so the camera "sees" only the butterfly garden bed and not the parked cars or school building). Ask, How does what is inside or outside of the frame affect the quality or "feel" of the image? Suggest that they explore other aspects of the object or scene through their imaginary lenses. For instance, they might look at the same object from above or below, at an angle, or with a light shining from behind.

3. Back in class, survey the group about how the framing exercise changed how they looked at and perceived the image they chose. After this discussion, ask how they might describe the photo they'd like to take and share with others based on this new information. (A students might conclude, for instance, "I want to show how the fuzzy part of the iris flower makes you look deeper to where it's like a cave with a light glowing inside.")

4. Once students have envisioned their photos and learned the basic mechanics of using the camera, send them out to snap away.

Technical nuts and bolts are the foundation of quality images, but the individual eye of the beholder is what makes a photo interesting, a medium for communicating mood and message. The framing exercise and discussion may naturally awaken this sense in your students, but you can also offer hints to help them explore and expand their unique visual vocabularies.

For instance, suggest that they look for something unusual, such as shadows of branches on snow, the intricate patterns of fern foliage, the arrangement of a flower's sepals and petals, and the gentle arc of a long pistil on a daylily all offer potential for dramatic photos. Ask them to observe how the mix of colors on a photo affect the mood it inspires. Often, cool blues and pastels colors create a serene feel, while bright colors energize a photo.

Considering Composition

Photo by Bibiana Licea, High School Student

Photographers suggest a few general rules for creating quality photos. You may want to share the following tips with students early on and have them experiment by employing the rules. Next, encourage them to "break the rules" and evaluate the resulting photos. Ask, Are there other ways to place objects in the frame or change how the light affects the subject? Would you take a picture differently based on the how you plan to use it (i.e., for a field guide vs. an artistic post card)? Consider having older students experiment with composition and lighting before learning the "standard" wisdom. Challenge them to make informed judgements about which approaches result in the best shots. Keep those cardboard frames handy for quick experimentation!

1. Avoid splitting an image right down the middle, either horizontally or vertically. Try to place the horizon, for example, about a third of the way down from the top of the photo or, if the sky is the focal point, then a third of the way up from the bottom.

2. The "rule of thirds" suggests that photographers imagine a tic-tac-toe grid laid over the frame, and to try locating the most important elements of the photo where the lines intersect rather than smack in the middle. Students can adjust the view through the cardboard frames to find the look that is best. If you're trying to capture a symmetrical image, such as the center of a daisy blossom or veins in a leaf, centering it in the frame enhances the symmetry.

3. Light intensity affects how colors appear. Harsh mid-day sun can wash out colors; morning and late afternoon or evening light is generally better. Mid-day on an overcast day produces more accurate colors in a photo.

4. Try to keep the sun behind you when you're taking outdoor photos. If you shoot toward the sun, your camera's shutter will close down, letting in less light, and the photo subjects will look dark. However, be sure your own shadow doesn't interfere with your photo! Try moving around your subject, positioning yourself so the light comes from different angles, and look for interesting shadows.

5. Consider the balance of light and dark in a photo. For example, a close-up of a light-colored flower against a backdrop of dark evergreens will jump off the page more than that same subject against a field of similar flowers.

6. When trying to capture action, such as birds, insects, or people in motion, place the subject towards one side of the frame with its direction of movement pointing to the center. This gives the moving object somewhere to "go." This may require you to make the subject of the photo smaller to allow it space in the frame.

7. Some automatic cameras won't focus on very close objects, so read the camera's instructions before taking close-up photos.