lesson idea: photographic collages

It's been a while since we've done a post so I thought I would share a recent photographic collage lesson from one of my A Level Photography classes. It was an enjoyable lesson to teach and the students all got high results from the various techniques and even recorded their creative process into stop animations!

With only 4 college weeks to go until my students exam (how quick does time go!) I needed to find a new photographic technique that would push their practice. I don't know about you but I find when your over the halfway point of projects some students have a tendency to want to 'stick' to one idea. I needed to break away from this quickly and the following activities did just that!

  

To start the lesson I gave each student a found photograph and told them they had 5 minutes to rip up the image into any shape or size. Once they had destroyed the original image they were then instructed to throw all pieces of the torn photograph into the air and let them land on the paper provided in front of them. All pieces of the photograph were to be glued in their 'fixed' state and upon completion all students were posed with the question 'What have you just made?' Luckily, all my students recognised that they had just made a collage but more importantly the starter activity really got my students thinking (whilst making) which resulted in strong, relevant discussions!

I then did a quick demonstration of each three activities above and placed the students into groups. Our lessons are an hour and a half each so I was fortunate to split each activity into a rotation of twenty minutes which in terms of timing was spot on for each task! The whole point of the lesson was to get students to see their photographs in a different light and I found 20 minutes enabled students to create an experimental outcome that let them just create and not worry about why they were doing it. At the end of each 20 minutes we stopped, looked at work and discussed briefly processes that were working well and what could the next group do differently to improve that task. Whilst each task was underway each group also had an iPad and used the app iMotionHD. iMotion HD is basically a stop-motion app for any ios based system and allows you to record video which is then made into timed stop motion animations. The app is fantastic and I love how it records students development as well as allowing them to start viewing their work as moving images!

This lesson will leave each student with a minimum of 4 photographic collages and 2 animated videos which shows that all students can make a number of strong imagery quickly, whilst exploring new, innovative technology that records and documents their process! You can view some of our students recordings here or for alternate photographic collage lesson ideas The Photographers' Gallery 'Perspectives on Collage' teacher exhibition pack is fab!

Do you use iMotion HD? If so we'd love to hear from you to share different approaches to the software and see your students photographic collages!

- Kirsty ❤

3W: Pierre Debusschere

who: Pierre Debusschere

what: photography, video and animated gif

why: we're currently delivering an animation project to our students and are constantly coming across more and more artists who are revlountionising the use of animated gifs to create stunning moving images.  We're overwhelmed with the incredible beauty of these by Pierre Debusschere. He specialises in photography and video in the fashion industry and his portfolio is a delight to view. 

Pierre Debusschere // tumblr // dazed digital feature

3W: Julia Pott

who: Julia Pott

what: illustration/animation

why: Beautifully detailed drawings with a touch of quirkiness - particularly these bears in knitwear which we love! Julia Potts is not only an incredible illustrator she also does fabulous animations and has worked for an array of cool clients including Bat For Lashes and The Decemberists.

Julia Pott // Animations on vimeo // blog // Flickr

digital/review: iMotion HD

Gorgeous timelapse sunrise created by my dad using iMotion HD

This weekend my dad introduced me to what I think will soon become my favourite ever app for my iPhone/iPad, iMotion HD. The app allows you to create stop motion and time lapse animations with complete ease - you can take still frames manually (which I tried yesterday) or set it up on a timer (what my dad did in the video above!) so it takes shots itself at regular intervals. After you've got all your shots you simply click 'stop' and your images will be transformed into a movie, you can adjust the speed then export it. It really is that simple! Interestingly there's a free and a paid version, the paid one offers a direct export to You Tube but it's easy enough to just export it to your photos, email and then upload it so I don't think the paid option is vital! We're lucky enough to have some iPads at our college and I'm doing an animation unit with my BTEC students at the start of the Spring term - I think this will be a brilliant way to introduce them to stop motion, so hopefully I'll have some student examples in a few months! 

- Claire ❤

3W: Matthew Divito

who: Matthew Divito 

what: animated gifs

why: we came across his work on The Jealous Curator (which is a fabulous blog by the way!) and were blown away! We're in love with animated gifs new rise within the art world (the Photographers Gallery recently had a show all about gifs) but these are the most stunning we've seen of late! Keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks, we'll be putting up project ideas and tutorials for animated gifs! 

Matthew Divito // tumblr // twitter

3W: Gulp

who: Aardman

what: the world's largest stop-motion animation

why: because it was filmed on a mobile phone! 

Aardman // the making of the animation

3W: Me Studio

who: me studio

what: mixed media graphics

why: It was hard to select just one piece of work because there is such a diverse range in their portfolio, but we love this pin work! We love that they take it a step further in the stop-motion animation below... 

me studio // behance // cargo collective

3W: peepshow collective

who: peepshow collective

what: art direction/illustration/animation collective 

why: too many reasons! peepshow collective is made up of 10 incredible illustrators/artists/designers in their own right so the collaboration of them all is immense! There's too much great work to select just one thing but we are rather partial to the animation above! 

peepshow collective // vimeo // blog

3W: Quentin Jones

who: Quentin Jones

what: mixed media illustration, film and installation with strong fashion influence 

why: we love her work! Perhaps the coolest thing we've ever come across and the more we search the more incredible things we find! Videos, illustrations, installations and more! There's lots of different approaches you can take to make Quentin's work inspiring and relevant to your projects (we used it as an initial idea starter and our students created an installation piece and animated gifs, pictures and gifs here) There's also a whole host of video work that can be used for starters/background inspiration like this one for Victoria Beckham's S/S 2012 collection...  

Quentin Jones // Video work // A day in the life (video interview)