Week Seven Term One 2014

So last week, interrupted by Athletics day and some of the stormiest weather we have had for a very long time; how much have we achieved?

Above, the students wrote themselves a plan for the week. They then had to stick to it, knowing I would blog about it and also direct our community to the blog actively as a way of keeping in touch with what is happening in our class. Tomorrow, all students are going to be asked to update their blogs to accurately reflect their progress so far, but the following notes are what I have particularly noticed over the past week.

Danielle, Dayna, Samuel, and Brooke have all planned their time well and used it well. Danielle has been experimenting with some nice ideas for managing movement and It has been really nice to see these 4 work together in sussing out how different techniques can work in achieving her desired effect. Really nice collegial and supportive environment.

Hayley Smith has a clearer direction for how to potentially handle this idea of childhood memories without necessarily just arranging still life material to do it, and I love the Art influences she is looking at too. These will be up on her blog with some test shots hopefully this week (when I tell her to get it done, because I already wrote about it!). These are interesting Artist choices and there is potentially a very clear and clever way forward here.

There is a loophole with our Year 13 students; 'Ailine Kei does her Photography course out of line and is missing out on the fun of me harrassing our class into writing their plans up so, next week photography is period 5 on a Monday, but her class is period 4. We will start an hour earlier in writing up the plan for the week.

With the Year 12 students, things have moved slower. These students are still very new to Photography and blogging about their progress. I imagine it will take a bit of time to get into a regular routine of doing this.
stand outs however, are Natasha, who is already shooting ideas and thinking things through within class and Estelle, who is making good progress with learning how to use the camera. Jamie and Ellery are developing their concepts slowly; Henry Hargreaves and his body of work looking at last meals of death row inmates is a source of inspiration for Ellery and the Starn brothers is a good start for Jamie. There are two students whose names are conspicuously absent, and that is because they too are absent enough, that progress is being hindered.

Again the same issue is arising with students working out of line; Jacob, Bay and Vangie are somewhat disadvantaged by their not being included here, but their class is period 3 on the Monday, so I guess we start the planning another hour earlier than 'Ailine!