What a Picture!

What you'll need:

  • Drawing and painting materials
  • Materials for paper collage, eg papers, Sticki Dots, scissors
  • Photographs from family albums, newspapers and magazines

Start with a class discussion to explore how we record different events in our lives – birthdays, christenings, weddings or other events that affect us. Explore the experiences of your pupils and ways of communicating how special events made them feel.

Ask pupils to choose an event or day that had a particular significance for them. It could be a personal event such as a birthday, winning a sporting event or school prize. Perhaps they have been moved by a news event such as Live Aid or the Princess Diana memorial concert at Wembley.

Once pupils have chosen their subject, they can create a scrapbook page, using a variety of materials: photographs; newspaper articles, magazine pictures, cards, badges, leaflets or textiles to convey atmosphere of their chosen day/event. Sticki Dots can be used to position and then fix the different materials to the scrapbook page.

Review the work as it progresses. Discuss what makes interesting layouts and how to link words and images. Does the layout of the scrapbook page tell the story of that event?

Identify successful features. Keep their work focused by recalling with them what they want to show.

Once they have completed their work, encourage pupils to describe what they think or feel about their own and others' work.

Related themes for class discussion

What makes a picture interesting?

Look at the photographs the class has chosen. Discuss the composition of the photographs –what is the focus of the picture. Does 'cropping' a picture make it more interesting? Look at the composition of the photographs. What is good and bad?

Ask pupils to use their hands or a cardboard frame as a viewfinder to look around the classroom. How does moving closer or further away from an object affects the whole picture in their ‘viewfinder’? How is the picture affected when they hold the viewfinder vertically or horizontally?

Photojournalism: every picture tells a story

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is usually understood to refer to still images, though in some cases to video used in broadcast journalism.

The photojournalist approach to candid photography is becoming popular as a unique style of commercial photography. For example, many weddings today are shot in photojournalism style resulting in candid images that chronicle the events of the wedding day.

Look at the work of some leading photo journalists and discuss the themes of composition, framing a picture, atmosphere, how the picture conveys the story and so on. Here are some useful websites:

Useful Links

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