By Tyler Christiansen
STEMIA SW Options Teacher
Our Introduction to New Media students at the SW Junior High School have been busy transforming how they see the world through a camera lens. After diving deep into the foundational “rules” of visual storytelling, the classroom has become a playground for experimentation. We’ve spent the last few weeks mastering compositional elements like the rule of thirds, which helps students create balance and tension, as well as exploring how unique framing and perspective can turn a mundane subject into a compelling narrative.
Today, the energy shifted as we focused entirely on the power of lighting. Light is the “paint” of photography, and our students used LED light bricks to see exactly how it changes a subject’s mood. By toggling between hard lighting (which creates sharp, dramatic transitions) and soft lighting (which wraps gently around objects), they began to understand the delicate dance between shadow and light. The room was a glow of experimentation as they begun discovering how different hues can evoke specific emotions and radically alter the atmosphere of a shot.
Watching these concepts click in real-time was the highlight of the course so far. It’s one thing to hear about the “Golden Hour” or leading lines, but it’s another thing entirely to see a student successfully use a shadow to create mystery or a low-angle perspective to grant their subject power. As we move forward, these technical skills will serve as the backbone for their upcoming creative projects, where they’ll blend these elements of photography to tell their own unique stories.
STEMIA Journal 