Multimedia Activities

Activities
Index

1. Design Elements in Photography

a) Individually or in pairs, explore the Visual Elements and Principles in The Artist's Toolkit from artsconnected.

b) As a group, look together at "Chez Mondrian, Paris" by André Kertész and discuss how particular visual elements and principles apply to it.

c) Find a photograph you like from one of the galleries or museum collections on the Resources page.

d) Think about how the visual elements and principles relate to the photograph you chose. You may want to look back at The Artist's Toolkit to reveiw them as you examine the photograph.

e) Open up a new word processing document and put your name and the date at the top of the page. Copy and paste your selected photograph into the document by right clicking on the picture in the web browser, choosing copy, then clicking on the word processing document, and pasting the image. Type the photographer's name below the photograph and save your document to the "Favorite Photos" folder inside the "Multimedia Creativity" folder on your desktop, including your initials in the file name.

f) Below the photograph, write a paragraph explaining what you like about it, including mention of at least two visual elements or principles that are especially relevant with specific reference to what you see in the picture.

2. Multimedia Effects

a) View the multimedia composition We Were Humans by Allysson Lucca.

b) Think about the following questions:

What do you think the artist is saying?
How does the piece make you feel? What does it make you think about?
How does the artist use media elements to convey her message? Find at least two specific examples.

c) Discuss your responses to the above questions with the group.

3. Image Composition

a) Go to the "Image Lab" at American Photography: A Century of Images and do the activity called "At the Edge." Then go back to one of your photographs and think about how your cropping choices might alter what is communicated in your picture.

b) Next, do the "Digital Manipulation" activity. Then go back to one of your photographs and think about how your digital manipulations might help to communicate something that the original image did not.

c) Share two versions of the same photograph with a partner - an original photograph and a digital manipulation of the same image. See if your partner can figure out what you were trying to communicate through the changes you made. Discuss your composition choices and the reasons behind them.

4. Sensory Details

a) Go to the Mars Explorer Rover Mission page and view the Rover Mission to Mars Animation (dated 06/06/2003).

b) As you watch the animation, imagine you are the Rover and record as many sensory details from the experience as you can.

c) After you have finished watching the animation, write a haiku (a 3-line poem with syllables numbering 5-7-5) about the mission from the Rover's perspective using some of the sensory details from your list.

Last Updated: July 1, 2008