Friday (Day 3) began with a presentation called: “Digital Photography in the Classroom.” This presenter was Jesse Starr (http://cdaschools.org/dalton/jstarr -- jstarr@sd271.k12.id.us). More focused on giving examples of projects he’s done with his primary grade students (including grade 5), he didn’t talk much about the hardware or software he uses. This was a downside for me because I was quite interested in hearing what he’s discovered by using particular hardware/software in the classroom and in projects using cameras and images.
The session I had really hoped to attend was by Leslie Fisher (http://www.lesliefisher.com) called “Your Introduction to Macromedia Flash.” But all the seats were taken and people were already lined up along the wall, so I went to the photography workshop. But after Mr. Starr’s sessions was over I thought I’d peek back in at the Flash session and saw that it had been moved to a much bigger space. So, I went in to see the final section of Ms. Fisher’s presentation. She was showing techniques for animating text (even as separate letters) and adding sound/music to the animation. It looked like it had been a well-received presentation and the number of people there was way more than would have ever fit in the original room. This is a very effective presenter.
I did get another chance to see Leslie Fisher in action. This was at the session she put on later on Friday entitled: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Taking Digital Pictures Effectively.” This presentation was a re-working on a presentation Ms. Fisher had done earlier for a company called BluePixel.com. She also strongly advocated the websites www.robgalbraith.com and www.dpreview.com for information about digital cameras and taking pictures.
As she advanced through a series of pictures, she pointed out examples of some fairly obvious techniques and things to work after/avoid. Some examples include:
- Not being close enough to the subject
- Picture not properly in focus
- Camera shake (producing indistinct or garbled image)
- Boring composition
- Things she recommended to try:
- Ignore the background (focus on what you’re actually taking picture of)
- Missing the moment – the “again” mode – “sports” mode which makes it possible to take pictures as fast as possible
- Avoiding too much flash (remember the flash is effective only for 3 feet from camera)
- Avoiding too little flash (remember the flash is effective only for 3 feet from camera)
- Avoid (or at least be aware of the limitations of) digital zoom – digital zoom is really only cropping the highest mag of the optical zoom – use optical zoom
Made mention of a new photo file type coming out -- .nef or “raw” image type – and seemed to suggest this might be a format to explore in terms of working with uncompressed images.
All in all, I had a great time at this conference and definitely glad I attended. Much appreciation to the school’s professional development support program that made it possible for me to be here.
