Starting the course with this project ensured students’ comfort level and introduced them to the transformative power of photography. I wanted to emphasize the importance of finding joy in everyday life, whether or not you share it with others. Through our initial reading and discussion, I discovered that students were more receptive to the potential impact of art on their lives, much in the same way they appreciate the influence of their favorite music.
Lightning Bugs, a digitally collected assemblage of studentsʼ abstract photo emulsions.Instant photos of unique perspectives captured by students.A close-up look at the abstract photo-emulsion process.A student separates the emulsion using hot water and two paintbrushes.Students were encouraged to allow the movement of the water to form the abstraction.
When my middle-school students and I meet for the first time, many of them eagerly ask me what my favorite piece of art is. Although my taste might change over time, I can usually come up with a confident response. What surprises me is how many of my high-school students struggle to name their own favorite piece of art. I don’t know if this is due to a lack of interest or exposure in art, but it’s a common occurrence in my introductory classes.
Something Personal
Digital Photography, a semester-long class for ninth through twelfth graders, had me asking this very question during the first week of class, but with a twist. I prompted students to consider their favorite art, inviting all genres (theater, film, music, etc.) into the mix. For once, every student had an answer to this very personal question. Songs that they connected with were accessed far more readily than a painting or sculpture they had studied. Their favorites filled their journals and our class discussion with excitement and energy. I used this as a starting point for our first hands-on activity—a photography and instant photo-emulsion project.
Sharing What’s Luminous
Ben Folds, one of my favorite musicians and photographers, shares his insights on creativity in his memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons (Ballatine Books, 2019). The first chapter, available on the publisher’s website, inspired our discussion. It tells of Folds’ childhood dream where he, the only person who could see a field of lightning bugs, captured them in a jar and shared them with others, spreading joy to those around him. He goes on to connect this dream with the opportunity of any artist: “At its most basic, making art is about following what’s luminous to you and putting it in a jar, to share with others.”
As a class we discussed the reading, making connections to photography and what we can glean from the art around us. I emphasized the unique power of photography to reveal beauty and significance that might otherwise go unnoticed. As Folds puts it, “As we speed past moments in a day, we want to give form to what we feel, what was obvious but got lost in the shuffle. We want to know that someone else noticed that shape we suspected was hovering just beyond our periphery.” I reiterated his focus on capturing life experiences “in a jar” (through art), and how that can bring joy and inspire others to reflect on their own experiences.
Unique Perspectives
Following our discussion, I asked students to capture images using their phones while we learned about our DSLR/mirrorless cameras. Using their own devices allowed them to comfortably ease into photo-making without anxiety. Students were tasked with finding imagery throughout the school that they or others may typically overlook—something that a person who views it with fresh eyes might find moving. They focused on how light might alter a scene or how their own connection to the subject changes their perception. Using a Polaroid Printing Lab, each of the photos was transferred to film. Despite the cost and time involved, the excitement of creating tangible instant photos helped maintain students’ engagement.
Abstract Emulsions
I demonstrated the photo-emulsion lift process, and we went through the painstaking and often frustrating procedure of abstracting the images through the transfer. Students carefully separated the emulsion using hot water and two small paintbrushes. A bit of chemistry entered the process as we analyzed the amount of time the film needed to cure and what elements might effect the outcome. I encouraged students to move beyond simply transferring the photograph onto watercolor paper in the exact square that it originated in and to allow the process to form the shape. The water created beautiful movement in the lifts, and students allowed the abstraction to unfold.
While each photograph was mounted individually, copies were grouped together and digitally collected in the same space, where they resembled floating lightning bugs in a field for all to see.
Conclusion
Starting the course with this project ensured students’ comfort level and introduced them to the transformative power of photography. I wanted to emphasize the importance of finding joy in everyday life, whether or not you share it with others. Through our initial reading and discussion, I discovered that students were more receptive to the potential impact of art on their lives, much in the same way they appreciate the influence of their favorite music. This helped them to truly understand the purpose and scope of their photographic task within its broader context.
I couldn’t resist smiling when a few students shared that they had listened to Ben Folds’ music after class. It felt incredibly rewarding to introduce them to my own “jar of fireflies.”
Kari Giordano is a middle- and high-school art, design, and photography teacher at Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield, Massachusetts. kgiordano@sbrsd.org
National Standard
Responding: Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning.
This issue introduces various ways to address advocacy through different lenses, ranging from cultural perspectives to embracing mistakes and self-expression. Young students use art and creative thinking skills to connect with themselves and the world around them, elementary students turn mistakes like rips and smudges into beautiful works of art, middle-school students make clay puzzle pieces with symbolic objects representing their interests, high-school students create detailed fabric portraits of someone they look up to, and more.
