Look
- Invite students to spend time carefully observing one portrait in groups.
- Ask students to look at the portrait for at least one minute and note the colours, shapes and lines they can see.
Discuss
- Invite students to work in small groups looking closely at a single work. What can they see and how does this reveal the process of making the photograph?
- View these portraits side-by-side. Have a whole class discussion sharing observations.
Discussion prompts:
- In (Nur) Aishah Kenton and Anna Jourdant’s Anna (Home for a Time) and Emmaline Zanelli’s Aida Azin there are multiple added layers. How do these layers help tell the story of the subject?
- Are there any visual similarities or differences?
- How does texture, colour, light and clarity shift across a single portrait?
- How would you describe the mood of these portraits? Does the way it is made effect the mood?
Connect
- Invite students to explore the processes used by each artist to create their work.
- Encourage them to start by reading the artists’ statements before researching specific photographic processes such as the box camera, wet plate collodion, photogram and mixed media photography.
- Students could create a short video explaining one of the photographic techniques.
Inquiry prompts:
- What is the history of your chosen photographic process? What impact has it had on photography?
- Why are older photographic techniques still relevant today?
- How does collaboration become part of the process?
Create
- Invite students to work in pairs to create a photographic portrait of each other.
- Encourage students to experiment with different photographic techniques and consider how they will collaborate with their subject throughout the process.
Creative prompts:
- How can you combine multiple photographic techniques?
- How will you collaborate with your subject to tell their story?
