Ken Shelton

As I mentioned in my last post, Kenneth Shelton was the keynote speaker at our Nebraska Art Teachers Conference and he was awesome. You can find out more about him on his blog, on twitter or on instagram but here are some things that stuck with me.

His first presentation with iPhone/Droid photography. It was such a fun session that really made us think about the "story telling device" that is our (and our students) digital device. Here are my takeaways from that presentation.

1. You should MAKE photos, not TAKE photos. Taking 20 snaps and hoping one turns out is taking photos. Looking and composing an image is "making" photos.
2. Don't worry about capturing EVERYTHING, just capture the RIGHT thing.
3. Enhancement is perfecting your images while manipulation is changing your image. It is okay to do both when you are capturing the things that matter in a way that tells the story.
4. Challenge students to make photos with a theme (ex: location, time, character, story, face in place, abstract, symmetry, texture, lines, etc...)
5. He shared some of his favorite apps and they were: photoshop, snapseed, lightroom, procreate, google nik collection, golden light. He recommends having more than one and using them often.
6. Here are some of my photos from this session.  Can you guess which one was lines, texture, symmetry and perspective.
   

On Saturday I was able to take a second session that focused on the power of voice in the digital age.  This was a really engaging and thought provoking session. I think I took 2 pages of notes... and that was writing as fast as I could. Here are some of my take aways.

1. Are you asking your students "google-able" questions or questions that make them think?
2. It's not a digital footprint, its a digital tattoo. - just think of all the screen shots that exist of tweets and posts that have been deleted. There will always be a faint trace of your past online.
3. Share your communities STORY... and make sure you are the curating the story. You can use visual storytelling (a single image), digital storytelling (gifs or moving photos) or cinematic narrative (a moving video).
4. Publish your story - If you don't share what you are doing, someone else might and you might not like what they say. 

This video is impressive but doesn't have a story

This video has a story...

Notice the difference?

Make sure you are telling your STORY. Help you students tell THEIR STORIES.