Graphic Design + Photography

First Day Photo Challenge

Get outside, meet your classmates, and start seeing the campus through a photographer's eye. Today is not about perfect photos. It is about slowing down, exploring, and making intentional choices.

CompositionPerspectiveTeamworkGoogle Photos
01 · Get Ready

Set up your phone before we head outside.

You will take today's photographs on your phone. Before leaving the classroom, make sure you can access Canvas and Google Photos.

Canvas Student

Download Canvas if you do not already have it. We will use Canvas throughout the course for assignments and class information.

Google Photos

Download Google Photos. You will use it to move photos from your phone to the classroom computer without cables or emailing files to yourself.

Important: Sign in to Google Photos with the Google account your teacher tells you to use. Make sure you know which account is active before taking or uploading class photos.
02 · Before You Shoot

Use the camera's eye.

Do not just point your phone at the first thing you see and tap the shutter. Photography is about deciding what belongs in the frame, where you stand, and how you want the viewer to see the subject.

For several challenges, take more than one version. Change your position before you take the second photo.

Get Low / Get High

Crouch down. Look up. Find stairs or a safe higher viewpoint.

Close / Far Away

Move your feet. Try a detail shot, then show the subject in its environment.

Change the Frame

Move the subject away from the center. Look for lines, shapes, symmetry, and negative space.

Look Again

The first view is obvious. Walk around the subject and discover a less obvious photograph.

📷
Quality over speed. The scavenger hunt is not simply a race to collect pictures. Talk with your partner or group about how you can make each photograph more interesting.
03 · Photo Scavenger Hunt

Explore the campus with your group.

Try to photograph as many of the following as you can. When a prompt includes a person, make sure the person is comfortable being photographed. Stay in approved campus areas and return at the time given by your teacher.

Tap each box as your group completes a photo challenge.

Composition challenge: For at least five prompts, deliberately use one of today's approaches: low angle, high angle, close-up, wide view, unusual framing, symmetry, reflection, or strong leading lines.
04 · Phone → Google Photos → Computer

Move your photographs to the computer.

This workflow matters beyond today. Soon you will begin working in Lightroom, and you need a reliable way to move photographs from your phone into your classroom workflow.

Open Google Photos on your phone.
Confirm you are signed in with the correct Google account.
Allow Google Photos to access today's photographs.
If needed, upload or back up the photos you want available on the computer. Wait until the images appear in Google Photos.
Log in to the classroom computer.
Use the computer username and password provided by your teacher.
Open a web browser and go to Google Photos.
Visit photos.google.com and sign in with the same Google account used on your phone.
Find today's photographs.
Make sure the photos you took outside are visible on the computer before you leave class.
Choose your strongest images.
Do not judge only by the subject. Look for interesting angle, framing, light, distance, and perspective.

Before you are finished

  • Your photos are visible in Google Photos on the computer.
  • You can identify at least three photographs you think are visually strong.
  • You know how to return to Google Photos from a classroom computer.

Why are we doing this?

Today's images will give you your own photographs to work with when we begin learning Lightroom. You will already know where the files are and how to access them.

05 · Quick Debrief

What changed when you changed where you stood?

With your group, choose one photograph that improved because you changed your angle, distance, or framing. Be ready to explain what you changed and why the second version is stronger.

The camera records what is in front of it. The photographer decides what the viewer sees.