Part of Lesson Plan: Story, Audience, Message and Style (Intro)

Activity Overview / Details

At this stage students should have a completely filled out activity sheet. 

Have students turn off monitors to avoid conflict of attention.

Students should use the back of their activity sheet to take notes.

At this point define Story, Audience, Message and Style and ask students to use examples from their activity sheet to highlight that different people see different "SAMS" in the same image.

Story-All photographs tell the viewer something about what is happening in the world around them and that great photos enable a viewer to feel what is happening and have an emotional response to the image. The old proverb says a picture is worth 1000 words, this is a great opportunity to discuss how that applies to the concept of story in photos.

Audience-Photos that are meant to elicit a response from the audience.  Discuss with students how well composed photos would mean different things to different genres of people:  age, sex, gender, ethnicity, and beliefs.

Message-The message of an image is what the photographer is trying to convey in terms of intended outcome, such as anti-war, propaganda, a warning to others, etc.  Ask students to examine their activity sheet and identify some of the messages they found in their images.

Style-How the image is composed? is he/she attempting to stop action, or show movement?  Is the image in color/black and white.  Discuss with the students that, like music and other artists, photographers have their own unique style. 

Students at this point should have a decent working understanding of how SAMS work to create a personal connection between the photographer and the viewer.