1. History of Photography
(One way to keep the lesson more engaging is to pair the kids or group them and ask each group/pair to talk about the question and decide answers together)
Hello everyone!
So today we’re going to learn a little about the history of photography. (Ask students to repeat the words in BOLD with you)
- HISTORY is story telling about what happens and why it is important. PHOTOGRAPHY is about pictures and how we make them. So the History of Photography is stories about what happens when people take pictures and why it is important. The people who take the pictures are called PHOTOGRAPHERS. The pictures can also be called PHOTOGRAPHS or PHOTOS. Photographers take photographs using a CAMERA.
- Ask students- When do we see cameras? Have you ever held a camera??
- On this slide we see two examples of important photographs from the past. We will learn about how a simple camera works and the kinds of photos photographers take.

2. Mechanics of the Camera
How Cameras Work
Mechanics of the Camera
HOW CAMERAS WORK
Mechanics of the Camera
Let’s start thinking about cameras! (Ask students the following questions)
What do we use cameras for?
What do you think people did to remember people, places and things before we had cameras?
How do you think a camera works?
Let me explain how a camera works. You let me know if you think I did a good job. A camera is like a box that doesn’t let any light in except for a very small hole. So when you hold the box with the hole in front, in front of something you want to take a picture of, the LIGHT around that object goes into the box through the tiny hole. That light makes a picture inside the box. It’s like what a projector does (like for a SMART board) to show a picture on a wall or screen. If there is wall inside the box that can change when light hits it, it can save a picture of the image. How’d I do?

3. Intérieru d’un Cabinet Curiosité, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, 1837
How Cameras Work
Intérieru d’un Cabinet Curiosité, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, 1837
HOW CAMERAS WORK
Intérieru d’un Cabinet Curiosité, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, 1837, daguerreotype, Collection Société Francaise de Photographie
When the camera obscura was first invented, it could only show an image. You couldn’t save or print it out. People worked to get an image that would keep the image on the paper.
Then a man with the last name of DAGUERRE made a photo of his artist studio that was clear. You can see his photo here. He called this photograph a DAGUERREOTYPE.
What can you see in the daguerreotype

4. Example of a Cyanotype by Anna Atkins
Making Pictures
The word photography means drawing with light. Here we see a cyanotype by Anna Atkins. To create a cyanotype, she placed leaves and other natural objects on the light sensitive paper and exposed it to the sun. Then she removed the objects and washed the paper. Where the objects blocked the sun appears lighter and the areas exposed to the sun got darker.
This is the kind of artwork we are going to make today!
Example of a Cyanotype by Anna Atkins

5. Portraiture Family Portrait, James Van Der Zee, 1928
Self-portrait, James Van Der Zee, 1915
PORTRAITURE
Self-portrait, James Van Der Zee, 1915, photograph
James Van Der Zee holding a newspaper with World War I headlines
Family Portrait, James Van Der Zee, 1928, photograph
PORTRAITS, say PORTRAITS with me, PORTRAITS! are a kind of photo that people like to take.
Here are two portraits. By looking at them…..
Ask students- What are PORTRAITS? What do PORTRAITS show us? (Show a specific person or group of people.)
James Van Der Zee was best known for his many portraits taken in New York City’s Harlem. That is a picture of him on the left.
These kinds of photographs are what many of us see a lot of.
Ask students- How many of you have photos that remind you of these? Your school photos are portraits!

6. Portraiture Michael Jackson, Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe
PORTRAITURE
Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, date, photograph
Michael Jackson, Annie Leibovitz, date, photograph
Photographers today can use their imagination when creating portraits. They don’t have to take pictures of people sitting down or even looking right at the camera.
The photo on the left is a portrait of Annie Leibovitz, the photographer who took the portrait on the right. Annie Leibovitz has taken pictures for famous magazines of famous people and models. She even took portraits of presidents and movie stars. People like her photos because they show the person’s personality not just what they look like.
Annie Leibovitz even said- “When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I’d like to know them.”
What do you think Ms. Leibovitz’s is trying to tell us about the person on the right? (Michael Jackson is considered the King of Pop Music- his clothing implies something regal. He was very shy which maybe why she had him not looking at the camera. He wrote a song ”Man In The Mirror”
If Annie Leibovitz were to take your portrait what would you have with you? How would you be dressed? Where would you be?

7. Anne Hathaway, Annie Leibovitz, 2012
Portraiture
A Wedding Dress modeled by Helen Lee Worthington, Baron Adolf de Meyer, 1920
PORTRAITURE
A Wedding Dress modeled by Helen Lee Worthington, Baron Adolf de Meyer, 1920, photograph, American Vogue
Anne Hathaway, Annie Leibovitz, 2012, photograph, American Vogue
Here are two fashion portraits. FASHION has to do with clothes. The one on the right was taken by Annie Leibovitz, 92 years after the one on the left by Baron Adolf de Meyer.
How are these photos different? How are they similar?
Anne Hathaway, Annie Leibovitz, 2012

8. The Terminal, Alfred Stieglitz, 1893
Pictorialism and Landscapes
The Terminal, Alfred Stieglitz, 1893
PICTORIALISM AND LANDSCAPES
The Terminal, Alfred Stieglitz, 1893, photograph
In the beginning the camera was used to help us remember people and things that happened. But many photographers also wanted people to think photography is like making art. Many people didn’t believe in that because they thought the camera does all the work. This photograph is from a movement called PICTORIALISM. Pictoralist photographers were trying to prove that photography was an art.
Ask students: What do you think? Is photography like making art? Can photographers be artists?
We consider photographers to be artists just like painters or sculptors. The photographer makes CHOICES and tells the camera what to do and how the picture should look and the camera doesn’t do all the work.

9. Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite, Ansel Adams, 1960
Pictorialism and Landscapes
PICTORIALISM AND LANDSCAPES
Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite, Ansel Adams, 1960, photograph
LANDSCAPES are another popular kind of photograph. One of the most famous famous landscape photographers is ANSEL ADAMS. He LOVED to take pictures of nature.
He loved to climb mountains and loved the wilderness.
Ask students- Do you think it was hard for Adams to take this picture ?
Adams planned for weeks or months to travel to places to get the perfect picture with the perfect light. Light was very important to him. He carried heavy cameras into the wilderness and would wait a very long time to just take photos for just 5 minutes.

10. Climbing up on the machinery to replace bobbins, Lewis Hine
Documentary Photography and Photojournalism
Climbing up on the machinery to replace bobbins, Lewis Hine
DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY AND PHOTOJOURNALISM
Climbing up on the machinery to replace bobbins, Lewis Hine, date unknown, photograph, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
This photos give us information and we don’t even have to read any words. We call this DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY or PHOTOJOUNALISM.
Lewis Hine is one of the first photographers to do this well. He was a teacher who learned how to use the camera and make pictures and then taught his students to do it too.
His other job was to take pictures for a company that wanted to stop people from making little kids work and not go to school. Sometimes the work the kids did were dangerous or made them sick. He would take pictures of kids working in factories and coal mines so people could see the hard life the children had working in these places.
Ask students-
What do you see in this picture?
Do you think it was ok for Mr. Hine to take these kinds of pictures?

11. Modernist Photography
Rayograph, Man Ray, 1921
Modernist Photography
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY
Rayograph, Man Ray, 1921, gelatin silver print
As more people learned how to use cameras, more of them wanted to be more creative and use their imagination when taking photos. They began to experiment when taking and making photos. They showed things from different locations, showed objects really close, and even put pictures together in collages or didn’t even use a camera.
MAN RAY was an American artist. He was a painter who first used photography to help him with his painting. The more he used it though, the more he experimented and used his imagination to use photography in different ways. They call his kind of photographs and other photographers’ work like his MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY. This image is made like Anna Atkin’s work, by putting objects directly on photo paper.
What objects do you see? (comb, fabric, nail file)
How is a rayograph different than the other photos you saw?

12. Miss and Misses (Battina and Fay), William Wegman, 1995
Modernist Photography
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY
Miss and Misses (Battina and Fay), William Wegman, 1995, photograph
Another MODERNIST way to use your imagination in a photograph is to make creative choices about what you take a picture of. WILLIAM WEGMAN used photography to create illusions. Kind of like a magician.
Have you seen any of his photographs? They typically include his family of Weimaraner dogs looking like people.
Wegman’s first dog was named Man Ray after the famous Modernist photographer we just talked about. The dogs entered his pictures by accident when he discovered that Man Ray calmed down when placed in front of the camera.
What animal would you take photos of?

13. ANSEL ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographic Collage by David Hockney
Terrace with Shadows, 1985, photographic collage, 78 x 111 in, collection of the artist
People have become more creative and expirmental with their photography. Here’s an example of a photo collage by David Hockney.
Photography can be a scientific tool, a way to create art, or a way to document the world around us.
Why do you take photographs?
ANSEL ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHS