This course for teens includes basic photography knowledge, animal behavior, direction of people and pets, artistic view, editing and retouching, and curating and presenting a complete portfolio for future use or posterity. I will be available between classes to work with students one on one to complete their portfolio by course end. Times will be scheduled. 

Week 1: Basic photography skills and how they can be slightly different for animals
Week 2: Visual perspectives, and animal behavior
Week 3: Planning and executing a pet photography session
Week 4: How to organize and cull images
Week 5: Documentary style pet and family photography
Week 6: Editing and retouching images
Week 7: Themed pet photography and high speed pet photography
Week 8: Finalizing their theme by looking at their work up until now for their individual portfolio focus
Week 9: Sharing first collection of images for portfolio and creating a timeline to finish by week 12
Week 10:Working together on portfolios and continued culling for the final collection...this is a working session
Week 11: Culling to 10-15 cohesive final images and make final decisions
Week 12: Sharing portfolios and discussing. Allow for 1 to 2 hours for this final session: it will go over the hour.
   *Students will receive a commemorative digital certificate of completion.

I believe in artistic expression and while I will share with them all my experience can offer, ultimately it is their own vision that I want them to trust. I give each of my students an opportunity to share and to ask questions as we go along. Group discussion acts as a sounding board in a project-based course like this and I encourage everyone to participate. There is some time to share images during classes, but I also emphasize sharing images before and after class via the class message board. 

Students don't need a DSLR camera and can use phones or tablets, but support is there for those who do use DSLRs. For teens who are looking to build a body of work, I do recommend owning or borrowing a digital camera to get the highest quality images with the most room to edit. That being said, students with phones or tablets or point and shoot automatic cameras can certainly create something very special and definitely artistically sound for displaying and sharing. Editing, retouching, and portfolio construction can be done on either a laptop or desktop computer or a tablet or phone.