Post Co-Authored by Lorri Weaver and Donna Baker

At a time when “we are witnessing a fundamental change in the production of knowledge and our relationship to content (Weller, 2011, p. 232), exploring content available online and determining how it could be used by a learner or instructor is critical to instructional designers. With this in mind, we chose the topic of photography in low light situations to investigate and determine if abundant learning resources existed online, and how these resources could be used in learning.

Do abundant resources exist online?

Two different approaches were taken to determine if abundant resources exist online. Lorri initially tried to find comprehensive content and then widened the search to examine other less inclusive sources. Rather than looking for a single source to teach me about low light photography, Donna started from the basic premise of resource based learning, which brings references to the fore (Weller, 2011) and searched for “low light photography.” Despite these different approaches, the same conclusion was reached. Outlined below is their exploration of content.

Lorri’s search for low light photography resources

Initially, I searched for one location that would teach me everything I needed to know to enable me to shoot good photos in low light conditions for the perspective of someone trying to learn on their own. Lynda.com offers the course “Photography Foundations: Night and Low Light”, but the instructor specifies prerequisite knowledge and recommended “Photography Foundations: Exposure”. So, I previewed this course as well. Both courses explain the principles well, but do not address specific cameras or outline practice requirements. So, my next question was, “How do I do this on my camera?” so I can practice. A Google search led me to an article which explained the shutter priority mode (one of the topics discussed in the course) for my camera step by step (Sylvan, 2011). Google searches also lead to many tutorials, videos and blogs with tips on taking photos in low light conditions as well as explanations regarding the associated camera controls.

Donna’s search for low light photography resources

I took a different approach to the task than Lorri did by focusing on bringing together many references to create an understanding of the subject (Weller, 2011). On the first pages of the over 18 million returns, I noticed multiple returns from https://digital-photography-school.com, https://www.creativelive.com, https://photographylife.com, and https://www.picturecorrect.com, as well as the https://expertphotography.com site that Lorri references. All sites in my sample offered multiple instructional posts for improving low light photographs, and the www.picturecorrect.com article included an infographic showing tips, technical issues, and how to use and hold your camera.

Is there a mechanism to help me improve?

“Learning is promoted when learners are guided in their problem solving by appropriate feedback and coaching, including error detection and correction, and when this coaching is gradually withdrawn” (Merrill, 2002, p. 49). With this in mind, options available to help a photographer improve their low light photography were examined.

Self coaching/critiquing resources

Having established that there is abundant information on the subject of photography in low light situations and how different cameras function, we were ready to take pictures and then try to self critique to improve our photos and troubleshoot problems. It was at this point that content became more difficult to interpret and slightly less specific. For example, Dunlop (2017) described ten ways to critique photos, but assumes you have a good understanding of photography. Within his article, he points out positive and negative aspects in photos and provides an example without specifying if it the example shows a negative or positive aspect. An additional challenge an online learner trying to self critique faces is determining the correct search terms to use, for example, a user may describe a photo as “blurry” when it is “grainy” or “high noise”.

Communities of practice, forums and comments

Each of the sites discovered during the content search offered varying degrees of user interaction, and in all cases, the sites rely on conventional social media channels for user interactions. This type of interaction may be helpful to clarify the intent of an author, ask specific questions or seek help with problems that the photographer is experiencing.
Additionally, communities of practice can be helpful in coaching and troubleshooting. There are communities of practice for photography built on sites such as Flickr (Herrema, 2011). Flickr has two million groups (Flickr, 2017) where people can post pictures and share feedback to help improve their photography. These communities of practice promote growth and improvement and provide a peer group for learners.
Additionally, although peer feedback may be useful, that feedback has to come from a reliable source, which may be a teacher or instructor, but could also be a forum moderator or knowledgeable peer. Learning would occur much faster with a teacher present during practice sessions to coach the student as they are taking the photo rather than just critiquing the product.

Instructional strategies

“Finding effective ways of dealing with this [abundance of content] may be the key element in any pedagogy” (Weller, 2011, 232). Course development was approached in two ways. Lorri viewed the content as a good source of theory prior to a face-to-face coached session. Donna viewed the synthesis of the content as part of the learning.

Lorri’s instructional approach

If I were designing a low light photography course, I would create a blended course using online content to provide theory for the learner and then scheduling practice sessions in person to provide coaching while the learners practiced taking photos. To ensure that learners reviewed all of the main teaching points and that their time was used efficiently, I would compile and share a list of the best resources related to low light photography for the learner’s review. I would also create a checklist or scavenger hunt for the learners to answer based on knowledge they would need to have about their camera. After their online review of the theory, I would meet with them for a face-to-face session where I would coach them as they took low light photos.

Donna’s instructional approach

If I were designing a course containing content about low light photography, the principal task would be the “selection, aggregation and interpretation of existing materials” (Weller, 2011, p. 229). I would include the information in a photography course as follows:

• Part 1: The students read the blog posts, compare/contrast the blog posts’ advice, and create their own list of tips for low light photography.
• Part 2: Using the information from the blog posts and their own work, students produce their own photos. They are instructed to produce images using a range of settings so they can compare them to evaluate the effectiveness of applying the blog posts’ tips.
• Part 3: Students are required to submit their work for the instructor to critique, including information about the settings they chose and why.
• Part 4: Students are required to upload their work to a discussion forum for classmates to review each other’s work, ask questions, and offer advice.

From the students’ perspective, beyond the knowledge about low light photography, one overarching goal of the course would be to teach the student how to curate knowledge, as they would be performing in the assignment.

Unlike Lorri, I don’t see the need for an in-person instructor for this topic, and feel it could be successful as a fully online offering. The access to a subject matter expert (instructor) differentiates a paid course offering professional critiques from those anyone can receive online at sites such as https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique.

Other thoughts

On-line learning for photography is practical as photographers are judged by the product they produce (their portfolio) rather than the education or training they have completed. In many fields there is not a tangible product that the learner can be judged on unless they are tested (or they challenge a test in an existing course). This may limit self-guided online learning to professional development in subjects such as engineering, business administration and sciences.

Summary

Despite our different approaches, we were both able to conclude that an abundance of information exists to inform a learner on the subject of low light photography and that a number of resources are available to help a learner improve their photos. Despite these similar conclusions, different instructional approaches were proposed to use the abundant content, one approach which focused on efficiently transferring knowledge and skills and the other an approach focused on improving the student’s curation of knowledge while they gained photography skills and knowledge. Having different instructional approaches using different media allows flexibility for the learner and shows that there is no one definitive way to design a course.

References

Dunlop, J. (2017). How to capture great photos in low light [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://expertphotography.com/capture-great-photos-low-light/
Dunlop, J. (2017). 10 ways to critique your photos to improve your photography [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://expertphotography.com/10-ways-to-critique-a-photo/
Flickr (2017). Homepage. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/
Grigonis, H. (2017, June 1). Low light photography: 8 tips for making the most of dark scenes [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.creativelive.com/low-light-photography-dslr-tips-for-making-the-most-of-dark-scenes/
Herrema, R. (2011). Flickr, communities of practice and the boundaries of identity: a musician goes visual. Visual Studies, 26(2), 135-141.
Mansurov, N. (2017, June 29). Low light photography tips [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://photographylife.com/low-light-digital-photography-tips
Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational technology research and development, 50(3), 43-59.
Phun, P. (2017, March 19). Night or low light photography tips [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/night-low-light-photography/
Sylvan, R. (2011, August 29). Nikon D5100: The Professional Modes. Retrieved from
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1744071&seqNum=4
Weller, M. (2011). A pedagogy of abundance. Spanish Journal of Pedagogy, 249, 223–236.
Wunderlich, B. (n/d). How to shoot in low light – 9 commonly asked questions [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-shoot-in-low-light-9-commonly-asked-questions/