The photography program is one of Huntington High School’s crown jewels. Need convincing? Just browse through some of the galleries created by the student artists this year. Their work is simply exceptional.
Veteran teacher Pamela Piffard recently presented an intriguing lesson titled “Fauvism & Photography.” Students took what they learned and produced some incredible photos for the related assignment.
“Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for ‘the wild beasts’), a loose group of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong and intense color,” Mrs. Piffard said. “Fauve artists used pure and brilliant color aggressively applied from the paint tubes to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas.”
Students learned that the characteristics of Fauvism include:
1. A radical use of unnatural colors that separated color from its usual representational and realistic role, giving new, emotional meaning to the colors.
2. Creating a strong, unified work that appears flat on the canvas.
3. Outlining of subject matter to create separation of color spaces.
Mrs. Piffard provided students with a series of tips to create art like a Fauvre, including to paint everyday scenes or landscapes; use bright, saturated colors; remember that warm colors such as red, orange and yellow tend to come forward in a painting and cool colors such as blues, greens and purples tend to recede.
The lesson included a segment on “adding a modern twist” where students were asked to consider how they can apply the principles of Fauvism to their images when taking and editing them.
Mrs. Piffard provided students with a wide variety of sample photographs to drive home different aspects of the lesson and to clear up any possible misperceptions and questions.
Students were then given an assignment requiring them to choose a specific type of photograph they have taken. “This should be a brightly colored image with contrast,” Mrs. Piffard told the teenagers. The teenagers were given some resources to use in editing to complete the assignment. The results are spectacular.
