Stage 5 - Photography & Digital Media (PDM)
Course Overview
Photographic and Digital Media provides opportunities for students to enjoy making and studying a range of photographic and digital media works. It enables students to represent their ideas and interests about the world, to engage in contemporary forms of communication and understand and write about their contemporary world. Photographic and Digital Media enables students to investigate new technologies, cultural identity and the evolution of photography and digital media into the 21st century. Students are provided with opportunities to make and study photographic and digital media works in greater depth and breadth than through the Visual Arts elective course.
Course Activities
Students learn to:
- Represent their ideas and interests with reference to contemporary trends and how photographers, videographers, film-makers, computer/digital and performance artists make photographic and digital media works.
- Make photographic and digital media works, using a range of materials and techniques in still, interactive and moving forms, including ICT, to build a Photographic and Digital Media portfolio over time.
- Develop their research skills, approaches to experimentation and how to make informed personal choices and judgements.
- Record procedures and activities about their making practice in their Photographic and Digital Media journal.
- Investigate and respond to a wide range of photographic and digital media artists and works in making, critical and historical studies.
- Interpret and explain the function of and relationships in the artworld between the artist – artwork – world – audience, to make and study photographic and digital media artworks.
- Produce a Photographic and Digital Media portfolio and keep a Photographic and Digital Media journal.
Students learn about:
- The pleasure and enjoyment of making different kinds of photographic and digital media works in still, interactive and moving forms.
- How photographic and digital media is shaped by different beliefs, values and meanings by exploring photographic and digital media artists and works from different times and places and relationships in the artworld between the artist – artwork – world – audience.
- Exploring how their own lives and experiences can influence their making and critical and historical studies.
Possible Subject Pathways in Stage 6
This course is placed as a continuum of learning with Visual Arts. Students who have completed the Stage 5 Photography and Digital Media course could follow into the Stage 6 Visual Arts course, with expected specialisation in either photography or digital imaging when making artworks. This Stage 5 course is not a prerequisite for entry at a higher level into Stage 6 Visual Arts.