Young teenagers in Junior High School can learn etymology, word origins, usage, and precise definitions in ENGLISH class. If you want to gain their attention and interest, explain a few principles of "composition" and show them how to improve their photography with their camers and cell phones.

"Pictures, Photographs, and Images are just words. I have seen and heard museum curators and art gallery folks, serious collectors, and professors of fine art call MASTERPIECES, "pictures" with absolutely no disrespect but with enthusiasm, affection, and familiarity. I have heard virtuoso classical musicians, accomplished music teachers, and musicologists refer to passages of Baroque symphonies as "tunes".

If you prefer the word "Photograph" then use it- it will rub off. If you imply tht "Picture is a "bad" or inappropriate term or that it describes a poorly crafted photograph, you are just muddying the waters.

My suggestion? The way I teach newcomers to photogahy or young fols about compositors is simple. I start off by teelg that just like written composition, yoy want to tell a story, make a point, or a statement. If your writing is disorganized, confusing to the readers, or contains material that distracts from the point you want to make, the story you are trying to tell, the point you want t make and your statement may be lost In visual art, which includes photogahy, rather than words, sentences, and paragraphs to make our points, we use lines, shapes, colors, direction of light, contrasts, and placemt of our subjects in the frame to direct the viewer's eyes to the most important element of the image.

Once you explain this concept, the next step is to show them PICTURES and how various compositions are more powerful than others, explain a few basic "rules" and how to either use these "rules" or purposely break them for creative purposes.

My favorite theme for kids is "What's Wrong" With This PICTURE"? " Look, it is sharply in focus, the colors are bright, and the photographer set his camer correctly but what do y'all think"? Then I show them the improved composition. I might put in a word about the rule of thirds, or negative space, but at the begging, I don't dwell on those terms.

I hope the kids come back for more. Then, you can get into dynamic symmetry, Euclid Elements, the Golen Ratio, and all that good stuff. To kids, however, if they are not interested in the nuts and bolts of taking pictures, all of that stuff is meaningless technobabble.

I only give them one bit of philosophy. "Composition is a puttg together of elements so as to form a unified whole"!

Forget about buzzwords. If you keep correcting their English or scientific word usage, you will turn them off. If you prefer, AGAIN, use the proper terminology and let it rub off- kids are smart!

Hey, y'all, I was once in Junior High! I was not much of a science nerd (more interested in gym class) until Mr. Silverman's 8th Grade Science class. He was teaching chemical reactions and rapid oxidation. So, he mixed Potassium Permanganate and Glycerin and just about smoked us out of the classroom. If you needed to be a scientist to make a really good stink bomb- I was all in!

I'm doing a presentation for junior high children on Composition, and want to start with the question, " what the difference between a picture vs a photograph?" My answer is a picture is a memory you take for memories sake, a photograph is a memory you take after planning it out and carefully choosing how, when , why , where and who.
I know you hogs probably can give me a better description and that sometimes a picture becomes a lucky photograph. Any positive help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

My camera arrived a day after I ordered it from B & H. The manual was entirely in Chinese which I don't read. I called B & H Saturday after putting the camera together and trying to set it up on my own to ask for an English manual. They don't make them any more. Turns out that the camera I got is a gray market item which is marketed for the Asian market. This is not specified on their website and the salesman who sold it to me didn't mention it. All he said was that I couldn't get a Nikon warranty for it. Since I never buy warranties anyway, that didn't raise any red flag for me. I suppose it should have. The salesman I got this time said that many of the regular cameras and gray market ones are produced in the same factory. Perhaps my purchase has the same quality as those made for the U.S. Hope I don't come to regret this purchase in the future. I can't afford another camera in a few years.

You may have noticed AI (programs) have been in the news (again) in the past two weeks with reports of their amazing (and improving) creative capabilities. AI programs can now write poems, jokes, term papers and other literature; duplicate art masterpieces and solve complex problem. We already have several PP programs touting AI features….and many cameras touting AI functions.....(really....don't we call this auto mode?)

I’m sitting here, doing some real PP-editing (whatever that is) and wondering how long before the entire photography process completely disappears and we'll be saying: “Seri…CREATE me a perfect photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at sundown”; without OUR fingers pressing (obsolete) shutter buttons? Oh wait….is that already available on Amazon? Ah, the joy of shooting may be disappearing…..(soon) Your thoughts?

NIC has its good points. However, to produce a good black and white photo it takes a bit more than just converting the original capture to a really nice black and white photograph. It would take an understanding of The Zone System and how you camera handles the dynamic range of the scene. Thus, how to place the best rendering of the scene in black and white. Another thing to consider is the application of colored filters so you can reproduce those effect in the final photograph. Additionally, how to adjust for color contamination. These will help you produce the best gradations in the final print.

Just pushing buttons on presets and hoping for the best somewhat removes you from being the photographer creating the photograph. The software did it instead. There are any techniques that will convert a digital capture to black and white. I have found it’s not a one size fits all situation. It’s similar to selecting a grade of paper when printing in the darkroom.

https://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/nt/2022/9/13/761942-h970_2022091301_001.jpg

When I write print I loosely refer to printed photographs and posted photographs.
—Bob