A new addition of photography has been added to the library, alphabet photography. Alphabet photography is using objects that look like a letter, taking multiple photos, then putting them together to make a word. The new alphabet photography in the library spells out “Shadow Ridge”, with pictures taken by photography students. Ms. Williamson, the school librarian, originally came up with the idea of this project last fall. Mr. McConnell, Shadow Ridge’s photography teacher, made her idea come to life.
Williamson works to make the library a fun and inviting place for Shadow Ridge students. Besides helping students with books, she invites students to come in for lunch and after school where she provides games, puzzles, and more.
Williamson explains, “As a school librarian, I need to work across all subjects, not just ELA, so I was thinking of ways to work with other departments. I love displaying student work, and know Shadow Ridge has some outstanding artists.”
To progress her idea, Williamson told Mr. McConnell, the photography teacher, and they immediately got to work. This type of art takes a while since it is so specific.
McConnell explains, “I came up with incorporating it into an assignment and I had the students use the process of first finding things that represented all the letters in their name as practice.”
This type of photography was very popular back in the 2000s. It can be difficult to find things that match each shape of the letter, but McConnell took this factor into consideration for his students.
McConnell continues, “After the name assignment I had all of my students do all 11 letters of Shadow Ridge. I then did a rough edit of the best entries for each letter. We then edited down to the final 11 and I printed and framed them.”
The chosen photos represent each letter of “Shadow Ridge” in different ways. To decide on the winning photos, both Williamson and McConnell chose the photos that represented SRHS and were easiest to recognize. Alphabet photography is very personable, and most of the photos were taken at school, making the project more familiar to students who will see it in the library. More information about the library’s events and due dates can be found on their Instagram, @shadow.ridge.library.
More about the art photography and other projects from students can be found in the Shadow Ridge Library.
