LEVEL 4

Photographic images without a camera

As part of a unit titled 'People, Plants and Place', Year Four students at Penleigh and Essendon Grammar explored the importance of plants in our lives beyond our dependency on them for food. They investigated our appreciation and inclusion of plants in everyday life and examined the ways in which artists have represented their observations and ideas of the natural environment.

The grounds and gardens at Penleigh were one of the main sources of inspiration for this unit.

• The 'Light Sensitive' catalogue from the NGVA was also used as it contains some large photograms by contemporary Australian photographers.
• For this lesson, students collected interesting leaves from the gardens of Penleigh.
• Zart's Sun Sensitive Paper  'Solargraphics' was then used to capture a ghostly and beautiful blue x-ray image of the individual shapes of the found leaves.
• The simple instructions and minimal equipment required are clearly indicated on the packaging of the paper product.
• The students were excited by the magic of the process and fascinated with the resultant ghostly images.