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Are you looking for high school photography curriculums for your homeschoolers?
Photography skills can turn into a wonderful career but are also useful for everyday life.
Whether you are looking for a photography course as high school credit, fine arts credit, or just to learn a new skill, we will go over some popular courses to see which one is a good fit.
I’m reviewing paid and free online photography courses for your high schoolers so all you need is a digital camera and creativity.
High School Photography Curriculum
Photography for Teens
Photography for Teens takes a different approach by using a smartphone to begin instead of a DSLR camera.
This course gets teenagers to take beautiful photographs quickly as they begin to understand lighting, framing, focus, and editing. The focus is on good photography in general instead of diving deep into the DSLR settings.
A course that’s worth .5 credits is broken down into 12 modules including lesson plans using their own camera. If you are looking for a lighter course that gives an overview of photography, this course might be a good fit.
It’s also a good choice if you don’t have access to a DSLR camera.
Outschool Photography Classes
Outschool is a wonderful resource for electives and fun classes as well as photography.
Most of the classes on Outschool are live meetings where your student will interact with a group of other kids including the instructor. Lessons are normally weekly live videos with homework given for your child to work on throughout the week but each class varies.
Manual DSLR Photography 101 is a Flex Class on Outschool with great reviews. The course is for beginner high schoolers ready to use their DSLR camera.
The class is offered with live instruction or pre-recorded instruction with homework assignments.
Outschool offers personalized instruction so your student’s work (in this case photographs) gets attention and feedback from the instructor.
The Photography classes on Outschool vary in price but the Flex classes run a bit cheaper since you don’t have live instruction. This particular Manual DSLR class runs around $200.
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iPhone Photography School
iPhone Photography School is a brilliant way to get your high schooler to take beautiful photos quickly with their cell phone camera.
Included is 10 hours of video course with lessons ranging from 10-15 minutes each. You can use any cell phone camera, not just an iPhone.
The price of the course ranges around $50, so a good price point for high school electives.
I like the simplicity of the course and how quickly your students will start taking beautiful photos with minimal equipment.
Learn Photography for Beginners Free Full Course
This award-winning photography course by Chris Parker is completely FREE to use on Youtube.
Learn Photography for Beginners is a 4-hour video broken up into sections. Basically, the entire course is uploaded to YouTube in one long video and you need to watch and learn each section roughly once a week.
Although the format isn’t ideal since it’s one long video, the content is amazing.
It really is an entire photography course for free with recommendations for lenses, cameras, Lightroom filters, checklists, and shutter speed, and it’s broken up into time chapters in the description.
I know it’s not the typical curriculum style format that we know and love but I would not overlook this free course.
Digital Photography for Beginners on Udemy
This bestselling course is perfect for beginners and includes topics like how to hold a camera, lens types, mastering camera settings, light, and composition.
The bulk of the course is short 2-minute videos and there are 2 hours of video altogether in the course. Although the videos are short and to the point, most technical aspects of photography are covered by the course and it’s perfect for high school students.
Digital Photography for Beginners with DSLR Cameras is a good starting place for high schoolers and the curriculum is affordable at roughly $25.
There is a 30-day money-back guarantee for this course but with all the good reviews I don’t think you will need it.
Alison Photography Free Courses
The Alison Photography area has a lot of courses to choose from both free and paid.
Each course varies in material covered and length but Introduction to Digital Photography is free for anyone to use.
The course covers the basics of DSLR cameras, the rule of thirds, managing files, full vs. crop frame, and more. Overall, this is a great course to learn about DSLR cameras but I may be lacking in areas like lighting, poses, and hands-on picture taking.
Alison has a variety of free photography courses with some earning certificates so I wouldn’t overlook these courses.
Intro to DSLR Photography Curriculum
Look Between the Lines has created an in-depth beginner Intro to DSLR Photography class covering one semester.
The course is a PDF/PowerPoint presentation only and doesn’t contain video content. although it covers a lot of material, it is better suited for a classroom than homeschooling. It’s geared toward a teacher going through the lessons with a classroom of students.
It can be used in a homeschool setting by printing out the PDFs and working through the course, there is a lot of classroom/teacher lingo.
I love the artistic assignments and projects included and overall this looks like a nice bookwork photography curriculum that ranges around $100.
Local Photography Classes
Don’t forget to check with your local library, local homeschool co-ops, and community colleges about possible dual credit opportunities for photography classes.
You may find a photography company your high schooler could volunteer for a semester.
High School photography curriculums are a fun way to earn electives and learn about a possible career as a photographer. It allows your student to be creative and hands-on which is a nice break from bookwork.
Let us know in the comments what high school photography curriculum your kids are loving so we can check them out.
This is a great way to teach highschoolers the early stages of photography. Thus, they have added this in their curriculum. Cool!