In his digital photo class, Paul Bonner assigned the class a project that pushed their
creativity and made them tell a story with just photos. The project was coffee themed, but the
students were allowed to tell their story with any beverage. Some told their stories to provoke emotion while others just expressed their daily routine.

To begin, the project entailed that the students had to come up with a scene and draw out the
storyboard. This contains snapshots of small doodles so they would come up with a plot. They then had to go out and gather the supplies needed to execute their tale.

“My story is based upon my morning routine,” said Oda Tiller-Brattebø (12). “Everything
starts off kinda blurry and not making sense until I’ve had my coffee.” Tiller-Brattebø enjoyed the project because it pushed her creatively and made her focus on making her own story. Although it’s a simple story, she had to overcome the challenge of composition and getting her story to tell what she wanted it to.

“It’s fun and creative,” said Paige Smith (12). Her story followed a broken relationship between a couple expressed by a cup. The cup gives enough information for the viewer to follow along. “I wanted to make people feel,” said Smith.

This project didn’t just have to tell a sad story, though. Rebecca Borst (12) used her
humor to make her story. Borst is enrolled in a college zoology class, so she spends most of her
time at the zoo. By using the animals at the zoo she made her coffee story entertaining for the
viewer. She wanted to include the animals for her project and follow a catchy phrase that most
people know to make her project more fun: “Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!”

Although most enjoyed the project, some found it more difficult to do. Will Pranchak (12) found this assignment more tedious cause he had to go out of his way and face more obstacles. “It’s abstract,” said Pranchak. He decided to differentiate from the others by reversing his story. While most tell the story of a cup being filled with a beverage, his is about washing the cup out.

“This project is all about pushing students to be more creative because sometimes a photo can say more than words,” said Bonner.