Wayne R. Scott
Half fast Leica User
I have had the privilege and pleasure of judging photography of 4H youths at our local county fairs for the past few summers. For our international members: 4-H is a community of young people across America who are learning leadership, citizenship and life skills. The 4H’s stand for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health are the four H's in 4-H, and they are the four values our members work on through fun and engaging programs. The kid’s range from 4th grade through senior high school.
Some of my observations from working at various counties follow.
Many, many of the youths are hungry for knowledge in photography, but do not know where to go to gain the knowledge. They have little or no training in art, design or photography. Still, I am amazed at what some of the kid’s can do with the simplest of cameras!! So far not one child in the approximately 3000 that I have talked with in the past 5 years has used or can even name Leica as a camera. Two kid’s have used Hasselblad, but mommy and aunt Ruth are professional photographers.
Last year at one of the fairs I met an amazing young man that loves photography, but has only a lowly fixed lens point & shoot camera and he uses (gasp) film. But he always has it with him. He won best of show with his photo of a horse in a pasture, the horse was rim lighted by the rising sun through early morning fog. He had his camera with him on the way to school and saw the horse, fog and sunlight. He asked his mom to back up the car and let him take the picture. Bingo, he has used his most important tools available, his eyes and the gray matter behind them!!
Fast forward to this year, same county fair, same youth, same camera, same eyes and same brain. On his farm a raccoon had raided his chicken coop and killed a hen that left 5 baby chicks orphaned. While he was caring for them he thought they would make a cute picture. He went over to his neighbor’s house and grabbed the end of a roll of white butcher paper. (Here in Iowa the kids know that bacon does not come from seeds) He draped the 6’ length of butcher paper over the porch swing for a back drop, placed one of his mother’s china coffee cups on the paper, then proceeded to shoot a couple of rolls of film of the chicks on the white background in and around the coffee cup. The lighting was from 3 windows that surrounded the porch. The end result could not have been better if it had been lighted with $10,000 worth of studio lights. The best of show photo was of one chick leaning the side of his head against the coffee cup while another chick was peering over the rim of the coffee cup from inside while standing on the back of one of his siblings. The other two were out of the picture doing what ever it is that 3 week old chicks do. I would like to see what this kid could do with a choice of focal lengths, a light meter and maybe a 4x5 view camera.
Most of the kids are shooting crappy digital cameras of around 2 mega pixels and they are wondering why their 8x10’s don’t look as good as the 4x6’s. Some of the kids that have more disposable income in the family have higher quality digital cameras and it shows in the quality of the print, not necessarily in the content.
About 1/3 of the kids write in their goals that they would like to shoot and develop B&W film but don’t know where to go to get it. The few that have a darkroom available at their school have produced flat lifeless muddy prints. I think this is due to any number of things, probably exhausted developer and fixer and a safe light that isn’t safe.
Where is this long diatribe going? I think we should apply the Amway principle to rangefinder and film photography to our youth. If each one of us would just take the time to help two kids learn the basic principles of photography and then if each of them would teach two people and so on soon the world would be filled with more knowledgeable photographers. YEAH!!!
This is a great forum with very knowledgeable people and we can make a difference, even if only one or two at a time. Plus, you never know what you can learn from some of these amazing youths.
Wayne
Some of my observations from working at various counties follow.
Many, many of the youths are hungry for knowledge in photography, but do not know where to go to gain the knowledge. They have little or no training in art, design or photography. Still, I am amazed at what some of the kid’s can do with the simplest of cameras!! So far not one child in the approximately 3000 that I have talked with in the past 5 years has used or can even name Leica as a camera. Two kid’s have used Hasselblad, but mommy and aunt Ruth are professional photographers.
Last year at one of the fairs I met an amazing young man that loves photography, but has only a lowly fixed lens point & shoot camera and he uses (gasp) film. But he always has it with him. He won best of show with his photo of a horse in a pasture, the horse was rim lighted by the rising sun through early morning fog. He had his camera with him on the way to school and saw the horse, fog and sunlight. He asked his mom to back up the car and let him take the picture. Bingo, he has used his most important tools available, his eyes and the gray matter behind them!!
Fast forward to this year, same county fair, same youth, same camera, same eyes and same brain. On his farm a raccoon had raided his chicken coop and killed a hen that left 5 baby chicks orphaned. While he was caring for them he thought they would make a cute picture. He went over to his neighbor’s house and grabbed the end of a roll of white butcher paper. (Here in Iowa the kids know that bacon does not come from seeds) He draped the 6’ length of butcher paper over the porch swing for a back drop, placed one of his mother’s china coffee cups on the paper, then proceeded to shoot a couple of rolls of film of the chicks on the white background in and around the coffee cup. The lighting was from 3 windows that surrounded the porch. The end result could not have been better if it had been lighted with $10,000 worth of studio lights. The best of show photo was of one chick leaning the side of his head against the coffee cup while another chick was peering over the rim of the coffee cup from inside while standing on the back of one of his siblings. The other two were out of the picture doing what ever it is that 3 week old chicks do. I would like to see what this kid could do with a choice of focal lengths, a light meter and maybe a 4x5 view camera.
Most of the kids are shooting crappy digital cameras of around 2 mega pixels and they are wondering why their 8x10’s don’t look as good as the 4x6’s. Some of the kids that have more disposable income in the family have higher quality digital cameras and it shows in the quality of the print, not necessarily in the content.
About 1/3 of the kids write in their goals that they would like to shoot and develop B&W film but don’t know where to go to get it. The few that have a darkroom available at their school have produced flat lifeless muddy prints. I think this is due to any number of things, probably exhausted developer and fixer and a safe light that isn’t safe.
Where is this long diatribe going? I think we should apply the Amway principle to rangefinder and film photography to our youth. If each one of us would just take the time to help two kids learn the basic principles of photography and then if each of them would teach two people and so on soon the world would be filled with more knowledgeable photographers. YEAH!!!
This is a great forum with very knowledgeable people and we can make a difference, even if only one or two at a time. Plus, you never know what you can learn from some of these amazing youths.
Wayne
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