Teaching the Young

I think Simon and Will have really helped you here, Dave. Intent and structure are crucial. It has taken me years of teaching to get to what is the core message I want to get across. In parallel was refining the methods of my own teachers to find the way to do it. Like with an essay or a scientific paper or a photograph it is necessary to be very focussed about what your message is. Taking them for a spin in the MG won't cut it. And the pressure with just a very small group is greater, on you and them. The clearer you are about lesson 1 and what that is going to achieve the easier it will be to get them on board and participate and grasp your core message. If I were doing this I'd be thinking about the volume titles of the Time-Life series and the chapter headings of Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs for ideas, but the first lesson would be exposure, aperture and shutter speed, and metering and EV values and Sunny 16. You need to keep it very simple, while foreshadowing the wonders ahead. A Socratic method of asking questions and exploring together is always productive. Good students ask difficult questions.
 
yes, Richard, taking a spin is not teaching how to drive an MGTD. It takes a personal relationship with the car. Seriously, one must know much more what the car is than say a refrigertor, no-brainer Camry. A minimum of how to operate controls, tools, maintenance, how to shift, how to use the clutch, finding the power band, using the hand crank to start the car, opening the hoods (bonnets), putting up the top, putting in the side curtains and reversing the procedures, using the choke, and a whole lot more. Once that is mastered, a driver is ready to practice actually driving an MGTD, to do otherwise will destroy the car or get the driver and passenger killed.:p I have a lot of funny tales to share one day over a beer.:angel:

Not to make this too academic and/or boring, I am going for less lecture and more interactive participation. The first task is to get to know the students a bit and understand their desires and expectations. The second is to exceed their expectations.
 
MY youngest daughter started asking me questions about film and cameras. She is on her second college class on photography, all ready set up her own darkroom, and has more cameras than me. And already way more acomblished than I will ever be:^) I think there is hope for our younger generations.
 
one90guy said:
MY youngest daughter started asking me questions about film and cameras. She is on her second college class on photography, all ready set up her own darkroom, and has more cameras than me. And already way more acomblished than I will ever be:^) I think there is hope for our younger generations.
Click to expand...


You are indeed blessed!:)
 
When my daughter was 16, she asked us to send her on a schoolgirls abroad program to China. She spent a year in a Chinese high school in Beijing and lived with a host family where no English was spoken. In the months before she left she asked me to teach her the basics of photography -- which was a relief since I couldn't teach her any Chinese -- so I had her practice on a manual rangefinder around home, school and in town, with the idea of making a little album to show her host family how she lived in the U.S. I then packed her off with a Bessa, a 35mm and a 75mm lens and a year's worth of C-41 black and white film. Being steeped in documentary style and street photography -- she was very taken by Depardon when browsing my stash of books -- her picture taking interests baffled her Chinese host parents, whose idea of photography was to record family members posing in front of monuments and scenic places while making the "V" hand sign. Her host mother asked her, "Why would you want to take pictures of people you don't even know?" After a year in Beijing and traveling throughout China, she came home with masses of photos of Chinese street scenes, landscapes and portraits of people she didn't know, as seen through the fresh eyes of a foreign teenager. The year after she returned I introduced her to the darkroom, and by the time she left for college she had talked me out of a Leica M6, an OM-2n and a Yashica Mat 124G, all of which she still has. Keeping up family tradition, she earned her spending money by taking a job monitoring the undergraduate darkroom, the same job in college I had -- getting paid to be where she would be spending time anyway. In recent years she's been using her DSLR more, especially when traveling, but she did become and remains fluent in Chinese. Hopefully that will still be useful even after film becomes a distant memory. :)
 
Wow, great stories, both of which could part of a movie. Really. It is heartening to see folks take the skills and passion they have learned over the years and pass it down to the younger generation.

It is more than about taking pictures. It is a whole life being shared and as such, it is a superb gift.

Thank you both for sharing these stories. :angel:

Hope others have stories to share as well.
 
During the previous four years I assisted in a few photography classes on the weekends at a community college. The guy that ran a developing lab was the instructor, and while telling me about what the courses cover after asking him if any of the schools do teach photography, he told me I didn't need to take either basic or advanced classes, then asked if I would like to help.
The students were using DSLRs, with the occasional point-n-shoot, it was rare to see another film user aside from myself or the instructor. We taught the mechanics of photography; what aperture means and how to control DoF, aperture priority, shutter priority, lighting, composition. We taught them to ignore "Auto", and how to get what they wanted in Manual, Shutter, and Aperture.

And it was always fun explaining "how many megapixels" my Praktica was. :D
 
I was involved in something similar last summer with a youth center. We used classic cameras and black and white film which I developed in front of them (used a dark-bag to load the reels, but showed them what was going on using a dummy film and reel in the light) then the next week I brought in a small enlarger and set it up with the chemical trays in a bathroom to print some of their negs.

Yes it's worth it. One won't reach everyone, but a few get enthused.
 
FrankS said:
I was involved in something similar last summer with a youth center. We used classic cameras and black and white film which I developed in front of them (used a dark-bag to load the reels, but showed them what was going on using a dummy film and reel in the light) then the next week I brought in a small enlarger and set it up with the chemical trays in a bathroom to print some of their negs.

Yes it's worth it. One won't reach everyone, but a few get enthused.
Click to expand...

Wow, Frank, I would love to go to a class like that myself!:angel:
 
Incidentally, the shot looks over a 19th Century Railway bridge at Bushy Park in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. Beyond the bridge are some of the many hops fields found around this part of Tasmania. It's still one of the major sources of hops used in the production of beer by some of Australia's major breweries. The hops are grown along strings strung up from the wires between the poles.
Regards,
Brett
 
Sarcophilus Harrisii said:
Incidentally, the shot looks over a 19th Century Railway bridge at Bushy Park in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. Beyond the bridge are some of the many hops fields found around this part of Tasmania. It's still one of the major sources of hops used in the production of beer by some of Australia's major breweries. The hops are grown along strings strung up from the wires between the poles.
Regards,
Brett
Click to expand...

Very nice, Brett, it is good to see someone working close with a young photographer! Thanks for posting! And 120 format too!:)
 
IMO there's less to learn from photographers than there is to learn from writers, painter/sketchers, actors etc.

I think kids should be encouraged to prioritize non-technical aesthetics and perspectives : involving them in photography is likely to distract them, the same way smartphones and games do.

Personally, I learned a lot from years with Minor White students and from reading/rereading Weston's Daybook II, but more from building a graphic/photographic business that served demanding designers advertising agency art directors. Looking back, I'd personally have benefitted more from musical or acting education...and that would have benefitted my photography at least as much as photo education did.
 
...by contrast with my previous post...I've taught non-arty adults to explore visual / art ideas they'd never have entered without a camera. The camera can be an emotional/aesthetic/psychological door-opener. But it can also be an end in itself, just like stamp collecting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom