After a workshop with teenagers - some fresh thoughts

I have just finished a workshop about basics of photojournalism, news and reportage photography.
The audience were Polish teenagers (between 11 and 15 years) that had made a mini-reportage about their school, discussed the quality of their work and got some information about most important aspects of photojournalism: what are the rules the photo journalists must obey, what are the most important attributes of this kind of photography.
Looking at the age of the audience one can say that it is a "Facebook" or in general "Digital media" generation - surrounded by digital pictures all the time. There are different opinions about this phenomenon, but quite often people argue that it leads to the "photographic analfabetism" - young people cannot read the pictures anymore.
To be honest, I was also curious whether the group would be able to distinguish the vital aspects of the news and reportage photography.
To my surprise, they knew (or felt the importance of) quite a lot of issues of the contemporary photojournalism. For example they knew very well what the "photo setup" means (in contrary to the natural scene), they realized the importance of privacy. They knew about digital image manipulation and where it is applied mostly.
I see it as a positive side of the overall presence of digital media. Somehow together with it there is probably also emerging self-consciousness of the young consumers who are able to sort out what is real and what not and when is it ok or not.

Introduction to lighting in photography - a workshop scenario

Today I had opportunity to organize and conduct a workshop about photography for the students of the Polish school in the Hague. It was a second workshop given for more or less the same group as the first one.
Since it was a continuation of main topic, which is "Basics of photography" I took the chance to explain the basics of lighting and some techniques used to play with light.
The workshop was divided in three parts: theoretical introduction, practical session, constructive critique and selection of the best photos.
While preparing the workshop I was thinking about a theme of the practical session; it should be interesting for the children, but on the other hand it should give the possibility of learning new aspects of photography. I decided to choose a "Profile photo" as a main topic of the workshop. Main motivation was driven by several aspects:
1. Taking a profile photo of a school mate is fun both for a photographer and a model being photographed
2. Seeing how the light falls on a face of a model is very inspirational and instructive
3. Taking a photo of a school mate implies working in pairs which gives everyone an opportunity to play both roles (a photographer and a model) and keep the session interactive.

Before the session some theoretical background was given in a form of a computer presentation and some simple experiments with a photo camera.
First of all several examples of the same scene lit by different light sources was presented. Just to show how powerful the light manipulation can be.
Then the dynamic range limitations of a digital camera were explained. The exercise was simple yet convincing. I let one of the students sit by the window (lit by the diffuse daylight), facing the rest of the class. I asked the rest to look at the student and describe what they see. They could recognize facial details of the student but also the details in the background (i.e. the view outside window). Then I took the picture of the scene, from the same viewpoint as the class. And yes, while the model was properly lit, background was heavily overexposed. After exposing for the background, I got the subject dark (every photographer knows it, but it was not obvious for most of the children).
One technical note here: to make quick illustrations I have used Lightroom in tethered mode, so the photos that I took were immediately visible on the screen.
The message at the end of exercise was twofold: first, it showed that even very good cameras cannot render the whole dynamic range as good as a combination of our brain and eyes. Second, it is possible to tweak camera settings (or manipulate light) to overcome the limitations.
Then an explanation of aperture, shutter and ISO was given. To simplify things I have made a schematic picture of a camera (showing lens, aperture, shutter, sensor) and explained how the light travels through the camera. Then I have shown effects of both settings by taking some images with varying shutter speeds and apertures.
Next I have introduced the term of exposure and explained that most of the cameras have the options to influence it even simpler than manipulating the aperture and/or shutter speed.
Then I have explained depth of field and how the aperture influences it.
After this introduction students were asked to look at their cameras and discover how to set the aperture or shutter speed (or exposure in general) in their cameras. When needed I helped them to find the settings.
Finally I have shown my own approach of taking a portrait photo. I emphasized the role of proper composition, role of light to make the subject the most dominant element of a photo. Finally I have shown how to use simple light modifiers like a reflector.

Thereafter students started to shoot the photos. Some of them went outside the class looking for the proper location. Apparently they had a lot of fun.

During the critique part we have looked together at the taken photos. I let the students talk about their photos and explain why they like the photo (and why not). I have also encouraged them to think about what they would do different in case they didn't like the photos.
At the end everyone was able to select at least one photo that was accepted by the photographed model as the profile photo.

Introducing teenagers to the basics of composition and photography

This is about one of the ideas that come to the mind on saturday evening with a glass of wine in hand and a good conversation with your better half.

My wife is involved together with her school in a project called "Lodówka bez tajemnic" which can be translated into "Refrigerator without mysteries". The web page of the project can be found here. It's in Polish, but Google translator can help non-Polish readers quite well.

Anyway, part of the project is to photograph the teenagers participating in the project together with a refrigerator. When we started talking about the idea pretty soon we agreed that it would be good to let children make the photos by themselves with some introduction and guidance.  The idea was born.

But then the realization. We thought a workshop-like approach could work. The time was limited (2.5-3 hours), and we wanted to achieve some educational effect, next to the photos. And (some extra requirements from my wife) it would be great if a references could be made to the Dutch culture and art.

Having the limitations in mind I decided to divide the time into four blocks:

1. Theoretical introduction to composition in photography,
2. Discussion on how to create a composition with students and the refrigerator,
3. Shooting session of the chosen composition (where each student had a chance to take the photos and experiment with the composition)
4. Critique and selection of the best photos.

As one can see there is nothing about technicalities, like depth of field, shutter speed, ISO, "just" composition. Of course since composition is a huge topic, I limited it to the very basics: rule of thirds, leading lines, filling the frame, using patterns, using the frames. For rule of thirds I have built some context by showing the examples of the golden division in the architecture, astronomy and biology (remembering about the educational aspect of the workshop). Each rule I have illustrated with my own pictures. Purposedly I didn't choose to show too many bad examples (actually limited to 1 or 2 only).

Then I took some time to show how Rembrandt applied the composition rules on his two paintings: "The night watch" and "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp". At last I have shown some pictures of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Second part went surprisingly fast. Children decided quickly on three setups to test. Preparing a setup required some coaching. I was keeping to attend the students to watch the scene through the camera to see the limitations of the frame with respect to a naked eye. For some of them it was real discovery, by the way. Another aspect was to remind them to try different scenery, looking at the scene from the different angle, try totaly different setup.

We could do this since the fridge we use was just mobile fridge with a lot of fruits inside.

Then the shooting. They started by shooting in the standing position. After my suggestion to get lower, stand up on a chair they started to discover new possibilities.

The critique sesssion was something I was a little bit afraid of. The teenagers have a quite sensitive ego. On the other hand some of their photos deserved some critique and improvements. As a first precaution I have put all photos all together to make them a little bit anonymous. And made an agreement with the students that if we critique we do it constructively by indicating what could be improved having composition rules in mind.

And I must say, the session went surprisingly well. They listened to each other, took suggestions with attention and admitted possible improvements in their photos.

What did they learn? I think the rule of thirds and leading lines was the most easy to grasp and visible on the photos. Filling the frame and using the frames was a little bit faded. They practically didn't experiment with patterns. But it is understandable seeing the limited time.

Was it all with all successful? Well, I got some signs it was. I was running out of time and actually extended my time limit by 30 minutes - such a beginner's mistake. But some children called their parents asking them to pick them up later because they wanted to stay until the workshop is finished. According to the school staff it doesn't happen often.

Finally, some traditional "dos and dons"

Dos:

• Ensure the professional teacher is with you in the location all the time. Teaching is a serious issue and in case something goes wrong you have to use help of the professional. In most countries it is also required by law that there is a qualified personnel in a classroom all the time. So don't forget that. 
• Dare to ask the teachers about your performance afterwards. They are professionals and their feedback on how well (or how bad) you were as a  "teacher"  is invaluable
• Have initial setup to be photographed in mind. At least you know what might work best in advance. And you have limited amount of time so you need to steer the session every now and then.
• Limit the group. I have worked with 7-8 children and I think it was an upper limit I would say.
• Prepare a number of cameras. I had 1 DSLR and 3 compact cameras. So half of the group was shooting all the time while other half was posing. So everyone was busy.

Dons:

• Leave children doing nothing for a longer period of time. Initially I didn't pay enough attention to this aspect and suddenly a kind of chaotic atmosphere started to emerge. Thanks to the supervising teacher the situation got back quickly under control.