This past fall I had the opportunity to teach an 8 week digital photography course, geared to 10-15 years olds at Baxter Community Center in downtown Louisville with the Louisville Photo Biennial. This photo course was taken from, and expanded upon, the original 1-day, 5-hour workshop, I led for the Louisville Photo Biennial at 5 different community centers last fall.
One of those 5 workshops was at Baxter Community Center, and I was really excited to have three prior students from that class return to work with me again this fall! I also loved the idea of breaking down the initial one day workshop into a consecutive 8 week program, where I could really get to know the students and potentially have far greater impact on their interest in photography.
With a new lesson introduced each week I also addressed the fundamentals of strong photo composition. Having this longer session enabled us to really dive into the numerous creative options of the Nikon Coolpix S7000 camera.
And like last fall, we brought in photo printers for making images of the work created. This is always a huge hit. We all take photographs, but very few are ever printed anymore. And just like the darkroom, there is a sense of magic when you see your image coming to life…and in this case, out of the printer. This process also allowed them to review the images they have created and select the most worthy of being printed.
Probably the most memorable class was our Louisville Belvedere field trip. It was a mid October day when the air is still warm and the light is just right late in the day! No one wanted to leave and you can’t beat that!
The 8 week course ended with a pizza party and exhibition of work created. Students selected their best images for exhibition and arranged them themselves. The exhibition reception was well attended by members of the community and the students were very proud of their work!
Many thanks to my awesome photography assistant Amira Karaoud! She was great at helping keep the students on track and it was wonderful to have another person offer some one on one assistance to them! Check out her website…she’s an amazing photographer!!
As I look back on this experience, my biggest take away is the pure joy these students expressed each week. Incredibly grateful for the Louisville Photo Biennial and their mission to bring photographic education to those in underserved communities.
~jz