In addition to teaching workshops with the Louisville Photo Biennial this past fall, I also had the pleasure of working with LVA and their Open Door Features at Home of The Innocents.  During the Photo Time Machine Workshop I got to take students through the history of photography working with cyanotypes, polaroids, disposal and digital cameras as well as image transfers!  Anyone who really knows me, knows that this workshop is right up my alley with my love for alternative processing, toy and instant cameras!  When showing them my grandfather’s old Minolta SLR, my Polaroid SX 70 and collection of plastic Holgas, they got so excited…opening up the camera body was totally new for them!  You forget growing up in the pre-digitalization era that most kids today have never seen film being loaded into a camera.  It was fun watching them freak out when shooting with disposal cameras, having no idea what they are capturing without an LCD screen!

Every session resulted with an actual printed image (even when we worked in digital!!!)…something we lack with easy image capturing of today!  I loved introducing Andy Warhol and how he not only used the polaroid camera as a tool for documenting his friends and parties (the original Instagram!), he also used many of these images for his silk screen series.  When I brought in the digital cameras, I also taught 5 basic rules for stronger photo composition.  What a pleasure it was to see how they incorporate these rules into their photographs!  One of the students captured a really nice image of me (which is rare as I am totally UN-photogenic).  Great example of shooting with the rule of thirds in mind!

I really loved this teaching gig and it shows in the photograph above!  Gotta say that the students really enjoyed these sessions too!  The sheer excitement they had in receiving prints from their disposable camera project or seeing their polaroid image develop as they shook it, reinforced the importance of the print in photography.

Thanks to LVA for turning me onto this special opportunity and to all the staff at HOTI for helping making the 8 week experience a success!

Click HERE to read the LVA blog post and see images from this workshop!!