The Project Solution

I’m going to share a few more photos and details about the photography class I ran while in Juanga Village in Orissa, India.  Many thanks to Kamael Sugrim who helped out during class and took all the photos in this post.

The first day of class was set up as a basic overview of photography.  Several students had taken photographs before, but culturally, they were accustomed to shots that were “full body, and no smiling”.  I shared a selection of photographs that I had taken to illustrate new ideas.  Landscapes, people, nature and still life were some of what I showed.  The work also included both black and white images as well as color.  The students had a chance to look at all the photographs and comment on which they liked the most and why.

The next step was to start to take “pictures” with a new sort of camera.  I made cardboard frames to help give the students a sense of framing photographs.  As humans, we see everything, but the camera is only capturing a rectangular snapshot.  We walked around outside and looked for images of landscapes.  This progressed into looking at things that were “not living”.  A real challenge and a bit unusual at first for the students.  Why would we take a picture of a pile of bricks? I had to push the envelope a bit to have them think differently about the approach to images.  It’s more than bricks, it’s about looking at the color of the bricks, the way the light strikes them and cause shadows and lines. It was a fun experiment!

The following day we had a chance to use the real digital cameras and take some photos.  The first lesson had the students taking pictures of anything within the classroom, but no people were allowed in the picture.  From there we progressed to taking pictures of each other and were encouraged to arrange the shot any way we wanted; asking the subject to pose or stand in a specific spot.  We then took close up pictures of a part of the subject, like a hand, an eye or feet.  Just to try something totally different in composing a shot.  The students really started to get into the creativity of photographing things.

As we had been shooting all sorts of things near the school, it was definitely time for a field trip!  I had asked the students where we should go to in order to get some interesting shots.  The students recommended we go into town.  So we headed out to Juanga to take some local shots.  The students certainly had a lot more confidence now and weren’t shy about taking pictures of anything.  The locals didn’t know what hit them as a group of kids with cameras came strolling in and snapping up images of local daily life.  Being that these were local kids, it made the taking of pictures of neighbors and homes more accessible.  The students were quite excited this day and it was wonderful to see their enthusiasm.

On the last day of class I had asked all of the students to look through all the pictures they shot and pick out two of their favorites.  They got right into the task and was engrossed in the process.  It took a good amount of time for them to narrow down their favorite images and make a final selection.

After returning to New York, I went through their lists and printed out their favorite two pictures to mail back to them so that they would have final images.  It was exciting to see what they picked and also to go through all of the students work for the first time.  The students had a great selection of images.  One can clearly see a progression in how they approached subjects.

The culmination of this class will be a gallery show to exhibit the students work.  The show will be held on May 14th, 2011 at Casa Frela Gallery in Harlem.  The photographs will be available for viewing starting at 12:00pm and will be followed by a silent auction at 6:00pm.  All the funds raised from the auction will go back to the students and the Juanga School.

The whole experience was incredible.  I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to run this pilot program and look forward to doing something similar in the future.