The teen workshop has wrapped and it was an absolute blast to work with this fun group of kids. After teaching art for more than 10 years to elementary kids, it was a zap of energy to teach my passion of photography to an older age group. All of us had such a great time we are trying to figure out how to keep the party going despite everyones busy schedule. I have been really excited to share the kids images but wanted to wait until I could show off the whole workshop. Each week the kids had fun on both sides of the camera both photographing and modeling for each other. At the end of each class the kids used a Canon Selphy printer to print and frame their images. (All images shown below are student photographs)
Learning how to understand the mechanics behind photography is not the easiest thing. I remember very well trying to understand F stop, shutter speed and ISO when I was 15. Remembering my own challenge of understand exposure and how to create it helped while designing this workshop for teens. Just getting comfortable holding, focusing, shooting and changing camera settings is something that takes hours of practice. Week 1, minute 1 I had the kids turn their cameras to manual and they were never allowed to go back and I’m proud to report they all did fantastic. Each week focused on 1 element of exposure so the kids could experience one part at a time. (If your teen would love to take a photography workshop, more info at the bottom)
Week 1- Glitter- The journey began with introductions to the exposure triangle and how to change camera setting, hold the camera and how to check and read a histogram. We made a huge mess in the driveway practicing blowing glitter. Timing is a huge skill with photography and takes a ton of practice. Understanding the shallow depth of field relationship to F stop was the priority.
Week 2- Twinkle lights- We staying in the studio and photographed in the low lights of LED twinkle lights. The exposure focus was on understanding slow camera speed and changing ISO and shutter speed.
Week 3- Personality session- Teens brought items from home and then worked on capturing each others personality and details to tell a personality story through photographs. Kids used the studio lighting so they could work on bringing out personality and composing in camera correctly-
Week 4- PC main street letter hunt- The weather finally cooperated and we made our trek to Park City main street. Each person needed to isolate and capture all the letters for their names and numbers for the year or year they were born. The goal of this week was to change camera settings in different lighting settings.
I tell everybody who is learning photography that you have to hear, learn and practice the exposure triangle many many times before your head truly starts to digest the mechanics. Hopefully, the kids had such a fun time they didn’t even realize they were learning important skills.
Part of the reason I decided to teach this workshop is because there are no other hands on classes for teens to learn photography. Our local high school has pretty good photography classes but I know of no opportunities for teens grade 6-10 to take their photography to the next level. If your teenager would like to learn photography in a fun, small group setting leave your info in the teen workshop button on my website home page. Teens must provide their own DSLR camera with ability to easily adjust manual settings. If you have a high schooler wanting a photographer workshop that caters to older teens leave that in the comment section.
0 Comments