First things first, the morning critique. Today is the very first critique for this group of students. This is a huge component of the learning strategy that we use in the workshops. Every morning we sit down and go over each student’s 3 best images shot the previous day in front of the entire class. During this time, the instructors have a chance to share their feedback and discuss technique, creative choice, and direction. We’re not necessarily looking for the most beautiful images for the first couple of critiques, but rather looking for images that demonstrate a particular learning goal. When done this way, we’ve found that this large group exchange ends up being one of the most important elements of the week. Getting through each groups work, takes us up to the middle of the morning, usually about time for our coffee break. In this instance, after today’s break, Mike took over for a lesson on photo theory.
Having nailed down most of the technical skills, we’ve moved into the more creative side. We start with the rules of composition and a few examples of how you can break them. Once we spark the student’s creativity, we set off on our second shoot. The first couple days of each workshop are generally confined to the area immediately surrounding our classroom. In this case, here in Athens, we have several wonderful pedestrian streets lined with colorful street art and packed full of people taking in the midday shade. Our students buzzed between tables and up-and-down alleys testing out the compositional possibilities. By the time 4pm rolled around we were physically exhausted from all the walking and mentally exhausted from all the camera practice. We finished the day with the usual download and edit. We’re all looking forward to checking out the best of those images on the big screen tomorrow morning!
CHECK OUT THE STUDENT’S IMAGES FROM THE CRITIQUE;
IMAGES FROM FROM THE DAY;