The whole trip to Hyderabad was such a whirl wind! We were all completely swept up in finishing the workshop that this last post got rather delayed, for which I apologize! Below is the final post from our colorful adventure with another great crop of students;
Graduation day, April 01, 2017:
Shortly after midnight last night, all of the slideshows had been completed and our crew was off to bed…a pretty decent hour for us considering all that had to be done. Because of the nature of the story our students were shooting over the past session, compiling this particular main story show was perhaps the toughest it’s ever been for us. Our kids just spent the whole week on one continuous story with lots of little pieces to it….and in turn, it took us a bit longer than usual to compile and organize in a comprehensive manor. In the end, we had the longest Story Slideshow yet and it was chock full of good images…there wasn’t even any fluff! Once we have the main story show finished, each group leader still had to finish their individual “Best of” shows and assemble a “Week in Review” show that we use as a bit of a gag reel to wrap up the ceremony. In total we prepared a little over 32 minutes of slideshows of student work and we were pretty excited to show everyone what the kids had been up to.
The format for today’s graduation was pretty much the same as it always is. In front of the attendees, our host introduced and thanked Fred and the team and commented on the past week. Fred return the sentiments in kind and reflected on the students and their work that was seen during the session. He then introduced his group and started off the presentations of the student’s group work. Each instructor followed with a introduction to his/her group giving every student the opportunity to address the audience. After each of the four groups have presented, we show the Story show (introduced by Wendy) and then the VIP guest has a chance to respond. Generally the key speaker/VIP guest has previously prepared a speech for the graduation night and ends up throwing it out the window once they see the students images and their expectations are blown out of the water. Today was no different! To wrap up, we showed the Gag reel, gave the students their certificates, and then everyone ran off to the exhibition to see the prints.
What comes next is always the hardest part of the week but also the most joyous…we have to say goodbye. We have to say goodbye to the students with whom we’ve usually gotten pretty close with over the past 8 days. It’s even tougher when we’ve had an advanced class with a returning group of students! Now there’s 40 of these kids, all of whom we’ve learned to love a little bit, and have to let go of again. The joy comes in seeing their excitement and pride in their work and the knowledge that they’ll hopefully go off and photograph interesting things to share with us via our group Facebook page. This time there were hundreds of selfies taken; every combination of student and instructor imaginable which flooded the internet almost immediately. We always miss our students but more than that, we are always proud of what they do and looking around the exhibition hall today, is no different. We will miss these guys, but I have a feeling they’ll all do just fine!