Edit Day…this is always a bit of a long day for us. It’s a tough one because we go through all of the students work, all 35,000 images, and editing down to about 470 photos with which we’ll create the 5 slideshows. This trip, like our last trip to Toronto, we ran an advanced workshop as well at the beginning…so obviously we had to make a 6th show for their work as well! And because no workshop would be complete without the final behind the scenes show…we actually ended up making 7 slideshows, or roughly 35 minutes of slideshow/videos!! To put it into perspective, if we were going to a film festival that would be enough material for a medium length short film. Of course our job is a little bit easier than editing a film, but, it’s still always a little challenging. We spent most of the day huddled in a tiny room with a small ring of six high-school-sized writing desks as the team plowed through the mountains of images.
As we approached evening, the students grouped back for the print signing…a newer addition to the workshops where we get a print of theirs made for them to sign. Usually it’s a pretty emotional event as this is the first time the students are seeing their work blown up and in print. These guys stayed pretty stoic through the whole process until about five minutes after the last kids signed their prints. They all burst out in cheer and jumped around! A giant group hug and about a million selfies. Not the reaction we had been expecting from this particular group, but definitely the one we’d been hoping for!
On a side note, I’d like to thank the advanced students who worked with us this session! All week we’ve had the advanced kids working with us and they have been a tremendous help. In fact, if we hadn’t had them, we probably could not have pulled off the workshop to the extent that we did. So thanks a ton! You guys are absolutely amazing!!! Now, it’s 2 in the morning, and we have graduation tomorrow! More to come soon…