One of my all-time favorite mountain rescue instructors began a workshop with this, “open mouth, insert firehose.” By 11 am we had already covered Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, depth of field, motion blur, and the concept of metering for exposure! If you don’t know what any or all of that means, don’t worry, neither did our students two hours ago. But, with the help of our returning advanced students, these young guys and girls were keeping pace so we just plowed through the information. We handed out cameras, let them grab a snack, and sent them off into the museum to see what kinds of exposures they could make indoors. And, as you could have guessed it, they were all over the place! We’ve been here twice now and as of yesterday have spent 14 days working in this museum space over the years, even so, they found places I’d never seen! 

We took a break for lunch and then got back at it for another hour. When our time was up, we got back to the classroom to get into the first of our daily edits. The edit session is an important time for instruction with the kids. This is when their group leader, a working professional photographer, museum curator, or fine artist, goes through every image that each student made that day and offers feedback on their process and content. This is arguably the time when the students learn the most about what makes a good image. Usually, on day one we have a few hits and a lot of misses. For the most part, today was no different but when the kids did hit, they absolutely smashed it! 

All told, we spent about two hours going through the edit, we had the students return their cameras and charge their batteries, and we finished off the day with an inspiring slideshow by one of our newest instructors, Rollence. He’s an incredible photographer working and teaching in LA and maybe the luckiest domain owner I’ve ever met.  You can see his work at Rollence.com.   

STUDENT IMAGES BELOW:

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BEHIND THE SCENES:

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