The plan this morning was to be loaded into cars and on our way to our first location by 8:15 am. We were to arrive at the Instituto Nuevo Amanecer by 9 am, go through an orientation to familiarize ourselves on the causes and symptoms of cerebral palsy and then document their daily programs.

Our schedule today was structured similarly to a professional photographer shooting on assignment. We got to the classroom, prepped all of our equipment, jumped in the car at 8:20 am…not too bad if I do say so myself! Photographed until 11, and then return to the classroom to download, pull, and edit. Include travel time and lunch break, and that is one full day! And in the real world, that’s pretty much what a working photographer’s day would look like. The only thing that happened today that would make you think it was a workshop, opposed to a day in the life of a professional, was that our day ended with the students picking their image for print and watching a slideshow of my professional photography! All that and we were pushing hard to get ourselves out of the classroom by 6 pm.

The assignment today was super exciting. Instituto Nuevo Amanecer is a hospital that specializes in treating patients with cerebral palsy. The institute implements a fantastic holistic approach that considers all aspects of living with the disability. They have a workshop where they build each patient a custom set of chairs, there are work programs, they offer swimming classes and physical therapy, and they have a creative store where their patients can screen print things to sell at the hospital gift shop.

I have to take a slight detour and talk about our behind the scenes and blog images. On shoots like ours today, the locations are so small we cannot fit extra photographers; our advanced students have been taking on the responsibility of shooting and editing a big chunk of the images that you guys are seeing this week. Let me give you a sense of what that means. The seven advanced students started this week by being mentors to the new incoming students. They helped the students as they learned the basic controls of the camera. As the beginning students got the hang of things, the advanced students transitioned into shooting the behind-the-scenes photos for the blog and possibly even the local newspaper. They were essentially working a daily assignment which required them to act as though they were on an editorial job. The students were fully responsible for the preparation, shooting, editing, and delivery of enough of their images to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the day. So, if you’ve been watching the blog and you’re on Facebook, please share your appreciation and feedback with the advanced students from the Mexico 2020 workshop.

Instituto Nuevo Amanecer – https://nuevoamanecer.edu.mx

STUDENT IMAGES:

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BEHIND THE SCENES:

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