Recently I ran across a quote by an anonymous author stating, "...a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it." As an art educator, my challenge is to push students to fully "see" their world.
Many times my students do not feel that anything around them is worth photographing.
They wander the halls of a whitewashed school building, surrounded by a nondescript Indiana town. Once rural but now ever-expanding into a sprawling community of shops and houses, students often believe that their home is boring. In my photography classes, I encourage them to look at the seemingly mundane details of their surroundings with new eyes, probing the possibilities for creative expression. This is where they are growing up, and THEY are the ones who need to tell the story of where the town has been and where they envision it going in the future. No one else has the privilege of shouldering this responsibility and my goal is to help them see how exciting it can be to weave their personal stories, both individually and as a group of teenagers.
My Project
Currently our school offers a digital photography course, but cameras are not provided for each student. This means that students must already own a digital camera (an item that is cost prohibitive for many) or they can share a couple of cameras owned by the art department among the entire group. Because we have so few cameras, we cannot let students take them outside the school, which limits their opportunity to record events and places from their daily lives. We are currently working to add cameras to our collection whenever we can secure funding in the hopes that eventually we can provide cameras for pairs of students. This will dramatically increase the amount of time they can spend shooting photographs during the class period as well as outside of school and ensure that all students can have a meaningful experience, not simply those who are fortunate enough to own a camera.
I firmly believe that photography helps to develop observational and storytelling skills.
It is my hope that if provided with more resources and opportunities to take and share photographs with their community, students' eyes will be opened to the countless creative opportunities around them. Through this challenge, they will become active participants in their world instead of merely spectators.
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