Two or three times a year, we host a photography class from UCSC. Sort of reminds me of when we went to the fire station in grade school. They wouldn’t let us slide down the pole.
On Tuesday morning a couple of weeks ago my friend Katie brought her
Photo 1 class to the studio to disabuse them of any notion they may have of pursuing a career in commercial photography. TC and I put on a cart and pony show, demo-ing some gear and talking a bit about lighting.
We usually finish with a simple set for them to take their own shots. Since we work tethered, they can see their efforts in something like real time.
While this was a photo 1 class, (their efforts in class were all with film, not digital), this does bring up a gripe I have with too much of the educational focus (no pun intended) of college offerings. They provide too little technical instruction. There’s not enough about the physics of photography, the behavior of light, or how the choice of lens can affect the outcome of the image, of how these things aren’t the art, but the brushes with which you craft your art. Katie doesn’t entirely agree and I would probably have to confess that I’ve probably been locked in the studio for far too long to be objective.
That said, check out the efforts of these guys. In the days of digital, they take photography back about 150 years. God bless them.
Links:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/wallflower/detail?&entry_id=62778