PhotoVoice: Last Class

For our last class, we worked with the students on captions for the four photos that were picked to go in the gallery show. Working on captions was a big challenge. Some of the students were very poetic with the captioning, while others were very literal. We ended up working an hour later than normal. The students seemed to love the challenge of thinking outside the box of "this is a picture of."

I should note that before we all sat down to caption, the PhotoVoice class of 2014 spoke with the CMCA board, giving a very brief intro about PhotoVoice. The students were great, speaking with board members with confidence about their work and what they did during class.

At this point in the program, it is up to Staci and I to edit the photos and get them ready for the gallery. The students have been great and I can not wait to see the reaction we get from them when they see their photos up on a wall for the first time. 

Two of the students I was helping had the sudden realization that their photos were going to be seen by a lot of people and had ear to ear grins on their faces as they wrote down captions. It was a great night! As I get this edits done in the next few days, I need to make sure and get the word out about the gallery show on May 15th at PSGallery downtown.

Editing...

Photo by Sami

This week will be our last full class and it is mainly going to be about editing and writing captions. The captions for the photos are not going to be the typical journalist captions that I am used to. Many of them read like artist statements. Declaring a very strong point of view on a certain subject. They have not been completely ironed out as of last class. 

 Photo by William

We are working on getting more out of a few of the students who need a little challenging or pushing in their thought processes. One student's current captions were very general and myself and Sarah both felt this student could use a push to see what else they are thinking when they are looking back on their work from the past six weeks.

For the editing processes, I selected five images I thought were the students strongest, then we open that up to them and allow them to choose their favorites. Most of what I picked was not what they picked. 

What I loved was the conversation about why they liked one image over another. Most of the comments are about their personal connection to the photo, something we try to dismiss in journalism. It was a refreshing to look at work and be able to see photographers really express themselves.

Photo by Hallie

I hope this Thursday is just as mind blowing.

Oh and if you are wondering why some of the images have time stamps on them... those students thought it was cool to have that on their photos.

PhotoVoice Class Two...

Brother and sister Hallie(left) and William

Thursday night was class two for the 2014 PhotoVoice Class. We talked about the students weeks, looked over some of their work. We had a few technical difficulties in getting all of their work downloaded, but next week those problems should be taken care of.  The lecture I gave on photography this week went well, using their work as examples of good photos helped keep them excited during the class.

Photo by William

The photo above was turned in by one of my students William for the Basic Needs assignment, when he discussed it in class he spoke of happiness, in the photo are Williams friends and neighbors. The discussion of basic needs brought up many topics and one that seemed to be present in a lot of the images was friends and family. As a kid your friends and family are your entire world so that was no surprise. I am curious to see where these assignments will lead and what the students choose to place in their viewfinders. 

For the up coming week we will view more of the students work and I am planning a photo scavenger hunt around the CMCA building Thursday afternoon. Should be a good way of keeping my students engaged with the class and help them build on their photo skills, allowing them to ask me some photo questions in real time instead of having to wait a week between classes.