In this week’s reflection I have considered the following questions:
- What is your role as a photographer?
- How can you help others?
- What might teaching others actually teach you?
For the type of workshop I am planning for this module I will be taking on a number of different roles. The first is as event organiser designing the event so that attendees will find it fun and engaging. The next role is as guide ensuring that on the day the group get to see the different locations from different perspectives to challenge their image making skills. Third is an educator sharing photographic knowledge with people attending the event and providing feedback on the photographs that people take during the walk.
In organising photowalks I can help attendees in several different ways the first is sharing technical knowledge with attendees to allow them use features on their camera that they might not have used previously. Though technical skills are not the only thing that I can share as camera is a tool and images are created by the person behind the camera and the elements that we decide to include and exclude from the image. Szarkowski (Szarkowski, 2007, p. 70) describes how the photographer uses the frame to create interest within the photograph by what is the frame and what is left out. The final thing that I could share with the attendees is a passion for image making.
When I have attended workshops there have been a number of times when the tutor comments that they have learnt something new from the people attending the workshop either through a happy accident during the workshop or because someone attending approaches image making from a different direction to the tutor. I could expect this to happen in my workshops. Sharing with other makes us examine our own methods and strategies as muscle memory can sometimes make us lazy and we use familiar setups that might be closing doors to different ways of seeing. Teaching naturally creates new questions and new possibilities. I remember one of my secondary school teachers telling me the day we stop learning is the day we die and in teaching other we learn more about ourselves. It is something that drive me forward each day within my practice.
References
- Szarkowski, J. (2007). The Photographer’s Eye. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
