Thursday was my first day as an "official" volunteer and at 6th Street (http://www.sixthstreetphoto.org/), and we had our new class of students. We expected many more, but only three showed up. That was disappointing for there's usually about fifteen or so for each new class. The smaller number of students meant that each of us instructors could work one-on-one and give our undivided attention to the student. I got a fellow named Chris who knew absolutely NOTHING about cameras or photography, and never even held a camera before, other than a disposable P&S.
Started working with him using a nice black Spotmatic <vbg>, and I can now see why those Spotties and the K1000 are the choice for students. Compared to the other brands we had available, their simplicity made them the perfect teaching tool. The metering is obvious and shows relative degrees of exposure, the controls are straightforward, the focusing and aperture is easy to operate. Unfortunately, the Spottie had a bad meter - looks like the battery leaked (We REALLY need some more cameras) - and the actual photography was done on a Nikon F2 - a great camera but nowhere near the joy to use for a beginner. By the end of the day Chris understood f-stops, the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, depth of field, and was learning how to determine exposure without relying on the camera light meter. He was carefully bracketing his exposures as well, and deciding on which combinations he wanted to use for certain effects. On our little "photo safari" around the neighborhood I could see he was really getting into it - he discovered a fire hydrant that was leaking and decided he wanted to catch the dripping water and freeze the action. So he sat down right on the sidewalk, set the shutter speed to 1/2000, focused on the water drops, and made a few exposures. The hell with pedestrians - they'd have to walk around him. He was in full "artist" mode <LOL> The digicam came with me to school, and it came in handy as a teaching tool. Using the LCD display I could show Chris the results of under, over, and correct exposure immediately. Really hadn't thought about using the camera in that fashion until a situation presented itself. I just wanted to grab a few snaps of the workshop in progress, a couple of pics of the area, just for documentary purposes. Here's a pic of Chris holding his first real camera. http://home.earthlink.net/~digisnaps/6th/chriscam.jpg At this point he was getting the feel for focusing. Next week we're teaching the students how to load developing tanks and the basics of film developing. At some point I'll be putting up a few more photos in a gallery format showing the students and the facilities. Shel
