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Continuing with the project and theme of one thing, we come to a photograph made by Alvaro. Alvaro chose to photograph metal things, and again, the kids continued to gravitate towards a type of material rather than my original idea of one object. I really like the fact that the kids decided to go their own way with this project; it truly has helped me to be more outside the box than ever, and I believe it has also helped keep them interested in their own process of making photographs.
Marina had a similar idea as Sofia but didn’t go down the same path of creating scenes for her stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Instead, she placed it in about 20 different locations around the home. It traveled inside and outside; Winnie was with people and without. It was high, it was low, and it even rode the bike without tires. Well, now that bike is broken.
When I first had the idea for photographing only one thing, I thought stationary. I never thought of water, or using your stuffed animals and placing them in different situations. It’s clear that I have lost a bit of my childhood creativity, but I’m glad that all the kids here at New Hope can still show me how to think and make photographs differently.
Following the idea that the kids were to photograph only one thing for their project, there were some kids who took it in yet another direction from what Henry did with his water idea.
Sofia decided she was going to photograph her stuffed animal in all kinds of different situations. As you can see, her stuffed animal is learning to read; but that isn’t the only thing she had it doing. It was all over the home in all kinds of places doing all kinds of things. Besides reading, it was also having tea, hanging out with the dog, and even spending time with friends of Sofia.
When I saw these photos that Sofia created, it just struck me. I hadn’t seen anyone do anything like this. It’s almost along the lines of a studio photographer creating their own set and placing the subject where they want and having it do what they want. Or instead of looking for a creative photograph, she decided to create her own. I thought it was genius and showed a lot creativity. BRILLIANT!
After Beto’s first project of looking for shapes, he just couldn’t stop finding squares and rectangles in everything thing he saw through his lens. For example, his second project was to photograph one thing. And like Henry, he also picked water for his subject matter. I love this image because Beto had to search high and low to find this photograph, and he had to get dirty by getting down on the ground to put his camera through the grate to see that the reflection in the water created many white rectangles as well as the square area which contained the water (however, Beto is by no means a square; he’s a pretty cool cat. I’m so cheesy). The photo came close to winning best photo of the day, but even though it didn’t win, I thought it was so great I should post it for the all the world to see.
When I first came up with the idea to have the kids focus on an object, my thought was they would make photographs of just one object. For example, maybe just one car, because a car is large enough where you could see it from different angles. However, this proved to be too constricting. The kids kept coming back with photos of anything they thought to be interesting, and most of them fell away from the idea of the project unless I walked around with them. Maybe I expected too much from kids who never had much time to make photographs. The original idea came from a similar assignment which was given to me by my college professor, Marcia Treiger Goldner, who told us to pick one room in our house and only photograph things in that room. I picked the bathroom, and it was small, which I liked and picked intentionally because I thought small would be a challenge. But I was at Antonelli Institute, where we only focused on photography. The kids here are having a great time but they are only in classes occasionally, and this is their first real experience with making photographs.
So the fact that the kids were coming back with photos of things that weren’t necessarily on topic was fine. But some kids decided to put their own spin on the project, which helped me to see things differently. Ha, go figure.
I told Henry the project and gave him some examples of the project (like cars, or large things). And he came back with tons of water photos. I thought it was great. He got really creative too. He had all kinds of water splashes, streams and sprays. With Henry’s photo of water splashing on to the hand holding a can, he brought home the best photo of the day.
This photograph created by Elizabeth was taken on the first day of classes. I just gave her the camera and waited to see what kind of photos she would bring back. I don’t really know how to explain what it is that I like about this image; I just know it has a calming feeling for me. So, I would ask all of you to add your own comments. Don’t hold back, because this photo won best photo of the day!
Sometimes a photograph is interesting to look at, but I wonder why anyone decided to take it. I mean, who would have thought that this basketball hoop was a worthy photograph to take. I’ll tell you who, Miguel Angel thought it was interesting enough and even worthy enough to be selected photo of the day out so many great photographs. His project was to photograph wooden things and in the past one of his projects was geometric shapes. I found that even though there is a language barrier in teaching the kids they still understand the idea of the project and even more importantly, the element of composition I’m really trying to teach (even though they might not realize it). As the kids shoot new projects they continue to incorporate old projects in to the new projects. As you can see here, there are many squares in this photograph (a past project was geometric shapes), the basketball hoop, the bricks and the windows but his project in this photo was to shoot wooden things. To see the kids using everything they have learned and apply them to new projects only makes me more excited for future classes.
Little Luis, the youngest child here at New Hope, is also the younger brother of our critically acclaimed artist, Roberto, who you read about yesterday. It must be something in their blood, because Luis, at the meager age of 4, has done something only Luis could do; he won the best photo of the day. As you can see for yourself, his black and white masterpiece of Julio and Rosmel playing in the yard has captured one of those beautiful in-between moments in life. A moment where it seems as if nothing important is going on, but there is something striking about the photograph which creates a calm but has a bit of movement with Julio’s step. Just the way Luis cropped the photo by leaving out the top of Julio’s head and leaving his eyes so close to the edge of the frame is intriguing. Also, Julio is the only face and set of eyes in the photograph, which catches your attention immediately. Well done, well done indeed.
As I was updating and organizing my library of photographs from New Hope the other night, I came across some photos which I had overlooked. This photo was captured on the day of the huge water fight that happened a few days after I arrived. When taking a lot of these photos, I was merely looking for a good vantage point, holding out my camera, and snapping when I saw a moment happening.
The reason why I love this photograph so much is because there is so much depth, multiple layers of people doing random things. Some are doing nothing, others are very excited, some are anticipating what is about to happen, and some are just there. I can’t really express anymore than that. I just really liked it as soon as I saw it and wondered how I missed such a great photo. To see the slide show from the water fight, follow this link: http://www.sethshimkonis.com/blog/?p=54
All the photographs taken by the kid are shot full frame, and the photos have not been cropped in anyway. I would like to teach the kids how to see the composition first in the camera before they learn they can fix it later. This photo was taken by a little boy Rosmel who just turned 9 years old. In fact, you can see his birthday pictures posted here: http://www.sethshimkonis.com/blog/?p=300 . Rosmel has a wonderful smile, he will come up to you and look up with this smile that only Rosmel has. Not sure why I mentioned his smile… I think it’s because it’s so different from all the other kids
Rosmel also has a pretty good knack for finding interesting geometric shapes. A lot of times, kids will make sure they have the whole subject in the frame before they shoot the picture. But that’s not true of Rosmel, as you can see here in this picture. He left part of the Jeep out of the frame, and to me that is interesting.
