Day 1- Become One with Your Camera Part 1

Amy Dearest, along with requesting me to create and start a beginners photography course for men and women in Afghanistan, has now requested I write a blog to accompany the classes. As I am teaching photography, most of the posts will consist of my students photos with some minimal explanation in writing. As I have never been a photography student nor have I ever known much about cameras other than I look to aim at things and click the button, I've spent the past few weeks researching photography and setting up a general course outline to teach my students. Three days out of the week I dedicate to teaching my female students, and the other three days I teach my male students, Friday being a holiday here. Ideally I'll put up a post a day reviewing that days activities. Most likely I'll put up two posts every other day reviewing the female class and the male class of the past two days.

The first day of class was the women's course, the women being Hameeds classmates and friends of his sisters. Once the girls arrived, there was a big ol' drama with the guards and letting girls into the FabLab, surprise! The first class was a very simple class, introduction to the camera, batteries, memory cards, cords for the wrist, and an overview of what all the buttons on the camera are and what you can do with them. The homework assignment for the next class in two days was simple: Become one with your camera. They were assigned to play with their cameras, play with the buttons, change the settings, learn how to use it, and also to just practice taking pictures, holding the button down halfway to focus, then the rest of the way, not of anything in particular, just practice.

At the end of the class, the girls suggested that if we held the classes in their local university, it would be easier for them to get to and also easier for them to get more females to take the class. This first class consisted of 6 girls. Desperate for more students and not wanting to deal with the guards everyday, Hameed and I agreed to go and talk to the Headmaster of the school about being able to use one of the rooms to teach in. The next morning, Hameed and I went to the school, and after talking to a few different people, we were gladly given access to teach in any of the classrooms we wanted to, if we needed 16 rooms then they'd let us teach in 16 rooms. Hurray! ......