Photography Class

Monday, May 24, 2010

Day 28- End.

Today was my last class in my last set of classes. No more classes anymore, that I'll be teaching at least, my new teachers should be continuing the classes....

As the perfect final class, for the first time ever, not a single person did the assignment. Couldn't have been better. For two straight hours I just sat in a chair with one student after another coming up to me, reviewing all their photos and choosing their best 10 for their portfolios. As I expected, every single one of them wanted to choose every picture of themselves for their portfolio. A new twist, however, some of the students wanted to know if they could look through other students photos to choose for their portfolio, because they didn't like the ones they took. Oh dear.

After I collected all the pictures I then transferred them all over to a drive my teachers can use and print/make copies of for their students the same way that I did last time, because I'm leaving. And also because they were the teachers of this class, so they get to have all of that fun.

As I have no assignment photos to share with everybody, I will instead share a funny story. Today, Mr. Jawad came with me into the lab to design a shirt he wanted printed with Said Jalal. He wanted one side of the shirt to say "Bomb Technician". We decided to test Said Jalal's spelling abilities and let him spell it himself, without our help. Said Jalal's version, "Boob Tack Nation." He didn't understand why JD and I were laughing so much, as he didn't realize that instead of just simply misspelling two words, he actually spelled completely different words.

Within the next while I post various pictures of the students. Such as the 4 male classes portfolios, 2 of which I have yet to post, 2 of which I just got.

Farewell photography classes. Until the advanced classes...

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Day 27- GIMP Part 2

FINALS!!!! Blasphemy!!!! So few kids today, and so few photos. I only hope they at least show up for their very last day of class to choose their portfolios, otherwise I'll be gone...

The kids that did show up got to learn the last of the beginners guide to GIMP from their teachers and spend all day editing photos on the computer. Or spend all day after learning to go home and "practice on their computers at home, some other time" because they had to go study for exams right then. I didn't realize this until I poked my head out from the room to the hallway where they were all practicing was to go and help them. Alas, the hall was empty.

I am at least happy that the students that showed up in the first class remembered to do the wind assignment. I honestly thought that they wouldn't have bothered. But they tried, not the best pictures in the world... but they did the assignment.

First Class:

Qadir

Aman

Aziz Urahman

Izat Ullah

Second Class:

Nishta....

Lets just hope for some awesome shadow pictures!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Day 26- GIMP Part 1

I was the bad student this class. I let Hidayat teach the classes, and Said Jilal went out shopping. I collected the pictures from the first class of students, went out shopping, and came back in time to collect the pictures from the end of the second class.

Finals are coming up here in Afghanistan, so the kids are worrying more and more about that and less and less about photography. They try and leave as early as they can to go home and study, and I'm a little worried that they won't really show up at all the last two days. I think the first class was almost full, but the second one was only 5 students. On the plus side, there sure seemed to be a lot of still life pictures upon review of them.

First Class:

Aman

Sharif Ullah

Aziz Urahman

Qadir

Second Class:

Sabir

Abdul Wahid

Romal

Sabir

Just 2 more classes left!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Day 25- Still Life

Not so happy today. I still consistently have every single student, but the photos are becoming less and less. They said that in the two days they had to do the assignment, there were no sunsets or sunrises. Good one...

I had maybe 2 students from each class turn in assignment photos. I'd also like to update everyone on the naming of the children here in Jalalabad, which I thought everyone would greatly appreciate. I have a new, younger student in this set of classes, Said Hilal. That's right, you've guessed it, he is, in fact, the younger brother to Said Jalal and Said Bilal. Simply fascinating. Where do they come up with such diverse names for their kids? (In case you haven't noticed, Jalal is the first half of Jalalabad, where they all live, which he told me he was named after.)

Shukrilla

Izat Ullah

Aman

They then got to learn about still life photographs, and why they're important to understanding why photographers need to pay attention to the things that they do when taking pictures. I'm scared to see what they come back with. Not because I think they're all bad photographers, but because a couple of them asked me some pretty iffy questions, implying that Hidayat and Said Jalal may or may not have added in their own extra pizzazz to teaching still life.

Even worse results with class number two. By results, I mean numbers.

Sabir

Roohid Ullah

I noticed that what basically all of the kids did to take pictures of a sunset or sunrise, was to take a picture of the sun. They made the sun as big as possible, way too early, before it was close enough to the horizon to dim down a bit and cause the awesome colors. They also centered the sun directly in the center. And took out all other aspects of the scenery by pointing the cameras too high, so I ended up with nothing but a blue-ish sky with a bright ball of brightness directly in the center. The Horror, The Horror.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Day 24- Understanding the Exposure Triangle

So many macro pictures. So so so so many. I think about 200 each class. Why can't they do this for every assignment? Of course it's the assignment where they get to go take pictures of pretty flowers that they try so hard on. Oh well, I'm happy they can take such good macro pictures. Although hopefully they still take really good other pictures as well, and don't end up with portfolios like the last set where 6 or 7 of the 10 are of flowers.

What a lot of the kids did this class was take pictures of bees. Lots and lots of bees in flowers. Especially in sunflowers. Some of them turned out really cool looking. Others were just really blurry. That's a consistent problem with macro pictures, real blurry. I'd like to see a set of blurry pictures that results in a good one. I saw it once, there were I think 7 in a row and the first 6 were blurry and from different angles and then the last one was perfect. Instead I just get 2 blurry ones and giving up. At least there're 2 and not just one. Staying positive.

Food to flower ratio was still extremely low, but a lot higher than the last set of classes. Before I had maybe one food picture for every 3 students. This time I think that everyone person that did the assignment also took a couple of food ones.

Zia

Wajeh

Shukrilla

Izat Ullah

Qadir

Aziz Uhrahman

Aman

After collecting pictures, Hidayat taught them all about the exposure triangle, ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. I'm a little worried what they actually learned. I get so nervous when I'm not the one teaching. But I also get so nervous when I'm having them translate because a couple of times they'll turn and speak, and I assume they just translated it for me. Then one of the students will say, "Sir, he just said he has no idea what you're talking about, sir, you said something about cameras, sir, can you repeat it please, sir?" And my teacher was just going to have me keep teaching and just skip whatever I said all together.

The next class had the exact same result. Tons of macro flowers, a decent amount of macro food, and lots of blurry ones. It's so depressing sometimes when they come so so close to having an amazing picture, but their angle is off, or it's not clear enough, or there's a giant glare from the sun/flash. Just have to remember they're beginners, the fact that they're taking pictures that are almost amazing is still really impressive. Plus they do have some really great photos.