Day 17- The End Part 2

Final male classes! So the first class, as previously discussed, was to start at 2 and run to 3, so the second class would have 2 hours to make up for our holiday day. 2 people showed up. Awesome. The same thing with the girls class, I just sat there collecting photos and going over the portfolio with each of the kids. Bit by bit they started trickling in. By 3, I had everyones cameras and memory card but 2 or 3 of them. As I started the next class, 2 more kids came, but their batteries had died and they'd left their memory cards and this or that and something, so they said they'd bring back their newly charged batteries and come to the lab the next day to do the pictures and portfolios.

Big surprise that upon further review I had about 8 shadow pictures. Kudos to my few kids in this class that do all of the assignments. At least I have pictures to look at, could always be worse...

Omid

Omid

Safi Ullah

Jawed

I'll bet you'll never guess what I had to go over with every single student in the first class while choosing portfolio pictures, despite the fact that they were all watching everyone else get told multiple times before they went. That's right, every single person wanted all of their portfolio pictures to be the pictures that someone else took of them. Or, even better, all of their pictures that they took of other pictures that they took of beautiful flowers and scenery.

As soon as I told each person for the third time that day and millionth time total what the portfolios were for and their purpose of having their best pictures that they took of real things to be reviewed by others to be chosen for the advanced class, it got even more interesting. They chose every single picture they had.

"This one's beautiful, this one's great, I like this one, that one too." But, it wasn't just that. It was all or their worst pictures, the pictures that they took of each other while sitting around in the park void of all emotion. Since they couldn't choose themselves, they chose their best friends. After narrowing down about 20 times each person, we ended up with semi legit portfolios.

I just don't even know what to think with this class, other than most of them all love cameras but hate using them. I told them that on saturday I'd have all of their portfolio pictures, certificates, and pictures for them, and off they were.

The next class was much much better. It's funny how it started off with the second class making me pull my hair out and by the end the first class made me want to reach for my gun while the second class always made me so happy. Lots and lots of shadow pictures from this class. Smooth sailing for choosing portfolio pictures. Afterwards, they got to take all their chosen portfolio pictures and practice using GIMP since last class they just observed. I told them the same thing, saturday everything would be ready for them to come by and pick up.

Hameed

Hamid Jawed

Hameed

Faiz

Faiz

Faiz

Zarif

Zarif

Nasir

Nasir

Nasir

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Day 15- GIMP 1 and 2 Part 2

So this class started an hour early for the first class to run two hours to make up for the class we missed on the holiday. They were given the still life assignment, tree, and wind assignment. They had five days. One person brought any photos at all. I was not a very happy camper with this class. Later in the class, because, surprise surprise, most everyone was late, some other kids showed up with a few other pictures. Just a few.

Samir

Omid

Jawed

Jawed

Jawed

After briefly reviewing the photos, we went onto GIMP. This time they all learned all of the different aspects of GIMP and split into their pairs to go practice on their computers. After awhile of helping and showing and some fun photo editing of showing little kids that moving all the color and brightness tabs to the far right or left does not make the picture a good photo, I gave them their last assignment. Shadows! No one really seemed too worried, which I take to mean no one will give me any photos. We shall see.

The second class, only ran for an hour. They only had the one still life assignment to bring to me. They did, for the most part, thank goodness.

Faiz Ullah

Hiyat Ullah

Hameed

Hameed

Hameed

Faiz Ullah

Faiz Ullah

Faiz Ullah

Hamid Jawed

Hamid Jawed

Afterwards, we quickly went over the basics of GIMP. We didn't have time to let them practice, but their next class is two hours, so they'll choose their 10 portfolio pictures and then have time to practice with GIMP editing the pictures and what not. I only gave them the one shadow assignment, completely forgetting that they needed to do the wind and tree one as well. Oh well...

All Rights Reserved by photographers, 2010, for all photos. Please contact info@fablab.af for individual rights.

Day 14- GIMP 2 Part 1

Many apologies, we lost internet here for a few days and I haven't been able to update my blog. The turn out of todays class was so- so. The wind picture assignment was pretty difficult, and for the most part the pictures reflected that difficulty. There were a few good ones, but in general, not so great. Also, not all the girls turned in wind pictures. And no one turned in tree pictures....

Maliha

Shazia

Masooda

Masooda

Shahnaz

Shahnaz

Shazia

The rest of the class we went over the other areas in GIMP, adding and manipulating text, saving and exporting, and some re runs of the initial things. I gave them one last final assignment, this time shadow pictures, accompanied with an extremely exaggerated sigh of "oh nooooo" from every single girl. I told them that for the last class they were going to work with me and we were going to choose their 10 best pictures for the portfolio. I also told them that I'd write up an outline of the entire class for them to use as a guide while teaching their new students.

All Rights Reserved by photographers, 2010, for all photos. Please contact info@fablab.af for individual rights.

Day 13- GIMP Part 1

Awesome. The girls did an absolutely wonderful job on the still life photographs. Everyone had a ton of different photos of the similar thing, different backgrounds, objects in different places, different angles of the same thing, everything. I could tell they put a lot more time and effort into these ones than they did with some of the other ones where they just snapped a photo on the way to class.

This class was scheduled on the same day as one of Afghanistan's national holidays, independence from Russia or England or Rome or something like that, they've freed themselves from so many people in their past it's hard to keep track of them all. At the end of the last class, my girls told me that even though it was a holiday and school was cancelled, they still wanted to come to class and asked if I would still run the class even though it was a holiday. I said of course, but we'd have to find a way of getting a classroom. So Hameed talked with his friend who could help us get a key to a classroom, he said sure, not a problem, he'd meet us just before class started to open up the doors.

Come class time, he shows up, and asks what we needed again. A key. Oh, right, let me call someone and see if they have a key.... So 45 minutes later we have a classroom. To make things run even smoother, one of the girls started bitchin' at me because it was a holiday and all schools and classes are shut down and this is illegal for me to make them come to class. Before I could even respond the girls that spoke english started explaining she's just mad because she has somewhere else to go and can't stay the whole class and to just ignore her. They all wanted to be there.

Rona

Rona

Shahnaz

Shahnaz

Shahnaz

Shazia

Maliha

Not being in the FabLab has its challenges. Todays class was learning about uploading photos from the camera onto the computer, uploading them in GIMP, and doing basic editing, such as crop, rotate, brightness, contrast, etc. Hameed, Rahmat, and I gathered as many laptops as we could and made sure they all had the proper programs on them prior to class. We set up a temporary portable lab in class so the girls could practice editing their pictures, and seeing the different effects moving certain tabs has on photos.

As for the assignment, it was the same as the second half of the assignment I gave the first boys class. Two pictures, one of a tree, and one of a creative way of portraying wind in the photo. The next class I'll teach is another girls class, so I'll do 2 girls, then a double boys, then a single boys, final girls, final boys, double boys. Good God these holidays really mess things up...

Maliha

Maliha

Maliha

Maliha

Masooda

Suraya

Suraya

All Rights Reserved by photographers, 2010, for all photos. Please contact info@fablab.af for individual rights.