Perhaps I can offer a different perspective. Personally I am a traditional photographer, and work most in LF, B&W. I have a daughter who is a Senior in HS, at a school that has a program that sounds very similar to yours (Newton North High School, in MA). She has been involved in the photography program for all four years. My daughter is not interested in photography as a career choice, it is purely a hobby for her, and it has been her primary view into the art world. Like your program, the NNHS program exposes the students to both traditional and digital early on, then lets them choose which way they go. In my daughters case, she is doing both - she continues to do traditional photography for artistic type images, but is also the photo editor for the school online newspaper ( http://nnhsblueprint.com/ ) and her primary tool for that is a DSLR. In my opinion, the balance has been very healthy.
I am curious to know where you see the costs coming in for a traditional photography program. The capital equipment lasts forever, as opposed to digital equipment which needs to be updated regularly. Chemicals are not very expensive, and most photo programs tend to push the cost of paper onto the students. I can see how the startup costs for a traditional darkroom program might be expensive, but once it is built, it should be inexpensive to operate....
Cara,
If I may suggest you contact David Hanlon at the STLCC campus at Meramec. Surpisingly, and in spite of the fact that they are a community college, they have an amazing AFA program in photography, with state of the art facilities, including darkrooms. If your students are ultimately looking at a BFA, STLCC has an entrance agreement with UMSTL. This is pretty much the track I'll be following in the coming year (with some luck and financial ability) as after 20+ years in the workforce, mainly as a graphic artist/designer and photographer, suddenly I need at least a bachelor's degree to get a job.
I am curious to know where you see the costs coming in for a traditional photography program. The capital equipment lasts forever, as opposed to digital equipment which needs to be updated regularly. Chemicals are not very expensive, and most photo programs tend to push the cost of paper onto the students. I can see how the startup costs for a traditional darkroom program might be expensive, but once it is built, it should be inexpensive to operate....
Mark, I appreciate you sharing your daughter's experience with her program. It does sound like she is having a high school experience very similar to many of my students. As for the cost; we are a very small private school which means my budget is fairly limited. Students are charged a studio charge and I have a small amount coming from the school. Out of that comes paper, chemicals, film processing (color), negative scans, digital printing, misc supplies. Basically, the students buy film and a camera. A lot of the technology is already supported by the school so that does not come out of my budget. As for printing, I did do a lot of researching and is is much more cost effective to outsource the printing and the quality is much more reliable (or its free). Here is a quick example: If I assign a project that requires them to shoot at least 50 images and turn in 3 final prints. For a student using color film, I have to have the film processed, costing anywhere from $8 to $13 plus another $6 for 3 8x10 prints. For a student shooting digitally, it costs me $6 for the 3 prints. That extra processing adds up quickly! True, a student using Kodak TMAX incurs very little extra costs. Basically, with digital, the only cost to the school the printing. Maybe I should look into processing our own color film.
Many of the students who take digital first end up in my class because they feel they missed something about the fundamentals of photography.
I think you offer a great program and to go with the wind, both is a good idea. It opens up the options for perspective photographers. However for aforementioned reasons (read above) keep as much film as you can. Because the math and the how to's go away the more automatic we become. if a student learns about H&R curves and how to figure out an aperture between diameter and lens focal lenght then they take something that not many photographer;s have with them today. They may not get everything that you teach them at first, but they know it is there and if interested, they will know that there is more out there available to their photography. Good luck and keep 'em clicking.
I think your multifaceted approach is the best. Digital is a reality, especially for a student who expects to work commercially. Analog is the choice for serious fine art photography. There are many more digital aspirants in that sector, but most every heavy hitter in the fine art arena is shooting an analogue process, as are most of the notable and widely collected prints.
I would say that the supposed "cost effectiveness" of digital is a red herring.
Ongoing operating costs are merely replaced by hardware and software costs that must be re-upped on a frequent basis. My operating costs as a professional photographer have sky rocketed with the addition of digital to the arsenal some six years ago.
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--J Brunner, The Prints of Darkness
Thank you to everyone who has replied thus far. I do have to defend the analog portion of the curriculum, especially to parents who are paying a lot of money for a college preparatory school. They want the latest, greatest, and most advanced of everything! The students are benefiting in the long run. Your comments are both reaffirming and useful.
I love the idea of applying the darkroom to other disciplines. This is only my second year of teaching so I am gathering as much advice and knowledge as possible. This group has been an inspiring find!
Thanks
Cara
Of course they want the latest and greatest but they are not teachers. If they were they would understand the need for a foundation of knowledge. If they did not understand that, they need to get out of the classroom.
I hear this all the time at the school I work in. I supervise teachers and field a lot of parent issues. (even though I am not supposed too, but the principal is...well..that is another story) Everyone of our students has been issued a laptop and each laptop was loaded with a scientific/graphing calculator. Parents are constantly whining about their students having to learn to do 7th and eighth grade math by hand. The students whine about it, and when one teacher whined about it the math department jumped them hard. Foundation. If you don't build it there is only so far a student can go.
Stick to your guns.
__________________
Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. Pope Paul VI
So, I think the "greats" were true to their visions, once their visions no longer sucked. Ralph Barker 12/2004
Last edited by mark; 03-19-2008 at 10:28 PM.
Reason: My grammar sucks
i think instead of teaching them all this stuff, they should be learning the math behind apertures, focal length, DoF, how an SLR works, and all that good stuff. test them on equations.
i think instead of teaching them all this stuff, they should be learning the math behind apertures, focal length, DoF, how an SLR works, and all that good stuff. test them on equations.
I respect your opinion, I only wonder why the "math" behind photography would be more important than teaching them how to observe and see the world around them differently and how to use photography to communicate? Keep in mind that these are high school students with attention spans only slightly longer than kindergartens! Again, I want them to enter into a "love affair" with the medium regardless of what they decide to do after they leave my classroom.
I don't know how much of it you already do, but I have 3 suggestions, based on what I would have loved to learn in high school:
- spend some of your time on art appreciation - eg, use of light, shadow and perspective in art/painting through the ages, and show how it relates to photography - where it's similar, and where it differs, the concept of the camera obscura, where painters/other artists "bend" or "break" the physical rules, etc. In addition to laying a theoretical foundation, it also has the advantage of being material perfect for testing Don't belabour the points, as likely most kids want to actually go out and try things, but it's a quality way to start.
- in addition to film SLRs/cameras, get your students to play with something more basic, such as a pinhole camera. Cardboard-based pinhole kits are pretty inexpensive, or they can make their own rudimentary ones - lots of plans out there, including ones made from matchboxes. It illustrates some of the most basic photographic principles, and shows the kids (and hopefully by extension, their parents) that you don't *need* anything electronic to make a good and/or interesting picture.
- combine something with the chemistry/science department as mentioned earlier - making cyanotypes comes to mind (you can even play with "cameraless photography", like a photogram), as long as you can get "potassium ferrocyanide" past the parents Lots of chemistry and physics in photography, no reason not to try.
Finally, if you don't do it already, an end-of-year showcase evening (possibly selected by their peers) would encourage students to try things and produce as good work as possible, and let the parents actually see what's being done in your classes.
As a goodwill gesture, it might be worth your while to offer a one-night-a-week basic photography course to the parents lasting a few weeks - where I am, a couple of local stores do this, and it's fairly popular - this operates on the principle that people generally become less reactionary or dismissive about what they experience themselves, rather than what they think they know or don't fully understand. And a little pressure from their kids to take this course never hurt
By the by, if you want plans for matchbox pinhole cameras that employ 35mm film, I can arrange to write down how I do it and provide some illustrations. Let me know.
Don't belabour the points, as likely most kids want to actually go out and try things, but it's a quality way to start.
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