As most of you know, I also teach photography for the OLL at the University of West Florida. I have done this for many years and have had some outstanding students come though. But none like the ones this term! Wow, I had a class of excited overachievers!! They were awesome!
The basic fundamentals of the class are that you learn the principles of how to technically create a great image. The rule of thirds and others. My students turn in homework every week to be critiqued by the rest of the class. Our motto is “the only bad photograph is the one you didn’t bother to take.” And then I turn the tides. ******Spoiler Alert if you are planning on taking the class you may want to stop reading now*** You see they learned baby steps and the technical reasons behind those steps and had to add everything together each week on their assignments. Lines+ thirds+ lighting…yadayadahyada and make one image. Then came the curveball. They had to do all of this very left brained things on an image that was taken from a very out of the box viewpoint. Of course they excelled and created some great images. I was so proud of them!!
Our last class was at the Red Dog Studio. There was enough food to kill a horse and we had fun with a “Jason” Halloween decoration I had to stash in there before the tropical storm. The only person we were missing was one of the people who I think came the furthest with her art, Lydia. It’s such a joy to see the lightbulb come on and then the thirst for wanting to explore your own world more and more photographically. It just gives me goosebumps!!!
The last assignment of class was a self-portrait. It did not have to be a whole body image, nobody else could take it and as a matter of fact it didn’t even have to physically be them. It could be a representation of themselves. Once again they rocked it out. They had two weeks to complete the image and I think I heard them worrying about the assignment for all of those days. And that was good. It meant that they knew what they wanted and how much more they could accomplish and how far they wanted to push themselves and they did it with style and class!!
Thanks guys for giving me so much fun and enthusiasm for the last few weeks!!! Keep up the great work and don’t ever look at this world in your old ways again 
MJ with a little tutoring on her lines and framing assignment.
What MJ was learning to accomplish
The class minus Lydia at the Red Dog...with Jason...LOL
Rita attempting to seek Jason's help for some chin reduction
Of course I am hoping to see my little ducklings back in the spring for the photo safari class. You know we’ll have a great time and I bet there’ll be Starbucks somewhere!!
