Photo Time

My thoughts are anchored to next week, the start of classes, the new term, so I'm doing something I try to never do. Namely, getting stuck in the future, not living the now. Sometimes it's inevitable because we've got to prep for whatever project we're getting ready for, but pictures don't come from the future, they come from the present. At the moment I'm not making pictures but handouts, and outlines and narrative descriptions, and writing lots of emails.

This thing called teaching amazes me. How does it happen that something in my brain is transferred to your brain? What can I do when teaching photography to make it happen more efficiently, more substantially? After years of playing at this particular game I've turned the question around -- how do you learn photography?

I love thinking about learning, the process, and the shape of knowledge. And over the years I've learned a lot about it. One thing I know now is that the handouts don't matter all that much (though I continue to spend a lot of time on them); neither do the slide shows, the demonstrations, the props, or the dramatics. None of the individual pieces are critical in themselves. Rather, it's the way they all go together that starts the cascade.

In the end we learn photography by doing it, as we do with everything else. This semester I'll put the parts together again, but it'll be like assembling air if I can't convince you to join me in the act of making pictures. And to do that I've got some tried and true techniques I'll pull out again, some new handouts, a bunch of old photos, and some of my favorite stories, but what I'll rely on most, as always, is a really great conversation. Let's get it started!