After a couple years it was wonderful to host our Exploring Photography teen summer camp again!
Over four afternoons last week, instructor Lisa Zirbel taught our students the fundamentals of photography across both digital and traditional film mediums. Students learned how to shoot 35mm black and white film with manual SLR cameras and make enlargements from their film in our photo lab. They also had the opportunity to make studio-lit portraits, which they processed using Adobe Photoshop to make inkjet prints of their photos. They even mixed film and digital photography both by making cyanotypes using negatives printed digitally from their own images, as well as by using botanicals and expired photo paper to make lumen prints in the sun during class.
To end all of our teen camps, on the final day we pin the students’ work on the wall and invite their families for a critique session to reflect on what they learned and the challenges they faced while creating their art.
After a couple years it was wonderful to host our Exploring Photography teen summer camp again!
Over four afternoons this week, instructor Lisa Zirbel taught our students the fundamentals of photography across both digital and traditional film mediums. Students learned how to shoot 35mm black and white film with manual SLR cameras and make enlargements from their film in our photo lab. They also had the opportunity to make studio-lit portraits, which they processed using Adobe Photoshop to make inkjet prints of their photos. They even mixed film and digital photography both by making cyanotypes using negatives printed digitally from their own images, as well as by using botanicals and expired photo paper to make lumen prints in the sun during class.
To end all of our teen camps, on the final day we pin the students’ work on the wall and invite their families for a critique session to reflect on what they learned and the challenges they faced while creating their art.
There are still slots open for our July session of this summer camp as well!
During our Winter Photography Camp for Teens we took our cameras out into the world! Our students learned practical skills including the basics of manual camera controls, composition, and working with a location. They also had lots of fun shooting on the fly!
In this four-day class we took photo walks in Downtown Gilbert, Papago Park, and Downtown Mesa. Back at the ranch, we all reviewed their best images together, and they edited in Photoshop and made finished portfolio prints.
In our Exploring Photography and Darkroom Photography for Teens summer camps we experimented with all the possibilities of photography!
Our Exploring Photography students shot images on 35mm film, processed it themselves, and printed their images in the darkroom – many of them for the first time ever. They also took digital pictures, edited them in Adobe Photoshop, and made beautiful inkjet prints of their photos. They learned manual SLR camera functions like ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, which are used in both film and digital capture, and played around with composition, lighting, and varying perspectives. With these tools, our students are ready to dig deeper into their preferred photographic medium and really become pros!
Our Darkroom Photography students shot 35mm, 120mm, and even 4×5″ film, spanning the range of film formats from casual to professional. They each captured photos relating to a project concept of their own choosing, allowing them to flex their artistic muscles in finding or creating images. Once they processed all that film, they put in some dedicated time in the darkroom printing their work, even learning advanced techniques like split-filter printing. In the end, each student left with 3-4 perfect prints for their portfolio.
At the end of all our photography camps we pin up everyone’s work from the week and reflect on our successes and challenges. It’s at this time that the immense creative drive and talent our students posses really shines.
We had a blast this summer sharing our love of photography with young artists!
