Teen Workshop At the Art Institute of Chicago

One of the highlights this weekend, was Linda Deviller and I, assisting with the Teen Workshop Saturday at AIC.  The workshop was geared around experimental photography and took root inspiration from 2 exhibits within the museum.  The New York Photo and Film Exhibition and the Allen Ruppenburg exhibit.  We got started at 11am and continued to about 4:15pm.  The Teens where engaged the whole time and were really putting some effort and thought into their work.  There was also a significant crowd at museum that day that added to the energy and excitement.    After all of the introductions we asked students to talk about how they use photography in everyday life.

I thought it was really cool that some of students were prepared and had brought their own cameras to the class, and by the looks of the camera I knew they were really into photography.  Some talked about how they liked to photograph light, some liked people as subject, and some even proclaimed to be "experts," in Photoshop.  After viewing the exhibits and taking some initial pictures during a photo walk, we broke up into small groups and had about 20 mins to take pictures on the subject of their choice.  My two students chose to shoot architecture, and they spent time shooting the architecture and design exhibit, as well as other structural elements within the museum 

We then went back to the classroom and downloaded the pictures on macs to begin compositions in photoshop.  Students where instructed to turn the image into black and white, and then to adjust the image to prepare to print.  We printed the photographs on transparency paper to then place on them on acetate paper for display on the windows.  Students had to collage there images on the acetate paper or they could collage them together in photoshop.  Most choose to arrange their images in photoshop.

I think that class was a success, the teens walked away that day having seen multiple exhibits, taken well over 50 photos, learned more about working in Adobe Photoshop, and put it all together creatively for display.  You know it's good when all of the students want to take their work home!  For more pictures check out Linda's blog.  http://elledevil.blogspot.com/2012/10/experimental-saturday-subjective.html