Teaching photography

I had the joy of teaching a photography workshop at my church retreat this past weekend, helping people to see the world in new ways, and improve their photography while they were at it. I was quite impressed with the results of my students. One assignment I gave was to go shoot a roll of film's worth (30-40 digital photos) from unusual vantage points. One guy took a picture of his own reflection in a car bumper, and you can see his feet sticking out down below the reflection. Because of the curvature of the bumper, it looks like he's just a face with feet. Very amusing, and I'm still puzzled at exactly how he got it to look the way he did. One woman took a picture of a kid on a trampoline, as seen from beneath the trampoline, so you just see this girl in silhouette through the mesh, floating in the air with trees behind/above her. Both of those photos were quite striking in how they stepped away from the usual way we see the world.

One of the ironies of teaching photography is you don't generally get to take any pictures yourself, because you need to be available to coach the students and answer questions, etc. But I did manage to take a few photos over the weekend (none from unusual vantage points, though). This one was of a shrub on the grounds of Westminster Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Mission, BC, where a few of us went for a Taizé service Saturday evening. No Photoshopping, apart from the routine resizing and Unsharp Mask.