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| This is the Suzuki Institute in Metro Atlanta where teachers learn from each other on how to teach better. Basically a best practices workshop for the Suzuki method. |
If you have a workshop where teachers are learning best practices, you need to show a teacher teaching a student and other teachers watching.
I think this first photo alone helps tell the concept. Now each photo I took had small differences. In the first photo the teacher is using a very small bow to teach a technique. This photo is unique for the small bow.
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| I love the photo of this student practicing in a room with an adult. Not sure if this is his parent or teacher. The problem with this photo if I shot only this is it doesn’t show other teachers learning from this moment. However, it is another aspect to the workshop. |
While the workshop is to help teachers learn to teach better, in the process a student is also learning. Sometimes like in the photo here a student may go and practice before playing for the class. They want to do their best and also then have the teacher help them get better and not just correct something because they were sloppy.
Series
Every room I went in I shot a variety of shots. Here in the cello class I wanted to show that the Suzuki school was teaching more than just the violin. I also am showing an age group of young elementary students being taught.
The first photo is an establishing shot. The second is a tighter shot of the teacher interacting with the students. You can see this in her face expression.
The last in the series shows the children’s attention to the teacher and learning.
Perspective
These two photos of the teacher teaching shows why a photographer needs to go up in front and shoot back in a class room. The first photo only showed a teacher and one teacher observing. Now the second photo shows the same elements of the three, but adds even more from the classroom.
Be sure you work the room and this means you move around, not stay in one place and zoom from wide to a tight shot. You move around making even a simple 50mm lens do a wide, medium and a tight shot.
Different location
I went to different rooms capturing different situations. Here we have middle schoolers working as a group during a lesson.
Great Subjects
As you can see from this series this teacher is animated. This is great when the medium I am using the capture and tell the story is visual. In the first and last photos you see the gesturing of the teacher and the middle two photos are different perspectives to give you variety of overall and tight shots to help tell a more complete story of teaching.
Touching moment
The very first photo I showed in this blog and this one are great because a person is reaching out and touching another person. This becomes a much more intimate moment than all the other photos. This communicates a caring touch and sensitivity that when people are more distant lacks.
Almost monochromatic
This has just a touch of color with all the white in the photo. The girl is taking a moment to practice outside on the porch of the church where the workshop is being held.
The simplicity of the pallet of color is what drew my eye and how young she is yet so intense also communicates how important this workshop is to the students even when the teachers and parent’s are not around.
Now the business lesson
I just showed up for a total of 20 minutes and did this as a favor for some friends. I posted them on a website where they could be bought. No one has bought a single one and I doubt they will.
I saw just as many people pulling out their camera phones taking photos and posting them to their social media. For many people this is their family album and since they have a photo that will do, no one is going to purchase a better photo if their photo suffices their needs.
Why did I do this if I knew this would most likely happen? Hey I like to teach business practices. This is a great example of what not to do.
If someone asks me to do this I normally charge a fee. I assume that what they pay me will be all that I will get. They may tell me to show up and parents will love to buy photos and I will make money that way.
30 years of experience is teaching me this rarely works and getting less likely with today’s cameras and cellphone cameras.
I recommend charging a fee that makes it worth your time. Offer two or three options for them. They can pay you a fee and get to use all the photos for their organization website and you will post the photos for people to purchase at a normal print rate.
Another option is you charge the same base fee but for a slightly larger fee you give rights to anyone to download a low resolution photo they can use for social media. (Sales will suffer, so this is why you charge more)
Lastly, I would offer the same as the last package, but offer to have a studio on sight for anyone to have their portrait taken and put on the website to order prints. Again, I am assuming a fee will cover your time to have someone there to take those photos and the time to put up and take down a studio.
I believe today it is harder than ever to shoot something on speculation and make enough to stay in business. Very few situations today can you do this. What those are, I am not really sure. I just know they are fewer than ever before.