For Educators
They tried it. They liked it!
The innovative educators below share their thoughts on using Lensbaby lenses in the classroom.
Maia Dery, Photography Instructor
Art Department
Guilford College
Greensboro, NC
guilford.edu
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- College students… about 80 % traditional college age (18-23) and 20% returning adult students.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- Like the debate between walking and running, each is appropriate for a different situation.
- 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- My primary cameras are a 4×5 inch view camera, a 35mm film camera, and a Nikon D70.
- 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
- How lucky they are to be alive, even if life involves a lot of hard work and frustration.
- How beautiful ordinary things can be if seen through the right set of eyes.
- Hard work holds great joy and rewards for those willing to engage in it.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- When Shawn began working there!
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- To ease the pain of the darkroom and give students a new, easily accessible, quick way of seeing differently.
- 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- Please see my article on teachingphoto.com
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- Seeing students grow up and being able to encourage the process.
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- Watching young people get in their own way.
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- cheerful tenacity
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Arnold Minkkenen
Ruth Bernhard
Edward Weston
James Natchwey
Joyce Tenneson - 12. How do you inspire yourself?
- Looking carefully at how the world around me works and understanding that I'm lucky to be a part of it in any way I can. Photography helps me structure and nurture gratitude for my own existence.
Harris Fogel, Coordinator of Photography
Media Arts Department
The University of the Arts
Philadelphia, PA
www.uarts.edu
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- As coordinator of the Photography Program, I have taught almost all the courses in the curriculum, from intro to seniors to digital.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- I feel that the rush to abandon film is shortsighted and destructive. Digital is a far more expensive, complicated workflow, and dependent on incredibly immature technology and industry trends. That said, digital is here to stay, and is the primary mode of image capture in the western world. I strongly support maintaining both processes. It’s just more tools for a photographer to draw upon.
- 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- I shoot digital primarily with Olympus cameras and lenses, although I have shot in the past with Fuji, Nikon, and Canon. I also shoot with a Hasselblad and 8×10-inch Deardorff. For digital capture, our Equipment Room is primarily stocked with Olympus cameras, and most students that own DSLRs use Olympus, Canon, or Nikon, with a few Pentax cameras in the mix. We also have a full set of Toyo 4×5-inch view cameras, Hasselblads, and Mamiya medium format, and Hasselblad H1s with digital backs. Many of our students shoot film, while others are purely digital by the time they graduate. We also have a strong Alternative Process program led by Sarah Van Keuren over in the Printmaking Department, which tends to balance the digital influence, although they too create the negatives digitally. So, just about anything and everything is fair game!
- 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
- A passion for life. To have no fear of failing. An understanding that there are an infinite number of ways to solve a problem.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- At PhotoPlus Expo in New York several years ago.
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- We have them in our check-out room and encourage students to shoot with them.
- 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- I have used them to teach the importance of Depth of Field, and most importantly to have fun!
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- The day that finals week is over and you turn in your grades!
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- Schools are often bastions of bureaucracy, and the amount of time wasted for what turns out to be non-essential administrative tasks is just astonishing.
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- Fearlessness coupled with attention to detail.
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Too long a list to consider. I started with the Weston’s, Adam’s, Stieglitz, and Frank’s of my generation, but since then it’s impossible to count the sources of inspiration.
- 12. How do you inspire yourself?
- By turning up the music and dancing.
Head, Photography Program
Northeastern University
Boston, MA
www.art.neu.edu
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- University level classes: I teach an intro class and senior thesis classes. We are an undergraduate program.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- I am firmly in the digital camp. The program I run will gut the darkrooms this summer and will go all digital.
- 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- We use Nikon D70 and D80's, calumet and Toyo views and Hasselblads
- 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
- The ability to make their own pictures (meaning that they've discovered who they are photographically), that they are self learners(life-long) and that they are independent.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- At the SPE conference when it was held in Portland, Or. I bought one on the spot and started using it that week.
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- I give an explanation and visual demo of how it can be used to make interpretive and expressive pictures. This winter I mounted a small exhibition of my work with the 3G to show students.
- 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- I like Lensbaby pictures the most when they alter scale so that what I’m photographing looks like it could be a model instead of something real.
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- What students give back to me. How I’ve stayed younger thru them and how generous they are to me.
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- Their laziness and their not “getting it”.
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- Passion.
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Fred Sommer, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind(all three were my teachers, pretty cool legacy)
- 12) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- I am 60 and my career is now quite long but over the past I’ve used exploring something new to find new ways to make pictures I did this in the late 70’s by first starting to work with infrared and then developing a 70mm IR system to use with a Hasselblad SWC. Later, I used digital film writers and would create digital 8 × 10 sheets of film in order to make darkroom prints that looked good from digital files.
I would say that to become a student of the medium again it is important to revitalize your work.
Instructor Digital Photography
Randolph Community College
RCCphoto.blogspot.com
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- At Randolph Community college we teach students ranging from 17 years old and higher. My classes are specifically digital photography classes for students who are in their second year of study in an Associates Degree program.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- Our students study only traditional darkroom for their first year of training, then use a combination of film and digital for the remainder of their curriculum. Film is a useful tool to teach students how to really see and technically achieve their desired photographic results.
- 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- Our students utilize medium, large, and small format photography, with digital and film cameras. We use a variety of med-range to professional level cameras including Maymia 645, Leaf digital backs, Sinar, Cannon (30D, 5D), Nikon (D200, D300), and Kodak.
- 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
- An eye for composition and color. Technical understanding of Photography. Creative vision and problem solving.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- When we received our first Lensbaby donation in 2006. Thank you for your support!
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- Lensbabies enable our students to see images through new eyes. After shooting an assignment they may use Lensbabies to create effects not imagined with tradional lenses. Students also use Lensbabies to see options for Scheinflug effect with digtal SLR cameras. In fact Lensbabies provide a scope for learning both creative vision and making connections to their technical foundations.
- 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- The ability to create Scheinflug or depth of field not possible with a traditional lens.
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- Seeing student progress into professional who use information from my class to feed their families and build successful careers.
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- Maintaining connections to technology and professional trends. (i.e. keeping up!)
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- Hard work and creative vision.
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- James Nachtwey, Jill Greenberg, Lauren Greenfield.
- 12) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Travel and visiting museums. I have been to China twice in the past year and will return again this spring.
CommunityDarkrooms.com
Syracuse, NY
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- Currently, I’m teaching five week studio workshops. These are open to all ages but participants are primarily college age students and adults.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- There’s still a debate? Actually that’s a complex question with an equally complex answer so I’ll be brief.
For my personal work, my project work, I still shoot silver but my images are scanned and output is via inkjet printer. Other work, assignment work, is completely digital.
For me, the biggest issues still facing digital capture are its archival qualities, i.e. how are these images stored, how permanent is this storage, will these types of files (RAW, TIFF, etc.) be supported 20 years from now, will the storage medium (CD, DVD, memory cards) be supported, etc. Even though silver negatives are not 100% archival and are as fragile as any other material thing, they are still tangible and that has a certain “value”. Plus, there is still the option to print from the negatives themselves or scan the negatives — the best of both worlds.
There are many other components in the film/digital argument, especially in terms of journalism and documentary work, but I’ll finish by saying these are certainly interesting times in terms of technology. - 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- In small format I use Nikon and Leica M. I also use a variety of medium and large format equipment as well as pinhole and toy cameras.
Most students use small format exclusively with the majority now digital SLR’s. I find a nearly even mix of Canon and Nikon products. - 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
- There are no “rules” in photography. If you come across any try to break, or at least disregard, them.|
Photography is suggestive. Do what you care about but be open to the idea of trying new things.
Equipment is the boring part of photography. Use what you have and don’t believe people who tell you spending money on cameras with built in altimeters, MP3 players, and GPS systems will make you a better photographer.
Look at photographs and art. Take art history courses and spend money on books of photographs instead of more camera gear.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- I honestly don’t recall, but believe it was a review in a photography magazine.
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- I usually give a Lensbaby demo when I bring in some of my toy cameras to show students they can make great images with equipment not reliant on batteries, microchips, and 300 page instruction manuals.
It’s also fun to turn someone’s $1,500 DSLR into a $20 toy camera by putting a Lensbaby on the front — and getting cooler images than the ones taken with their “real” lenses. - 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- I don’t use the Lensbaby to do this, but certainly you could demonstrate depth of field in a straight forward manner as it’s simple to change the aperture rings. You can also easily demonstrate focal plane, etc.
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- When students realize they can make images they care about if they put forth a bit of effort. Exposing students to the work of other photographers and types of photography they may not have known existed. Giving students some simple tools which allow them to look more critically at images. Sorry, that’s more than one.
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- Failing to convince everyone that people are responsible for making intriguing images and the tools used to do so are simply a means to that end. That said, it’s important to learn as much technical stuff as you can because a solid understanding of the medium will help with future problem solving.
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- The ability to listen, accept new ideas and solutions for difficulties, and most importantly the willingness to work hard.
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Bresson, Fellig, Frank, Salgado, Sudek, Towell, Peres, Nachtwey, and many, many others.
- 12) How do you inspire yourself?
- By constantly looking at photographs. [ close ]
Studio Lighting Professor
School of Visual Arts
New York, N.Y.
http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/
- 01) Please describe the age of your students and the type of photography/art class you teach.
- My students are sophomores in college around 20 years of age. Some of my other classes have Students that are anywhere from 20 to 45 years old and want to learn about Studio Lighting and shooting with all that equipment.
- 02) Where do you stand on the debate between film vs digital?
- If we were at a cocktail party about 6 years ago we would certainly be discussing the pros and cons of FILM vs. DIGITAL.
Now it seems that there is really not much debate or discussion as to which is better or worst. Digital Technology has arrived in 2008 and the cameras and printers are clearly sophisticated enough to where the Chip technology and the quality of printers can make image that are sharper and perfected to beyond what analog film can do.
Artists do not need to be digital but Commercial Photographers must. If you are an artist you can still employ film and older analog processes but to be competitive in a commercial market, You MUST be digital in your workflow and competitiveness in the marketplace. - 03) What camera systems do you and your students use?
- We shoot with the latest digital cameras and computers. Canon 5D, 20D, 30D, mark2, Leaf Aptus backs medium format, hasslblad H-1 MacPros and adobe photoshop Lightroom for workflow.
- 04) What are at least three of the most important lessons you want your students to take away from your classroom?
-
- Students should take away the knowledge of how digital photography is all so confusing and that we are still searching for a way to have the camera companies talk to the software companies to talk to the companies that make printers and everyone else that is proprietary with their own way of how to sell their product to the Photographic community of Professionals and Consumers.
- How to create a skill set that will help them find a job in the marketplace of Digital photography.
- To follow their dreams of being a Photographer or Artist in a world that has made Photography a household item accessible to everyone that owns a camera to claim to call themselves a Photographer/Artist because technology has made everyone with a camera a photographer. The bar has been lowered to the lowest point and everyone is jumping over it, claiming to have talent.
- 05) When did you first hear about Lensbabies?
- I heard about it at the Photo Expo a few years ago and saw it advertised in some trade publications.
- 06) How do you use Lensbabies in your classroom?
- I have been using the Lensbaby in my Studio Photography class this semester at The School of Visual Arts by making one of the required assignments to use the Lensbaby and electronic studio strobes to make an editorial studio portrait and to create selective focus by shifting and tilting the Lensbaby as we have learned on the 4×5 view camera.
- 07) What do you like about using the Lensbaby?
- It takes the edge off of digital and makes it more organic.
- 08) What's one of the highlights of teaching?
- Being part of a community of young and Contemporary Adults that share one thing in common and that is a commitment to a life of creativity and learning to nourish the creative soul in each of us.
- 09) What's one of the frustrations?
- That sometimes Youth is wasted on the Youth.
- 10) The quality you most admire in a student?
- Focus and discipline. That’s all you need.
- 11) Who are some of your favorite photographers?
- Helmut Newton, Hiro, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Josef Koudelka, Sebastrio Salgado,Duane Michals, Diane Arbus.
- 12) How do you inspire yourself?
- Leave your Apt or House and….... Go outside and don’t forget to bring your camera…...and lensbaby….lol… [ close ]
