Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Every Day a Novel


   But tomorrow may be a Russian novel, or at least an unedited Stephen King: I'm teaching a class at Tyler Junior College.  
  Not shooting...photography.  Basic black and white with a wet darkroom.  In the digital age.  Like teaching Daguerreotype after wet plate arrived.  One night course on Mondays and Wednesday evening.  In the same classroom that I sat in the first day I had a class about photography.
  We had more guys, few girls back then.  Now its flipped.  I have 17 girls and five guys.  I think I have a couple of Spanish linguists, so everyone is going to have to habla along and learn a little photo lingo.  Or lingua.
  I taught there years ago, (OK, 25 years ago) but still could recognize myself in the curriculum.  They have asked me to return several times.  I thought I better take them up on it.
  Rubbing my hands in anticipation.  I happen to teach a heck of a class, whatever the information I am given to disperse.  This ought to be really fun.  I know the subject inside and out and also the ORDER in which the material ought to be presented.  While I'm walking this group down this particular path I'll be completing an exhibition for the Tyler Art Museum next door.
  God help them.

  Photo above: Chair on a wall, 2000.  Silver print.

5 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Corrected Vesion, without the typos.


The students don't have any idea how lucky they are.
There is no where in the Universe that they can get a better basic understanding of photography and no better teacher.
Forget digital, the FRIST thing they NEED to learn is basic black and white in a wet darkroom.

d smith kaich jones said...

God, you DO have all this wonderful work out there that I've never seen. I want you to do a show with NO TREES - no shrubbery, no skies, no plants, no outsideness visible. No fireworks stands. No animals. I think it'd be great. I LOVE this shot.

And as a former student, I can verify what Len said - these students have no idea how lucky they are. I remember the stuff you taught. You made sense.

Have fun (she says snidely with a smile).

Robert Langham said...

No landscape? What there heck else IS there?

Anonymous said...

Wow, I wish I could be there. I know I would appreciate it. Until I can find a local course teaching the process and scrounge up the money, I'll just keep reading about it.