Monday, November 22, 2010
The "Making Photography Come Alive" Story
It was an ordinary day. I had just received the fall copy of "Instructor Newsletter", a publication from Ilford Photo. Ilford is a primarily black and white photography company based in Knutsford, Cheshire, England which sells film, paper and chemicals for developing black and white. The Ilford Photo Instructor Newsletter is published twice a year by IlfordPhoto, Paramus, NJ. I found out about it in the early 1990s and asked for a free subscription for Manheim Township High School where I taught. Called a few times with questions about their products and talked with Wendy Erickson who is the Executive Editor of the newsletter. She asked if I would be interested in contributing to the newsletter. Every time I have an article published the school would receive a complimentary box of Ilford supplies. In the fall issue of 1993 I had an article published titled "Using Your Community Resources." The article was a full page with a large title at the top and a small description of the author at the bottom. The article was meant to help other high school photography teachers with ideas for their classroom. I always took a few weeks from my classroom teaching to invite photography professionals into my classroom. Maybe a portraiture photographer, a newspaper photographer, a Doctor who specializes in radiation photography, or a camera store owner. If it was at all possible, we would travel "on location" to see the speaker in their own environment. I regularly had Smokey Roberts speak to my class. Smokey is an underwater photographer and cinematographer who worked with Jacques Cousteau on a few assignments. The students benefited tremendously from hearing the stories of these professionals. Made photography come alive. My article described the types of speakers a teacher could invite to their room, how to approach the school administration, types of calls and letters to make to the professionals, and a variety of ways to introduce them to the class. After being published, I was sent an assortment of photographic papers and film to use in my class. Very nice contribution from Ilford. In the fall of 1994 I had another article published titled "Have You Tried These Assignments Yet?" I described a few assignments that the students really enjoyed and were assignments that were meant to bring out their creative ideas as much as teach the mechanics of photography. Again a nice box of supplies from the company. By now I am telling the students that they may want to choose Ilford as well as Kodak as their choice of film and paper for the class. I suppose that was Ilford's idea behind the newsletter in the first place. The newsletter continued until 1997, but I never submitted other articles. Not sure why, but I just didn't. I found sharing my classroom stories with others to be exciting. Much the same as I do with sharing my life's stories with the readers of my blog. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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