The workshop pace picked up on Friday and into Saturday, culminating in the presentation of the project designs to the client, Hospitalito Atitlan. The client was blown away! The group came up with five different potential designs, and the hospital is trying to decide which one to use. They are all outstanding works.
After the client presentation just about everyone relaxed at a party along the lakefront. Unfortunately, it was about that time that some evil bug got hold of me. I won’t go into details on the chills and my other experiences of the afternoon and evening – let’s just say the bug had me confined to quarters for the duration, and I missed the party and the final dinner that evening.
What a great group though – after the dinner everyone came up to my room to check on me and say goodbye. We really come together like a family at these workshops, and the last day is an emotional mix of elation over the success of the week and the sadness that it’s over.
After a long day of travel on Sunday I arrived back home in Maryland, and picked right up on Monday where I had left off on shooting an annual report for one of my clients. Then, just to really make the point that I wasn’t in Guatemala anymore. The now famous “Blizzard of 2009” embraced us this weekend here in the Mid-Atlantic.
What a dichotomy – one Saturday walking through Santiago as Christmas festivities were in full swing, complete with a palm-leaf tree in the town square. The next, just a week later, buried in 20” of snow!
It makes the prospect of the next Design4Kids workshop in June that much more inviting. We’re considering a “Master Class” for the more advanced, experienced Fotokids. Keep tuned here and at www.Design4Kids for more to come on this workshop. And if you have the talents and experience to share – in photography, graphic design, marketing, entrepreneurship – seriously consider in joining us as a volunteer mentor. There’s no way I can fully describe the incredible fulfillment and richness of emotion that comes from working with these kids.
Feel free to contact me for more info.
Back in the classroom this morning with an explanation of depth of field and using the aperture for creative control. We worked with “the girls” today on the photography side – it just happens that the girls in the group have less photo training, while the boys are more experienced, and we’ve divided the class into beginners and advanced.
Today the group took a break from the teaching and project work and went for a day trip across the lake to Panajachel. The largest town on Lago Atitlan, Pana, as its often known, is the tourist and ex-pat mecca of the Atitlan area. This makes for a busy and photo-op rich environment.
We began the day with the less experienced kids in the group, and introduced them to the basics of exposure control – aperture, shutter and ISO, and the relationships between them. These kids have worked with digital point & shoot cameras and have a respectable grounding in composition, and this shows them how to get consistent, predictable results in their photos.
The third Design4Kids workshop began in earnest today in Santiago de Atitlan, Guatemala.