Tuesday was an all-day bus ride from Guatemala City to La Ceiba, Honduras. Fourteen hours, with a bus change and layover of 2 hours in San Pedro, Honduras. Met our cab driver in La Ceiba and took the 45-minute ride up the dirt road to Las Mangas.

After disembarking in San Pedro my iphone was “disappeared” – slipped out of my pocket in the seat, and I was off the bus before I realized it. A “search” by the bus service personnel turned up nothing. Mysteriously I was not allowed back on to look for myself.

So much for keeping in touch by email – all of my contacts were on the phone, not yet in this new computer. Hopefully I’ll be able to restore everything from the backup when I return and get a replacement.

The next two days were spent teaching photo classes to the students at Guaruma, the school project here. Originally started as a photography school for the children in Las Mangas, the project now has expanded to include environmental awareness studies and English, and has a second location about 5 kilometers farther up the mountain in El Pital.

The project we created for the kids was a simulated magazine cover, to teach the students awareness of shooting pictures for a specific format and subject, and then laying out the cover with their photos in Photoshop.

Wednesday we met up with Guaruma’s assistant director, Chris Poliquin and the school’s English teacher, Erin Coutts. That day we worked with the students in Las Mangas, and the theme of their assignment was “form and color in nature”. We took a walk along the nature trails that Guaruma maintains up the road and across the river just outside town.

The kids here are very much into macro photography, and their sensitivity and awareness of their environment is great to see. A few leaves on the jungle floor become a carefully composed still life, often displaying the subtle interplay of muted greens and browns, other times exploding in the vibrant colors of jungle flowers.

And insects – Oui! They have a critical eye for the smallest creature resting on a leaf or poised on the end of a branch, and work their subjects like a fashion photographer working with their model. Incredible shots of what others might think of as mundane and perhaps something to be dismissed and avoided.

After shooting their photos, we returned to the school where they loaded them onto the computers and learned how to combine the images in Photoshop into a template Eric created as the cover layout.

Then they played with changing type colors and fonts, moving type around the page, and learned how working with layers simplifies so many things. The students were excited to discover what they could do in the program and quickly realized how these techniques could be used with other projects.

Thursday we went up the road to El Pital and worked with the students up there. Neither of these “towns” are even wide spots in the road, but El Pital is a bit more “rustic”. There’s no nature trail there and the focus of their shoot was portraiture of the townspeople.

After some pointers on the do’s – and don’ts – of taking people pictures along with an explanation of how to shoot for a specific format, we unleashed this gaggle of paparazzi on the town.

While a few held back and preferred the comfort of using each other as subjects, most were quick to engage people they met (of course in this town, everyone knows each other) and ask to take their picture. Most were willing subjects and enjoyed working with the kids.

After corralling everyone and herding them back to the classroom, the kids went through the same process of putting their photos into the “cover” template. This group was a bit less computer-savvy than the Las Mangas kids, but nonetheless picked up the concepts and techniques pretty quickly.

This project gives the students an opportunity to learn practice skills that they’ll be able to apply to all of their photography as they move forward in developing their skills.

All of the members of the Jakaramba studio will be participating in the workshop. Up to now their clients have been primarily local and regional non-profit organizations, and they’ve worked on smaller projects. We hope they’ll come away from the workshop with a clear direction for the studio and a solid marketing plan, ready to take their business to the next level.

The client for this workshop will be FotoKids itself, and the project a self-published book to be used for promotion and fund-raising. Plans for the he book are to include an overview of the Fotokids project, feature photographs by FotoKids students, and to touch on the beauty and challenges of Guatemala.

Additional customizable chapters will include bios on individual students, coverage of the Design4Kids project and a look at Jakaramba.

Instructors for this workshop will be Design4Kids director Jeff Speigner, teaching graphic design, Cathy Shea teaching marketing, and Eric Lollkema and myself teaching photography. I’ll also be working with Cathy to interject the small business, target marketing approach with her big business marketing skills and experience.

Eric and I will be arriving a week early and making a side trip to Honduras, where we’ll be teaching photo classes for several days at Guaruma, the Honduras branch of Fotokids.

An interesting side note I’ve recently learned is that while it is currently the rainy season in Guatemala, with moderate temperatures and daily storms, Honduras, right next door but on the Caribbean coast, is in their dry season, with hot sunny days and temps near 100! Quite a climate variance in a area the size of the Carolinas!

Check in regularly – I’ll be providing periodic updates during the trip – internet connections permitting.

Last Saturday started it off with the Kids & Parents Photo Class. The introductory class was geared toward the kids – 11 to 15 year olds – and the parents came along to share the experience and learn alongside each other. Of course, with today’s tech-savvy kids, it’s likely that they were explaining it again to the parents that evening!

We went over the basics of using their cameras – point & shoots – and a little on light and composition. Next we all went outside and practiced what they learned. Then we came back in the classroom and looked at some photo editing techniques, using software like Google’s Picasa.

The parents told me that the kids went home and took photos all afternoon!

That was followed up during the week with the first of two Home Photography Clinics, this one held in Potomac, Maryland, aimed at professionals in the real estate industry who take their own photos for their listings.

While I still make my living as an architectural photographer, it’s obvious that every photo of every home on the market doesn’t justify a budget of hiring a professional like myself. Many clients over the years have asked about how to take better photos themselves, so I’ve put together a two-day workshop to teach some tips and techniques for improving their photos, without all the expensive and complex equipment that I use.

We started with camera basics – many people at this level are using their cameras on the totally automatic settings, and just taking the camera off “the green” and learning how to control it yourself goes a long way towards improving your results.

We talked a bit about equipment – at least an entry-level SLR is really best – plus adding a wide angle lens and a hot shoe flash to allow bouncing and diffusing light.

And of course using a tripod! I’m a big proponent of using a tripod for just about any photo situation you can. It makes it much easier to get sharp pictures in any condition, and frees you up from worrying about too-slow shutter speeds and too-high and noisy ISO’s.

Then we talked about the qualities and colors of light, and how they all play a key role in the success of a photo. Light should always be the first consideration, not an afterthought.

We followed that up with a look at some basics of composition and design elements, like the Rule of Thirds and using lines – especially the power of diagonal lines – to move the eye through the picture and capture the viewer’s attention.

The first day finished up with some considerations and techniques especially useful for architectural-type shooting. We talked about perspective distortion and parallel lines. And about how to tame the typical ultra-high contrast lighting situations found when photographing interiors.

The second day began with the participants practicing the techniques learned on day one. I hold the workshops in a house to give the students an opportunity to try these techniques right away and ask questions.

Finally we went over some very useful post processing methods that make life in the digital age so much easier.

Shooting in RAW is the first thing to consider to make the process of adjusting images on the computer easier and more efficient. This is another reason for choosing an SLR – even most of the entry level models have RAW capture, while only some advanced digital and few point & shoots allow this.

White balancing an interior space illuminated by mixed light sources can be a time-consuming and complicated task with film and even when shooting JPEGS in camera. With Raw processing it becomes a one-click process, with maybe a little slider adjustment to fine tune things. True, some RAW processing software like Adobe Camera Raw allows white balance adjustments on JPEGS, but this feature is often not found on the more economical entry-level programs.

While critical perspective control is still best done with specialty PC lenses (or a view camera), the ability to quickly adjust for keystoning in programs like Photoshop will instantly take photos of both exteriors and interiors up to a level far above the average real estate listing snapshots.

And the ability to bracket exposures and combine them in post-processing is a tremendously useful means of overcoming too-contrasty lighting conditions. With a bit of practice it soon becomes a quick and simple method of taming extreme highlights and shadows, without the greater learning curve and specialty software required for true HDR images.

Everyone who participated was truly excited to start using their new-found skills, and this week we’ll repeat the workshop with another group in Northern Virginia. Those students are already calling with eager questions and requests!

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.

After a short in-class presentation and a few examples, we went outside and practiced the techniques – definitely the best way to really learn and understand how to do it. Everyone loves the opportunity to play and experiment with the camera.

Then back inside for the next lesson – fill flash. We did double photo sessions with the same group today while the other group was doing screen printing on the graphic design side, and will do the same tomorrow with the boys working with us on photography.

It was a natural segue from aperture to understanding the use of fill flash both indoors and outside. It’s natural for beginners to simply use flash as the primary light source and blast away. Once you see the subtle natural results from balancing flash with available light, you really begin to get excited about the possibilities for creative control.

The kids really got into shooting photos of each other with the flash – they played like paparazzi and stars! This group is an amazingly talented bunch of kids, and they devour every new concept we present them.

The afternoon was project work. The concepts are set and the posters are really coming along. Only a day and a half before they present the final designs to the client.

Tomorrow we’ll see how the boys do with depth of field and fill flash. The girls have set the bar!

One on Pana’a attributes is that all three of Atitlan’s volcanos – Vuncans Atitlan, San Pedro and Toliman are all visible from the town’s harbor. Heading up into town and all streets are predictably lined with shops offering local clothing, jewelry and all manner of souvenirs. It’s a colorful gauntlet, and if the shops don’t entice you the street vendors are always there with their offerings.

But we weren’t there to shop. Bree Hankinson, who runs the Fotokids program in Santiago, created The Amazing Photo Race for the kids (and the mentors). We teamed up in teams of three and went out into the town to solve a cryptic list of photo assignments. It made for some very creative thinking and rewarding inter-cultural teamwork between the kids and mentors. Not to mention some interesting interpretations and translations of the photo list!

Tomorrow its back to class and work on the project.

In case you haven’t seen my earlier posts on the workshop, Design4Kids is a group of volunteers from the photography, graphic design and marketing world who volunteer and get together to teach creative, business and life skills to groups of young people in Guatemala.

We’re affiliated with Fotokids, a non-profit organization teaching photography in several programs within Guatemala and now Honduras. Every six months a select group of these talented young people are selected to come with us to Santiago de Atitlan for a week-long workshop, where they actually work with a client to produce a marketing or promotional piece.The goal of the workshops is to help the kids develop the skills and knowledge to operate their own design studio. That is now a reality, in the form of Jarakamba – a studio with offices in Santiago and Guatemala City.

We’re less than a month away from the next workshop, scheduled for December 5^th thru the 13^th. We’ve all been working tirelessly to prepare a program to help the students succeed, and the excitement is building. Check in for new updates as the day arrives!

For more information:

www.design4kids.org

www.fotokids.org

We met for our first class session on Thursday, August 27^th. Since part of the idea behind this class is the development of an online course, we meet for one hour each week and a portion of the class is delivered to each member via email.

Everyone received the preliminary lesson online, then on Thursday we met at a local business-retail-entertainment center, which has a lake, attractions for kids and adults and is a bonanza of visual stimulation and photo opportunities. What better way to stir up a little creativity!?

After a short introduction here’s the assignment everyone did: roam around the center and photograph whatever appealed to their eye. There are a multitude of opportunities to photograph people, things, animals, scenery and buildings at this place. Sounds overly simple doesn’t it?

Here’s the real meat of the assignment. Instead of just wandering around shooting one or two pictures of everything, really take the time to concentrate on just a few subjects. Engage your creative mind and look for every possible way to shoot the same subject.

Start by thinking about both horizontal and vertical compositions. Try getting close, as well as backing up and getting a wider view.

Instead of just standing and shooting from your own eye level, try to get above your subject. And below. Even try laying down and shooting from ground level.

When taking pictures of people – and animals – this is especially effective. We’re all used to seeing the world from our eye level, our perspective. How about kneeling down and photographing kids eye-to-eye at their level. It’s probably been a long time since you looked at everything from their perspective. 

The whole idea is to get out of your routine way of looking at the world, breaking those habits and making yourself think and see things differently.

The students are now emailing me their photos. We’ll critique their photos and share everyone’s results with each other, so everyone can learn and grow.

So if you’re feeling stuck and bored with your pictures, and are looking to expand your thinking outside of the everyday routine box. Give this a try – whatever your subject.

Just be forewarned – once you do, you may find things don’t all fit back inside that box!

Stu Estler

We go at about the same time each year (around July 4^th), stay at the same house we’ve stayed at each year, and after that much time it all has the look and feel of familiarity that we all find in our own every day surroundings.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

Now don’t get me wrong – it’s a beautiful location, it’s great to spend time together with the family, and there’s plenty to do at and around the lake. It’s hardly a boring vacation.

But after this long, I found myself working much harder to find new and different photo ops. Being a bit laid slowed down by an injury this year kept me from being as active and from ranging as far afield as I usually do, and that certainly played a part.

One of the first reactions in a place like this is to zone in on the beauty of the place and the ever-changing scene unfolding as weather moves up, down and across the lake.

But after ten years, I found myself thinking, “OK, so I don’t have a photo of the lake with THAT particular cloud formation, but I’ve got eleven dozen with cloud formations that look an awfully lot like that one.”

Of course, there will always be the shots of family and our activities, which are a never-ending source of subject matter. When we look back, it’s those pictures that keep the memories of those wonderful times alive.

We may always go up to the airport for the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast, but this is probably the only time that I’ll see my niece’s son – would that be my grand-nephew? I’m still confused about all that stuff – probably the only time I’ll catch him surveying his handiwork on his pancake breakfast like this.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

In fact there was barely time to lift the camera and press the shutter before the moment was gone. No time to carefully compose, and avoid the bright orange shirt behind him. A bit of localized saturation and tone reduction helped reduce that a little – believe me, that shirt must be neon international orange!

When the exciting becomes the ordinary, it’s helpful to go back to the basics, and take a look at things through different eyes.

Are you used to framing grand, sweeping panoramas? Switch to a long lens and take a much closer look at things. Concentrate on design, on color, on form instead of on what the subject is.

Select a particular focal length lens – even if it’s a particular setting on a zoom lens – and shoot everything, near and far, with that lens.

Get closer to your subject, for more intimate shots of people than the comfortable distance you may be used to shooting at.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

In the end, it was on the last morning there, sitting by the water having coffee, that the patterns of light through the water, painting the rocks below, gave me some of my most successful photos.

There’s always something new to see no mater how familiar a subject is. It just takes looking at it from a different point of view.

Started by FotoKids founder Nancy McGirr, this is the second Design4Kids workshop and the third workshop with the young people in Santiago. They continue to learn and develop their photography and graphic design talents with the purpose of operating their own design studio in the Atitlan area.

As in the past, the group will receive a real assignment from an actual client, and they will determine the client’s needs, design the concept and create the project. The team of volunteers is made up of commercial artists, graphic designers and photographers who will guide them along in the process.

The kids will be polishing their skills in design, photography and Photoshop, and along the way, they’ll develop and expand their creative talents, and learn possibility thinking that will teach them new ways of looking at themselves, the world and their own potential.

There’s more about the project and the team at http://design4kids.org and a complete overview of the Fotokids organization at www.fotokids.org