There’s this wonderful organization that I volunteer with in Richmond called Blue Sky Fund. They are “a youth development non-profit that provides transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education.” My time outdoors has deeply impacted my life, so it’s really special to work with these kids as they experience the outdoors in such a pivotal time of their lives. I truly believe in the power of education and Blue Sky Fund provides amazing programs and opportunities to students that may not otherwise be available through their schools and home lives. It’s more important than ever to teach our young people to understand, appreciate and respect our planet. Also, I can’t say enough about how awesome everyone is at this organization. So many kind, genuine and passionate people working/participating at Blue Sky Fund.
I had this idea way back in October 2018 to do a photo program where we could teach basic photo principles focusing on composition, light, etc. to a group of students. We then would go out and shoot film using point-and-shoot cameras and later develop and print the photos. After months of planning with Brittany from BSF and rounding up a bunch of old point-and-shoot film cameras (thanks to some friends and Richmond Camera) we started our program a couple of weeks ago. I taught a “Basics of Photography” class to about 10 or so middle school girls. We focused on taking better photos by paying attention to the composition, light, angles, framing, color, moments, etc. rather than going into the technical aspects like shutter, aperture, ISO etc. This is why we chose point-and-shoot cameras versus manual SLRs. For a lot of them, this was going to be their first time shooting film. We met a couple weeks later and shot along the flood wall and Manchester Bridge. We didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before they already started taking photos. The excitement was immense and you can see it in the photos I took of them (below).
The cool thing here is 1. I can help them create some sick photos for their Instagram and 2. hopefully spark an interest in photo and maybe video as a potential career path. I told them in my little class about the different career paths within photography.
