Teaching Karthik
*please note that these blogs are not in time order. Lots to catch up on my site as far as adventures go*
Date: Sometime in 2022
2022 is off to a good but slow start as far as opportunity goes to teach photography up in the mountains. In the past when asked to teach workshops, I usually say no due to lack of experience and social anxiety. But when one on one workshops are asked for, I absolutely say yes. Working with Joni Sternbach and seeing how she teaches really inspired me to start saying “Yes” more.
By random chance while working in Old Town San Diego doing my usual pop up, a man that was biking around stoped in front is and got excited that he found someone by chance that was going wet plate! I gave him my card and set a date on when to teach.
What I’m starting to implement more when I work is to write a physical list of talking points I want to go over and a timeline of doing certain exercises and then a shopping list. Having lists help keep me in order and one of the first things I listed was to purchase a wet plate collodion manual from Scully & Osterman Studio , it was one of the firsts that I was introduced to when I started in 2013 and still use to this day. Not to mention that I have taken classes from Mark Osterman himself before he retired from the Eastman House Museum in Rochester. I stand by all the information listed in the book which includes lists of where to get chemistry in the US and how to handle yourself safely when working in the darkroom. I can’t also forget one of the main parts of the book that I always encourage people to read, the history of the process itself. For without it, we wouldn’t have what we have today.
Karthik did such a good job pouring and developing as the day went on, thankfully I took some behind the scenes pictures of the different lighting situations we did together and on the second day of teaching he even brought his own 4x5 3D printed camera! It really helped him to work using his own equipment so he can do practicing on his own.
It was really special to me to share the space that grew up in learning photography. I cant wait to take on more students this year.
