http://www.academia.edu/528410/Towards_Photographic_Education

Daniel Rubenstein: Towards Photographic Education

"The tasks that photography education is committed to, those of teaching how to make photographs and how to interpret them, never seemed more redundant and obsolete than in the present moment" (Rubenstein, D 2009, p135)

http://www.reframingphotography.com/sites/default/files/user/mattern_camera_ob_6.jpg

Take a portrait of someone wearing a box camera obscura in the studio. The futility of the exercise due to the lack of light. No success. Head hung low. A failure to impress.

The classroom was turned into a camera obscura based on Abel Morrell's segment in 'The Genius of Photography. One student noted that Abel was filtering light bouncing off the buildings of Venice, whereas we saw - faintly reproduced on the wall and ceilings - 70s concrete.

How does a certain disenfranchisement manifest itself within the student body? What about the technical and academic staff? Jealousy and competitiveness contradicts apathy.

The darkroom

The darkroom is where many people have been drawn into the wonder of photography. Now, it is just as often met with a shrug.

Notes

A case study of the perceived reduction of a certain 'magic' within photographic education
Teachers were given cameras to document from within! Photographs taken with on board flash of 'learning experiences' -

Potential sites of transformational events concerning photography within an educational context:

A print developing in a darkroom tray

Witnessing a functioning camera obscura

Successfully processing a film

Loading a film onto the reel - students doing this in a loading bag. Photographed in a style that references Andy Warhol's film 'blow job' - the cum shot?

Make a camera obscura box with hole for lens and camera lens through bigger hole on other side. Student puts box over head and image projects. Take pics of reactions. Take further pics from outside box in style of the documentation of scientific evidence.

Exerting deity-like control over representations of reality using Photoshop

Printing out (making real) a photograph

Lighting a subject in a studio

Processing film

Potential causes for the reduction of magic

Too many photographs

Finding relatable scenes on Google Street View

Images of futile marginalia within core text books; on photography etc

Case study - a group of desensitised students? A diluting of experience through a multiplicity of experience? A perceived reduction of the necessity for knowledge? 

Photographs of the locations where learning takes place

Examples of student work where there has been some kind of eureka moment - the image may be poor but it shows excitement

Examples of feedback to students from troubled staff

Lost negatives pinned to the board

Exposed photo paper - ripped

Memory cards

Zoomed in on an image to reveal pixels

Moving image