Channing Johnson Photography » A Photographer's Journal

For the past 10 weeks I’ve taught a photography apprenticeship at Garfield Middle School through a wonderful organization called Citizen Schools. We’ve been learning how to compose a photograph, use photography as a means of self-expression, and we also spent time thinking critically about photography and its role in our lives. On Thursday, all the Citizen Schools apprenticeships will share what they’ve learned during this fall semester. Our photography class will have a small gallery of our work, a photo booth set up, and 2012 calendars of the students’ photos for sale.

The public is welcome, and I’d particularly like to extend the invitation to other photographers. An important element of the apprenticeship is sharing what they’ve learned with an authentic audience. If you are a photographer and have the time to come and engage the kids in a discussion about their photography it would certainly mean a lot to them. You can stop by anytime between 5:00 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. this Thursday December 15th. We’ll be set up in the Garfield Middle School gymnasium. The address is 168 Garfield Avenue, Revere, MA 02151. You can even get your picture taken in our photo booth : )

And if you would like to share your professional skills with students that may not otherwise have direct access to certain career paths, I would encourage anyone to volunteer with Citizen Schools. It has been an extremely rewarding experience for me.

She’s talented. She’s prolific. She’s Nina. She seems to always be around the most interesting people in the most interesting places and then make the most interesting pictures. And the pictures aren’t interesting just because of the subjects but because of the way she sees the subjects. It was great to catch up on my recent trip to NYC. We were partners in our studio lighting class in college. Neither of us use studio lighting.