From Friday evening, July 3rd through Sunday morning, July 5th, I taught my first weekend class at the John C. Campbell Folk School. It was also my first time teaching a "Creative Smartphone" class there too, although I've taught that class many times before at places locally and in Virginia.
With a full class of 8 students I wanted to thank Stefanie, Nanette, Baxton, Tom, Matthew, Katie, Cathy, and Marshall for joining me for such an incredibly fun weekend. The amount of time we had in classroom and outside and around campus was just right for this class.
Friday evening was spent mostly in classroom giving them a presentation up on the large screen TV, which included a Q&A, then walking around and showing each of them the settings on their camera phones and all of the editing tools they come with. We also discussed several apps they could download and try out. Before we departed for the evening, I had everyone outside trying out the "night scene" setting in their cameras. A few chose them as their favorites, and are shown here on the blog.
Saturday morning, all of us briefly met in the Harvest Room (the classroom) before heading out around campus to practice using rules of third, perspectives, and leading lines & of course trying different camera settings while working on their assignments. First walking down the hill from the Harvest Room ending up at the old Mill House, which is down past the Blacksmith Barn.
Then after our outing there, we hiked up a trail that lead through the woods to the Festival Barn. Three of my students Tom, Cathy, and Baxton all created some truly unique images while we were in the barn. I love that all three of their images are nothing alike. While Baxton got the mural at the back, Tom tried the pano feature on his camera of the ceiling, while lying on a table on his back, which is truly amazing (glad he chose this as one of his favorites!). And Cathy captured a wide angle corner of the ceiling and of an old weathered blue wagon, for a pop of color.
From there, we walked some more around that area of campus. Nanette took a nice photo of The Farmhouse from a totally different angle than most people photograph it, which is from the front. She knows so much about the folk school and more than anyone I've ever personally had the pleasure of spending time with. She's been around since the mid 70's, has taught numerous cooking classes there herself as a resident artist, and is married to one of the longest running executive directors of the folk school, Jan Davidson. He was around when I started teaching here in 2011 and is now retired. It was a joy to have Nanette in class, she shared so much with all of us (and she inscribed her cookbook for me too - yay!).
We were able to visit the clay studio Saturday morning as well, where students were just starting to throw their big pots. I love how Baxton captured the b&w of one of the students hands working the clay on the moving wheel. Amazing detail! The little hand-built clay sculpture up on the shelf was spotted by Stefanie. And Nanette gave the pano setting a try, while we were still in the clay studio. Of course we had to visit "Mouse Town" just around the corner, and if you don't know what that is, you're in for treat if you ever visit the folk school!
After lunch, we headed back out on another adventure this time visiting the herb garden, cooking/homesteading canning class, and wet studio where there was a felt-making class, for some more photo opportunities. After that Nanette, Cathy, and Baxton branched off together and went over to the History Museum and Keith House, while the rest of us walked around in the garden. The lighting was a bit harsh then and it was truly getting too hot to be outside in it.
We all reconnected and walked back to the Harvest Room together, to cool down. The classroom is attached to the Orchard House, and they have a well lit living space there. So I took them over for a quick portrait Q&A and assignment and let everyone try out the reflectors I provided. This is the house I stayed in all week and have stayed in it before, so it's always a go-to room to teach some of the assignments (plus it was a great place to cool off - the AC really works in that room!).
Then back to the classroom to help Marshall figure out how to photograph his kaleidoscopes, while others sorted through their images and started to make selections of their favorites, and did a little editing. Marshall, also an instructor at the folk school, wanted to learn this while in class. And as you can see from two of his featured photographs, he achieved this! He photographed through the eyepieces on macro, with a light source at the other end of them. His kaleidoscopes are amazing and both interior and exteriors of them are works of art! What a fun day we had.
That evening, of course it was the 4th of July. Several of my students were locals and had plans for the holidays already, but mentioned to us that there would be fireworks in downtown Murphy. Terry and I thought about going, however he decided he wanted to get back to the studio to finish working on his drawings and paintings after dinner. I found out my student Tom's wife, Marlee, was in Terry's class and she wanted to go back to work on her assignments too. That left Tom and me free to go around to some of the other classrooms, including Terry and Marlee's.
After spending a little time seeing what they were working on, Tom and I headed over next door to the paper arts class, which involved hot wax and colorful papers. Then we made our way across campus to the quilting studio. Tom got a great low angle shot looking up through a sewing machine of two students working tirelessly to get said sewing machine to work again. From there, we ended up at the blacksmith barn, where the photo opportunities are always interesting.
We had fun evening of it before meeting back up with our significant others just as the sun was going down. And for the record, Terry & I did get to see some fireworks from our porch just over the trees before finally hitting the hay around 10pm. We were both good with that! Glad we stayed on campus!
The next morning, my students and I all agreed to meet in the vegetable and flower garden just after breakfast. This was for our final assignment and class group portrait, which we did in front by The Cabin, in the shade adjacent to the garden.. Unfortunately Matthew & Katie said they couldn't make it back as they had family & baby obligations back at home. However I'm happy they could still join us for most of the weekend.
Although the folk school does not do a closing ceremony for weekend classes, I thought it would be nice if we could head back to the Harvest Room so that everyone would share their final favorites and I'd put them up on the large screen TV. We had such a fun time with tis and I'm glad we made the most of it by having our own "closing ceremony" with a slideshow of everyone's work. These are the same photos I'm sharing here.
Hope you all enjoy, share (button at top of this post), and if you'd like to reach out to any of my students, please send me a message HERE. Do not copy photos without permission!
Scroll down to just below student gallery to see our group portrait of our class (all holding up our iPhone cameras!). What a FUN FUN weekend we all had!
Last but not least, just a few days ago, I featured student work from the first weeklong class I taught at the John C. Campbell Folk School "Wanderlust - The Art of Travel Photography". You can visit that post HERE