Clermont State High School Workshop

11 September 2015

The Clermont State School My Space/Our Place workshop took place last Friday (11 September), organised by Paige Hennessy, the Visual Arts teacher at the school. Paige is in her first year of teaching after graduating from university in 2014. It is great to see young teachers out in regional areas of the country, who are willing and keen to help their students see the different opportunities that are available to them through different subjects, including the arts. Students who were involved in the workshop are currently studying Visual Arts in Years 11 and 12, with a handful suggesting that they would like to continue with an art practice after finishing school.

Students had just over an hour to make their photographs in the town centre of Clermont. Wide streets dominate the town, and as there weren't many people around when we were out and about, most of the students focused their cameras on buildings and houses. Some students found a particular format suited their compositional choice, with the 16:9 and 1:1 formats proving popular. 

Like the majority of student participants, the Clermont photographers were extremely efficient iPad users, editing their photos in record time, followed by presentations of selected photos. 

TIP: When composing your photographs, think about what camera format you are using. If you are shooting and you have a lot of unwanted space around your subject, try switching your camera to the square (1:1) format. And likewise, if you are shooting wide horizontal (or vertical) landscapes, try the wide format (16:9) to see whether it better suits your image. Of  course, you can always crop in post-production but it is good to start thinking about your format, as doing as much in cameras as possible is always a better approach for developing confidence in your own photographic style1

Clermont State School Photographers: Kate Turner, Tayla Coghill, Erin Slattery, Brooke Goetz, Gabrielle Clements, Morgan Mills, Brendon Maguire, Hadyn McEwan, Cheyanne Sondergeld, Bailey Hodda.