Glenden State High School Workshop

15 September 2015

The five students who participated in the Glenden State School My Space/Our Place workshop were all Year 9 and 10 Visual Arts students. The small group number allowed some opportunistic one-on-one time with facilitator Sean Davey to hone their skills and conceptualise their approach. Seeing that students weren't able to leave the school grounds for their workshop, some serious thought and consideration had to go into their approaches, which produced some very personal and innovative results. Not only did the students show great enthusiasm for the workshop, but their teacher Casey Taylor also got in on the act, making a set of bold, colourful images.

TIP: Many photographers have a conceptual idea for their photographs before they make any pictures. While not concrete, these ideas can be used as starting points for the photographer to go out into the world and begin making pictures. At the start of this workshop, young Waylan (pictured first in the gallery below) was a bit stuck for ideas about what he should point his camera at. After looking at the work of Ricky Maynard and learning about Maynard's connection to his ancestral land and his interest in photographing the history of his place, Waylan used this as his influence and decided to produce a series of self-portraits in his immediate environment of the school grounds.

Glenden State School Photographers: Waylan Plowman, Zali Whitaker, Emily Wells, Chelsea Bell, Tiffany Moss, Casey Taylor.