I am lucky enough to be spending my summer instructing Black and White Film Photography to campers at Fernwood Cove, Summer Camp for girls in Harrison, Maine. As this will form part of my Placement I have decided to write about it and share it with my readers.
Week 1
Summer Camp is about growth and challenges, growth of a department, a team, a Counselor, a Camper and all be it a bit cheesy growth of a unit - or in our case a family. Sometimes in the case of a troubled child three and a half weeks isn't long enough to create long term changes in behavioral habits but can be enough to make a serious impact, on not only their behavior but their hobbies, goals and desires as well.
Throughout the first weeks of focuses working in the department was hard and to be honest uninteresting, it was a sweltering 90 degrees, the chemicals were unstable and therefore inconsistent, with the film developing but maintaining a layer of gelatin on it and the prints drying in shades of murky brown instead of grey scale. This disheartening process meant that I lost not just faith but interest in being within the department however with the tail of hurricane Arthur passing and the weather cooling we were hoping that with the new week the Darkroom would open once again.
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| The Photography Studio. Fernwood Cove. Harrison, Maine, Summer 2014 |
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| Fernwood Cove's Dark Room, equipped with six enlargers, Fernwood Cove. Harrison, Maine, Summer 2014 |
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| The Cameras, Fernwood Cove. Harrison, Maine, Summer 2014 |
Week 2
As the weather became dull and grey and the Darkroom no longer resembled a sauna we decided to re open Film Photography.
Teaching a second/third grader or even a Spanish speaking ninth grader what Aperture is, yet alone how to use it is somewhat of a challenge, especially when the girls are confused/haven't actually been informed that these images aren't available for instant playback and unfortunately can't be hashtaged or filtered on Instagram. Yet spending my whole day inside under redlight when its glorious sunshine outside was becoming routine and to be honest enjoyable.
Due to last weeks technical difficulties class sizes have seen a quite visible reduction in size, which although is unfortunate it means that we can now participate and print alongside the girls, something I found helped to motivate them as they saw you repeating each stage to achieve the perfect print, and not just standing there being the cruel bitch, continuously making them do tests when all they really want to do is enlarge a full sized print.
Below is some examples of their work.
All Images are copyright Ellie Hetebrij Photography
