Today feels so good. The workshop I’ve been prepping to teach for months is done. 🙂 I presented this past weekend, to a group of teachers, my ideas to help connect the art of photography to kids–while also keeping a creative, sane, and fun classroom experience happening. It was such a great lecture to put together–and, it really made me dig deep into my brain for creative, and learning-rich, activities that kids can do with their cameras. My goal was to help the kids create some of the best images they’ve ever made–through educating their teachers on how to inspire them to do so.

I brought in some of my favorite reminders when it comes to creativity…

I brought in what are, to me, some of the most useful tips to making a photo look good. I call them the ‘big ideas’…

I broke all of these down–and spoke to how they relate to everyday photography–and then went through a series of ten, different, unique, projects that the teachers can do with their kids to help reinforce all of these ideas, throughout the semester.

I tried to keep all of the ideas relevant and ‘cool’. There were ideas for food photography, floral stuff, selfies, scavenger hunts, collages–and more.  All of the ideas I brought could be built upon, destructed, spread out over days, or done as-is.

One of the coolest parts of this though, to me? It made it so not only have I been a parent, a volunteer, and an employee in our school district, now I’ve also been a teacher. Being involved is a great feeling.

Also…putting together this lecture got me shooting too…here’s a few favorites that came out of my efforts.