| PhotoVoice: Tacna, Peru
Colegio Miguel Pro
Mar.14: Requested a sixth grade class to try out the PhotoVoice activity.
Noon: Accompanied Anne, an American volunteer who teaches English to the class, where she helped me explain the basic idea of the activity. We explained that they were to take photos with an eye toward picking one or two to write about. The idea was to send a message to kids in the U.S. about their lives in Tacna: what was important to write about to them.
I demonstrated the basic usage of the cameras (Kodak 300 digital, a point and shoot camera that’s pretty kid-friendly) to the whole class.
Then Anne helped me issue the cameras to pairs of kids. One complication that arose was that some pairs did not live near each other (some live in Tacna centro and some in the Habitat area where the school is located). The cameras had been numbered 1-10. Seventeen kids quite gladly volunteered for the project. They were tremendously excited by the prospect of using these cameras. I was unable to determine how many had actually used a camera before. As I issued the cameras, I started to show each pair the basic functions of turning it on and taking the picture. I decided to take a chance and also show them how to delete photos they didn’t want. By the second pair, they were already trying out the functions with little guidance, and after that no further instruction, except for the occasional question, was needed.
I reminded them that I had to return home with the cameras so they needed to take the photos right away and bring them back the next day. I would then print the photo that they picked so that they could take it home and write about it.
Being the first week of school, they were let out early at 12:30. So they had plenty of daylight and time to accomplish this. However, it also meant that it was also going to be very short deadlines for them and me, as I wanted to make copies (scans) of their work to take home.
Time: 45 min.
Mar. 15: Went a little early to set up the printer for any photos that the kids wanted to work with. I was barely ready when they started to show up with their cameras. My daughter Marie was assigned to run the printer (and also do a little video at the same time). A few kids ran out to the yard and took some quick photos of buildings, friends and teachers to write about.
I worked with them to pick out the shots they wanted printed (one per kid), and Anne received all the cameras back in good shape. Because of a little design problem, the rotary switch was very easy to bump ON, which drained the batteries after a while. Most of the batteries were pretty low on charge.
The Kodak printer worked like a charm, producing a 4 X 6 print in a little over a minute. The seventeen kids dashed out, excitedly showing their friends the prints.
I had expected that the photos would be pretty much snapshots, casually shot. There were a number of those, which was fine as long as they wrote about them. Remarkably, a number of them were better than snaps. Several had very well composed shots with interesting scenes, with a photojournalistic feel. This may indicate that they have used cameras before, or simply that they already have a developed visual sense. This may come from mass media like magazines and TV - or may not.
Time: 50 min.
Mar. 16: This was our last day in Tacna and I anxiously waited to see the results of the kids’ work. Because of the short time (a total of the three days), I was surprised and happy that everything had gone so smoothly. Now, we would see if we would actually have some product to return home with.
At noon, I returned to the class and received the completed projects from 11 of the students. Some had been elaborately decorated, and had extensive writing. Some had only a few lines (the least being 5 lines). However, they seemed well written, and of interesting topics. One was a great photo of a boy’s father, standing in a doorway, with some loving and funny comments about him. Another was of a boys’ plants, which were in cans and buckets arranged along an outdoor shelf. There were family portraits, pictures of school and church, downtown Tacna’s central plaza. I was delighted by the quantity and quality of the projects.
Time: 40 min.
Problems
There were several problems of this particular exercise that could be improved on:
•In one of the returned projects the text was clearly copied, probably from a pamphlet or magazine.
•The amount of writing was not specified. Some wrote a page, some 5 lines.
•There was too short a time for some of them to complete.
•Some of the original pairs did not live close to each other, preventing collaboration or simple hand-off of the camera. We were able to adjust this when we found out.
•Also: There is always the possibility, especially if time is short, that they will not come up with any good photos to write about. This can be from either their point of view or yours. They might end up not liking any. You might want a reshoot if they didn’t photograph what they were required to do for a particular assignment. This is more of a problem with film cameras where you have to wait for development to see what the results. With digital, you can review to some extent, though sometimes you don’t really know what you have until you see it on a bigger screen.
More time would allow:
•Reshooting of photos for the assignment.
•Shooting a new subject/tangent that came up during the initial stages.
•More writing about the subject (quantity).
•More time to edit and critique.
•More time to rewrite, extend, cut, etc. (quality)
Things to find out before or during issuing the cameras, if possible:
•Have they used any kind of camera before? What kind(s)?
•What subjects are they thinking of photographing?
Rebeca |
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