#100cameras

THANK YOU to everyone who made it to the show tonight. so very very proud of our students! student work will be up for the month of june at the Joslyn Art Museum (in the community gallery), and again in august for the New American Arts Festival! prints are available for purchase now through @100cameras and proceeds go toward scholarships/funding for future art students.

And so, to counteract the targeted nastiness and hypocrisy against this woman today (yes, will it ever stop?), I am posting her latest IG photo. I know I am just one person with a young Tumblr blog and who will never resort to an out and out war of words against the bullies, but sometimes the greatest strategy against nastiness is plain common decency. Being nice. I am being nice to Mackenzie. And the charity she supports. And yes, I am being nice to her man. HERS.

It looks like @100cameras is a very worthy cause. The pictures of Mac from the gala on her IG were lovely. IMHO they showed more of her personality than they usually do. She seemed like she was enjoying herself.

So happy to be volunteering for @100cameras Spring Gala #surroundyourselfwithgoodpeople #100cameras #photographerlife (at Spring Place)

City view from tonight's #100cameras benefit gala! #NYC #LoveIsLoveIsLove (at Spring Studios)

One of my favorite vantage points is seeing the world from a different perspective. #upintheair #100cameras #worldperspectiveday @100cameras

Check out my most recent chat with Todd Moe where I reflect on my experiences in Istanbul

“I enjoy playing chess,” she says, “it makes me think fast.” Sara goes on to describe a link between playing chess and becoming a doctor. She wants to practice medicine. Then it’s Murat’s turn to share his ambitions with the class. One after the other they raise their hands and talk about their dreams: professional athlete, artist, blacksmith, lawyer, to name a few. These children are very excited about their future. Sixteen Syrian boys and girls attend my class. Each week we talk about the meaning of taking pictures, we learn helpful camera techniques, and review photography vocab. They raise their hands, eager to have everyone’s attention as they, one by one, read the PowerPoint slides and practice their English. Then Mohammad translates the slides in Arabic and they copy his translation into their journals. Last class I handed out the colorful pictures they’d taken of themselves and each other when they first used the blue cameras. They were filled with excitement and soon reached for scissors, glue sticks, and colored pencils as they began to collage in their journals. The week after next they will complete their portraits with words expressing their ambitions, feelings, and ideas. This week we decided to take a field trip to the Istanbul Modern for an art photography workshop, http://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/education/free-education-programs/young-istanbul-modern_1710.html. Anxious to go outside and navigate the streets of the city center, each student walked hand in hand with a partner on the cobblestones streets, thirty minutes to the museum. Luckily I’d packed with me several blue cameras just in case we had some spare time to capture the world outside of the banal classroom. The park adjacent to the museum was a perfect place to stop, play and take photographs before the workshop. In the few hours that we spent outside of ASAM, I noticed how curious they are about the environment they now live in and their desire to interact, despite cultural tendencies to be reserved. They continue to take selfies but I’m confident that once they’re more comfortable with the camera they’ll begin to interact with their surroundings from behind the lens. During the workshop’s long introduction video, it was the children that said they were bored and wanted to do something hands on, making the camera a great companion.