This Year's Work Experience Students Have Done Me Proud

These past 2 weeks I had the pleasure of having 3 students spend their week's work experience with me. This is something I regularly considered not offering due to the extra work that is involved on my part. What I do in this business can't easily be taught or passed on to 15 year old students so I end up spending a lot of my time teaching them and very little time actually working. But I find it very hard to turn down a student who rings me up to ask if they can do their work experience with me. And this year, rather than taking on 1 I took on 3.

The first week worked well in that I had jobs they could do, like packaging up class photos and delivering them to the local school. And we had the Colour Fun Mile run in Hinckley on the Wednesday evening. So I tasked them with photographing the event and seeing if they could get their photos in the paper, which THEY DID!! I was so thrilled and pleased for them. And they didn't just get 1 photo in but they actually managed nearly an entire page together (See Below).

The second week didn't work quite as well in that I didn't have as much work that I could give a student and she didn't have a partner to work and use the equipment with. So instead I suggested she bring in a friend to photograph, which she did. She planned her shoot and created some beautiful portraits that I would have been proud to have taken myself. I helped her to set up a Pinterest board and she collected images that inspired her for her shoot. I was very impressed with her selection and the images she created as a result.

So I'd like to share with you my favourite images that my students created these past 2 weeks. You can see more in their own blogs which I always have them write at the end of their weeks, which you can see here:

Ellie's Blog
Cerys's Blog
Chloe's Blog

(Image by Cerys Cross)

For the images above and below I had them use the sunlight from the trifold doors in my studio along with a diffusing screen. I wanted to show them how to see the light and how to position someone so that they are in good light. I loved what they produced here.

(Image by Ellie Booton)

The images below were taken during Hinckley's Colour Fun Mile. The event started out with horrible rainy weather but thankfully it dried up in time for the race. The girls impressed me by running to the various stations to capture as much as they could and then took the initiative in asking groups of the public to pose for pictures. Its not easy asking strangers to pose for a photograph. I'm not terribly comfortable with it myself. But they did it and I was impressed.

(Image by Cerys Cross)

(Image by Ellie Booton)

These images that follow are from their GCSE project on Cindy Sherman, a prominent photographer from the 70's and 80's. They were to create a piece that took inspiration from her work. Again it was handy that they had each other.

(Image by Ellie Booton)

(Image by Cerys Cross)

The images that follow are all by Chloe, my third work experience student. Unfortunately she didn't have as many opportunities to create her own work, although I did have her editing some of my portraits instead. To give her some studio experience she invited her friend in and had a couple of hours one day after school. They both did very well. I love the connection I can see between the subject and photographer in each of these images and I think the crop, composition and lighting is perfect in each. Chloe did a fantastic job here.

(Image by Chloe Grantham)

So I am still happy to take on work experience students but I do feel it is best to take them on in pairs and possibly only 1 set a year as having 2 weeks back to back full of distractions makes my life a little difficult. If you are thinking of using myself as your work placement than please look to coming along with a partner. It will make the week better for everyone involved.

And a well done to each of these girls. I hope you enjoyed yourselves and learned something in the process. I am certainly quite proud of what you accomplished.

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