By no means have I been teaching long. But my first semester was the Fall after I graduated from college. Since then, I’ve taught the same Photography 101 class four times. Then this time – the fifth – I was lucky enough to teach Advanced Photography with a slant toward Photojournalism.
Tonight was the end of that segment of life. I likely will not be back in a classroom, at least in this capacity, for a while.
And, I lucked out. Every semester, teachers around the world say, “You guys were my best class ever!”
But, this time, this class was.
It just so lined up where all those other classes of Photography 101 congealed into a class of All-Stars. Most of them I had taught before or at least knew were quite capable photographers already.
Even if I didn’t teach them anything, I hope that our time together sharing our passion for this weird art inspires someone to go on to do something really extraordinary. Because, as I was watching them present their final photo essay projects, it was a room full of people passionate about things. And they cared enough about those things to stand up and say: “This is important. Here’s why. And here’s what it looks like.”
They wrote their names on the board as they presented. It made a nice thing to keep in the end. To remember.
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
