Photo Class Delves into Matters of Light and Dark
By Hannah Levin, Art Teacher, Photography and Ceramics
Some things never lose their magic. To me, photography holds exactly that allure. I first learned to work in a darkroom at the age of eight when my mother had a darkroom upstairs in our house. Since then, the interaction between light, chemistry, and ideas has never ceased to encourage my imagination.
As an art teacher at OA, I have the honor of potentially igniting that spark in my students. This semester’s photography class has proved to be an inspiring one indeed.
We started out our course by making sun prints to explore the way light can be used to record imagery on paper.
Sun Print
Next, we built pinhole cameras out of oatmeal boxes and students shot with paper acting as film, taking shots of parts of campus in unique ways.
Pinhole Photograph of Cheoah from Cabin 7 Field
Recently we moved on to shooting 35 mm film with manual cameras. The students have taken to it- each shooting two rolls of film in a few days in order to have negatives to print with for the last couple weeks of class.
Pinhole (positive on left, negative on right)
It is such a gift when the excitement that I feel about something is reflected back to me from my students. Some of them are talking about trying to get 35mm film cameras when they get home. One student said she talked to her mom about setting up a darkroom at home. They’ve been bitten by the magical photo bug. I am excited for the photographic adventures that await them and honored to be a part of the journey.
Students working in the darkroom.
Emma shows off her finished 35mm print!
