EDUCATOR GUIDE Story Theme: Art Frees the Soul Subject: Sixth Street Photography Workshop Discipline: Visual Art (Photography) SECTION I - OVERVIEW ......................................................................................................................2 EPISODE THEME 2 SUBJECT 2 CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS 2 OBJECTIVE 2 STORY SYNOPSIS 2 INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES 2 INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES 2 EQUIPMENT NEEDED 2 MATERIALS NEEDED 2 INTELLIGENCES ADDRESSED 2 SECTION II CONTENT/CONTEXT ..................................................................................................3 CONTENT OVERVIEW 3 THE BIG PICTURE 4 RESOURCES TEXTS 5 RESOURCES WEB SITES 6 RESOURCES VIDEO 7 BAY AREA FIELD TRIPS 7 SECTION III VOCABULARY.............................................................................................................9 SECTION IV ENGAGING WITH SPARK ...................................................................................... 11 Robert Farrell, a photographer working with Sixth Street Photography Workshop, takes a group shot at the Bayanihan House. Still image from SPARK story, February 2004. SECTION I - OVERVIEW EPISODE THEME EQUIPMENT NEEDED Art Frees the Soul VCR or DVD player, a TV, and a copy of the SPARK story Sixth Street Photography Workshop SUBJECT Computer with Internet access, navigation software, Sixth Street Photography Workshop speakers and a sounds card, printer Access to one or more cameras of any kind (such as GRADE RANGES Polaroid, 35mm, disposable, pinhole, etc.) K-12 & Post-secondary Access to facilities capable of developing and/or printing photographic images (such as at a CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS supermarket photo lab, darkroom, etc.) Visual Arts & Social Studies MATERIALS NEEDED OBJECTIVE Access to libraries with up-to-date collections of To introduce educators to photography as a periodicals, books, and research papers, and a documentary and expressive art form, through the variety of newspapers and comic art books Sixth Street Photography Workshop. Different examples of traditional and alternative comic art (see Resource section) INTELLIGENCES ADDRESSED STORY SYNOPSIS Intrapersonal - awareness of ones own feelings, SPARK follows photographers from the Sixth Street emotions, goals, motivations Photography Workshop as they take pictures of Interpersonal - awareness of the feelings, emotions, their lives and ideas in some of San Franciscos most goals, motivations of others depressed neighborhoods. Visual-Spatial - the ability to manipulate and create mental images to solve problems INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES Bodily-Kinesthetic - the ability to use ones mind to control ones bodily movements Individual and group research Logical-Mathematical - the ability to detect patterns, Individual and group exercises reason deductively, think logically Written research materials Linguistic Intelligence the ability to effectively Group discussions manipulate language to express oneself INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES To introduce the form of photography as both a See more information on documentary process Multiple Intelligences at To demonstrate how photography can be used as a www.kqed.org/spark/education. form of personal, artistic expression To innovate with photography as a form of communication through which to learn about history and culture SPARK Educator Guide Sixth Street Photography Workshop 2 SECTION II CONTENT/CONTEXT CONTENT OVERVIEW When George Eastman produced the first In addition to the facilitation of Ferentz and Herman, commercially available camera, called the Brownie in a group of some 20 experienced photographers 1900, he hoped that photography would become volunteer their time to teach participants the accessible to everyone -- providing people from all technical aspects of framing, composition, exposure walks of life with an easy and fun method to and advanced printing techniques. With this focused document the world around them. In 1992 when attention some Sixth Street photographers commit photographer Tom Ferentz founded the Sixth Street stridently to the practice, developing full series and Photography Workshop, his vision was equally as other investigations of their subjects or ideas. egalitarian, but with a specific focus -- to bring photography and opportunities for creative Beyond the classes and the darkroom, the Workshop exploration to San Franciscos homeless and low offers its participating photographers different income residents. He centered his program where his projects and opportunities to show their work in the target audience lived - in an area of the City community, including exhibitions and portrait populated with hotels, transitional housing and events. Each year, exhibitions are held in some of San shelters on 6th Street downtown. Francisco's low-income and transient housing complexes in gallery-like settings, and providing Ferentz started the program with the support of powerful works of art for the residents. Whether or TODCO, a South of Market (SOMA) not they are in the photographs, the experience is a housing/community development nonprofit powerful one, offering unique and diverse organization, drawing on their housing for his perspectives on a world rarely shown, by artists photographers, subjects, and exhibition locations. embedded in its culture. Today, housed in the SomArts Cultural Center, the Sixth Street Photography Workshop serves the Workshop residents and residences of Sixth Street, SOMA and founder and the Tenderloin, including homeless, transient director Tom residents, and other people living below the poverty Ferentz helps set line. Ferentz and program associate and darkroom up for a location shoot in San manager, Amanda Herman, manage all aspects of Francisco. Still this program from teaching to fundraising as well as image from organizing and hosting exhibitions and openings. SPARK story, June 2004. More than 300 photographers have come through the program during its 12 year history. Despite the many challenges that face its members, participation in the SPARK follows a few photographers in the story, workshop is consistent. The flexibility of membership including Robert, a long-time participant in the enable photographers to take just one class, or stay Workshop who takes images of people on San for months or even years to hone their craft in the Franciscos streets, people he considers his family. weekly sessions. Beginning and Intermediate classes SPARK also accompanies Robert on a portrait project offer participants the opportunity to learn how to use in the Bahaniyan House during which he takes a camera, as well as how to take photographs and professional portraits of some of the residents of this develop and print their images in Sixth Streets well newly-remodeled City housing project. Roberts equipped dark room facilities. captivating images reveal his understanding of his SPARK Educator Guide Sixth Street Photography Workshop 3 subjects, showing them with a dignity and self- This concept is illustrated beautifully in what came to awareness unique to the Roberts status as an artist be called the camera obscura, a dark room in which and trusted member of the communities he light passed through a small hole, projecting an exact, photographs. inverted image of what was outside the room onto an interior wall. THE BIG PICTURE Over the next 200 years, progress was made in the A VERY BRIEF, HIGHLY CONDENSED HISTORY identification of light-sensitive chemicals by different OF THE INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY scientists, inventors and artists. However, it was not Literally translated from the Greek, the word until Joseph Nicephore Niépce (1765-1833) produced photography means the writing of the sun (photo = the first photographic image in France in the summer sun, graphy = writing). While photographers have of 1827 that photography was officially born. been using other sources of light to make images for many years, the definition expresses the true nature Niépce, of photography that remains today the use of light Landscape in to create images. Saint-Loup-de- Varennes, 1827. Reprinted from A unique hybrid form of creativity between the fine http://www.niep arts (painting, drawing, and printmaking), and ce.com the science (chemistry and physics), developments in the official Web site for the estate of field of photography grow out of and reflect the Joseph understanding of imagery, light, and time. As a Nicephore Niépce. result, photographic equipment and processing techniques have changed markedly over the years as our understanding of the technology deepened. Following this first success, in 1829 Niépce joined These advances and innovations impacted upon how forces with another creative artist, the architect Louis images were taken and how they look. Jacques Mande Daguerre, who had been using a camera obscura to create theatre sets. Although The technology of a camera is based upon an Niépce died four years later, Daguerre soon understanding of light refraction, a concept discovered a way of developing photographic plates understood since ancient times. Light is a spectrum that reduced the exposure time from Niépces 8 hour- of colors that move in straight lines, called waves. process to 30 minutes. When passed through a small opening, the rays bend in order to fit through the opening. When they do so, Daguerres process produced only single, positive they stay together and flip upside down. images that is, without negatives. Many scientists, inventors, artists and photographers built on Daguerres ideas in the ensuing 100 years with