My daughter is taking her "A" level in Chase Terrace Technology College for her final year. Her courses for the AS exam are art, photography and business. I had attended their school arts exhibition and some of the students works are amazing. The standard of works are higher than their level of school year. Unfortunately, during this exhibition the spaces for the arts works displays were quite small and cramp to display 2 years of students' art works.
I had never enjoyed myself in the art's exhibition a year before as I found the students works more on repetitions or too similar to each other works. This year I found that I really enjoy myself with the students works and ideas. Some of the students works are awesome and amazing high standard. Most of all there aren't so many repetitions of same ideas of art works produced by the different students. This exhibitions even been published in the local newspapers twice, which I am not surprise as their works are higher than their level.
To my knowledge that during my daughter 'O' level final year, the art teacher resigned and came a new teacher whom was Mr Marinkovic. When Mr Marinkovic came to teach them the last term of the year, all the course works for the year were to be dumped away and restarted from beginning as he doesn't like any of the works been produced. Trixiebella achieved a "B" for her art in "O" level and I happy for her as she expected to get a "C" with her previous art teacher.
During her "AS" level, Trixie got "A" for her art and photography and "B" for business. I am trying to understand why and how this teacher able to help the students produced such a high standard level of achievements. I asked my daughter to ask Mr Marinkovic to let me attend a lesson on how he teach and guide the students throughout their lesson. Thank to Mr Marinkovic and I am allowed to stay and see how they work in the classroom.
My daughter required 4 to 5 piece of logs and it needed about 4 to 5 ft tall. So I went round the to the wood cutters to get these for her course work. After we got the logs we have to burn the both the top and bottom end. These logs then sent to the school on Tuesday whom Mr Marinkovic help to move these to the classroom then he used nails to hammered the log onto a piece of flat board.
On Thursday, we went to fetch my daughter's friend Beth as she will model for her in this photo shoot. Trixie staying at the classroom to set out all the equipments for this photo shoot. The classroom became a small studio with the standard equipments which was soft box, lighting and black canvas. Camera ready on the tripod and waiting for us. Trixie took a few shoots of her model to get the correct lighting and focus.
After that, Beth was requested to change into a black dress and Trixie started on her makeup and doing her hair styling to suit her shooting. It about half an hour to makeup and styling her hair. Then Trixie started to take photo of her model and requesting the movements and posing which she needed for her photo shots.
Mr Marinkovic came in to check on her work progress and help her by giving some new tips or ideas on the posing or change of lighting and additional makeup to put on the model. While Trixie was taking the photo and doing the makeup for the model, the teacher had another student in another classroom taking photo shoot where he needed to help and monitoring their progress.
The photo shoot only took about 20 minutes each but the makeup and styling of hair took about one and half hours. The times spent on back stage work were longer than the actual shooting. Then after all the shooting Trixie had to pack up all the equipments and re-arrange the tables and chairs for the classroom.
In this lesson, I learn that the students not only take photos but make photos. The students ideas were explained to the teacher on how they want their work to be produced and the teacher will help them by giving tips and techniques to help them make the best photos and artworks.
Finished with the photos shoot we went out for our dinner and sent Beth home. After these photos taken Trixie needed to do the final process which involved in photoshop to put layers and layers of different lighting and work on the photos so to make this into another artwork and not just a simple portrait photos.
I have learn a lot from this lesson. The following are points of what I have learn so far.
1. Students are teach not only take photo but to make photo.
2. Students are encourage to develop their ideas into work of arts even with pros or cons. Sourcing the pros and cons plus the black stage works are to be done by the students.
3. Students works or photos must tell their own story and not just composition as we take photos of landscapes.
4. Makeup artists works also the students' work.
Thanks to Mr Marinkovic for this opportunity and I have learn a lot to improve my skills of photography after attending this valuable lesson. There is also some good new that when we visited the exhibition and lot of visitors wanted to buy the students' artworks but the school can't sell them but now they allow any visitors or parents whom interested to buy the artworks from the students. The commission will be given to the students after deducting out the cost of printing and administration charges
Place: Chase Terrace Technology College
Model: Beth
Scored: 9 stars
Photo by: Catherine and Trixiebella Suen
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