Engagement with our Industry Partners and Industry Contributors is, and has…

Engagement with our Industry Partners and Industry Contributors is, and has always been a major focus of both my teaching and research, I have also always been a strong advocate for connecting with secondary schools. Over the past few years I’ve presented at several including The Knox School, Trinity and MGC (Melbourne Girls College). These ‘incursions’ as they are referred to, have ranged from traditional presentations & critiques to practical workshops. This year The Knox School has invited me back to do a 3 part workshop focusing portraiture with an emphasis on capturing human emotion.

We kicked things off yesterday looking at the works of Yousuf Karsh, Petrina Hicks, Spencer Murphy, some of the environmental portraits of Lee Grant amongst others & some of my portraits. The group was great, each image I asked them to talk about the person in the image, what did they do, what were they like? The students did not know who the sitters were, not did I expect them too. I was delighted when I showed Yousuf Karsh’s 1975 Ernst Hemingway image and the first comment from one student was “He’s rugged”

Our next session will be camera in hand, in the studio (and maybe outside too) looking at the formal portrait…their homework…work on candid portraits.

Working with Year 9 students was wonderful, something so fresh, no preconceived ideas…open.

I’m looking forward to developing some more projects with The Knox School, engaging with their Y11+12, the idea of connecting wth the next potential generation of my…our industry is exciting.

Here are a few of the images we discussed. #teaching #students #portraiture