Students Click with Photo Camp
PRC summer program teaches kids to tell stories with pictures
Click on the slide show above to hear Michael Christiano and campers Linda Wei, 14, and Julia Murphy, 11, talk about the Photographic Resource Center’s summer photo camp.
Michelle Sheppard flings rubber alligators, sprawls out on the floor, tapes students’ names under desks and shelves, and has converted a bathroom into a darkroom — all part of the life of a counselor at the summer photo camp run by the Photographic Resource Center at 832 Commonwealth Ave. The camp, in its third year, has hosted 10 campers each week since July 14.
“Kids today are so go, go, go, their range is a mile wide, but only one inch deep,” says Sheppard, who teaches photography at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, MA, during the school year. “Taking the time to learn different viewpoints is good for development.”
The students Sheppard works with — 8- to 10-year-olds for one week, and 11- to 14-year-olds for two weeks — are given digital cameras, studio equipment, a lighting set up, and computers to curate their own shows and learn to tell visual stories.
“They all come in with different levels of experience — some have been using the family camera and some haven’t,” says Michael Christiano, education manager at the PRC. “But they all have an eagerness to make pictures.”
For more information about the Photographic Resource Center’s summer photo camp, visit the Web site and scroll down or contact Michael Christiano at mchristiano@prcboston.org. No previous photography experience is necessary to enroll.
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