The lessons work experience students taught me

Working with Teens…

Recently I  had the pleasure of working with a couple of year 10 students for a few days as a part of their required work experience program through their school.

It has been a fantastic experience for me to get to know these students as well as find out how much I do and don’t know about photography, running a business and being a role model. Each time I have had a work experience student it has brought memories back to me of my own work experience during high school and what impact it had on me.

By giving time to reflect on this, it helped me to be clear on what I would like my students to come away with. Apart from the fact that they simply have to come along for the ‘ride’ no matter what is planned for each day with my work, whether it be simple administration tasks,learning about equipment, location decisions, client meetings, photoshop, time management, story boarding ideas and more, the major component for me was to allow them the opportunity to get to know me as a person and what drives my passion for photography and film making.

I believe the number one thing we can do for our children as they grow into young adults is to inspire them to build good connections and  respectful relationships with people in all areas of life. I find that this is a very important factor that comes into play in photographing people, as it helps to relax the photographer as well as the client if time is taken to get to know each other as you work together.

Being able to connect with a client also comes from understanding how it feels to be in their shoes, especially if the client is particularly camera shy, which is why I offer my students the opportunity to have a photoshoot with me.

The photos below were taken of my student Kiera and her friend Georgia a few weeks ago. The wind was howling and the temperature was dipping as the sun went down, but there were smiles and  laughter regardless!

Thanks so much girls for a fun afternoon…

PS. For any enquiries regarding Work Experience Places for 2016 please contact me here Due to the size and structure of my business I can only take 1 or 2 students each year.Thanks for your understanding!

teen girl Gippsland