Take Your Best Shot

Like many mothers, I experienced a day toward the end of winter, when I couldn't think of any new ways to amuse my six-year-old daughter. That's when I bundled her up and sent her into the courtyard with my old Super 8 movie camera. What caught her eye? Did she learn not to pan too quickly? While she didn't develop an interest in becoming a photographer, exposure to the photographic and movie-making processes could help another student discover an international career.

     This week we'll see all aspects of the Sochi Olympics in magazines and newspapers, on TV, and on the Internet. We'll also see reporters broadcasting from Sochi. Look at the backgrounds behind them. Just as network correspondents tell viewers where news is being made by standing in front of a school, parade, or courthouse, young people can begin to pay attention to the backgrounds they choose for their photos.

     To get ideas for photography, young people can check out lightbox.time.com, photography.nationalgeographic.com, and the scenic wonders Ansel Adams captured in Yosemite National Park. Also, be on the lookout for a new book, The Photographer's Eye, from National Geographic. It includes the best photos from the 300,000 submitted by photographers around the world, as well as tips telling how these photos were taken. Street photographers just ask people they see on the street if they can take their photos. It's a good way to show how regular people look when they're just going about their lives.
Seeing a drone used to film surfers from overhead reminded me how photographers often view life from different angles. With YouTube, there also are different ways to project your views of life.

     At ngkidsmyshot.com, kids can find out how, with a parent's permission, to submit their own photos that might be featured online or published in National Geographic Kids. Students can learn about National Geographic's Traveler Photo Contest at NationalGeographic.com/TravelerPhotoContest/ or go to nationalgeographic.com and search "travel photo contest.".There are four categories for photos: portraits, outdoor scenes, sense of place, and spontaneous moments. Information about the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for photography is on an earlier blog post, "Young Voices." Free Spirit Publishing is sponsoring a "Words Wound Video Contest" for teens that ends April 15, 2014. A teen will win $250 by posting a short video on YouTube that shows how teens can use technology and the Internet to make schools kinder places. Details are available at freespirit.com. For information about future competitions designed to attract African feature movie and documentary cinema talent, go to afrinollyshortfilmcompetition.com.

     Sarah Stallings at National Geographic suggests a number of things to remember, when taking photos:
1. Hold a camera steady in both hands and brace upper arms against body.
2. Think of a tic-tac-toe grid over your picture. The horizon can be on a vertical line and key elements on the intersections.
3. Take a number of photos of the same object or scene by moving closer and closer.
4. Catch before and after scenes that no one else has by arriving early and staying late for an event.
5. Light gives emphasis to the important parts of an image. Inside, light from a window or a doorway focuses attention on a subject. A Luma company device enables a cellphone to obtain a light reading that makes it easy for photographers to set a camera's appropriate light setting.

     The field of photography has many branches. Besides sports, photographers travel the world to report the news; photograph fashion, nature, and landmarks; take photos for postcards and travel brochures; and win Oscars for feature films, documentaries, animated full length and short movies, and live action shorts. Museums, such as the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., now exhibit photographs. A number of fashion photographers, who not only know plenty about style and design but also have social media fans, have become brands, i.e. entrepreneurs whose prints appear on products. David Bailey for one offers T-shirts printed with the likenesses of Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and Grace Jones.

    Photography requires patience and technology. My grandfather was friends with an eye doctor who was a freelance photographer who waited for hours to capture the best light for a photo he took of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Steve Winter worked for 14 months and used a video camera equipped with infrared detection and external lights to capture the iconic "Hollywood" sign behind a puma in Griffith Park, California.

      In color or black and white, a photographer can have an exciting international career.

Global Drawing Power

Show me a refrigerator, and I'll show you a child's drawing attached to it. Written for young people 9 to 12 years old, Meredith Hamilton's A Child's Introduction to Art and Stone Giant: Michelangelo's David and How He Came to Be by Jane Sutcliffe help inspire young artists by introducing them to the masterpieces, painters, sculptures, and styles of the past. The interesting thing is: all forms of art have begun to move beyond refrigerators to have an impact on communities and the world today.

     In an earlier blog, "The World of Fashion," I told how fashion designer, Iris Shiloh, founded Kids for Kids, an organization that sells T-shirts printed with artwork created by orphans and children in lesser developed countries and then contributes a portion of sales back to the organizations that support and educate these young artists. You can read about Ms. Shiloh's work in India and Swaziland and purchase these T-shirts at kidsforkidsfashion.com. Her idea could inspire schools, scout troops, and other youth organizations to raise funds for international causes by creating art with a global message that could be printed on shirts, cards, calendars, towels, etc. How about bibs and aprons with world hunger-fighting messages?

     "Shop for Social" (shopforsocial.com), which supports non-profit and social business organizations, provides international shipping of items, such as the ceramic mugs, totes, and notebooks designed by the artists with special needs, especially autism, from The Everyday Solution.

     Internationally renowned opera sopranos, Monica Yunus and Camille Zomora, saw an opportunity "to uplift, unite, and transform individuals and communities" by mobilizing singers, painters, dancers and choreographers, puppeteers, directors, makeup artists, costume designers, poets, and photographers. With a roster of these volunteers, "Sing for Hope" (singforhope.org) brings professional artists to under-served schools, community centers, and healthcare facilities in the New York City area. Outreach into these venues also is an option for young performers lining up to try out for "American Idol," audition for "Dance Moms," or strut their stuff on "Toddlers and Tiaras." The fact is: young artists in cultural centers from London to Beijing and from Mumbai to Moscow could do the same to "uplift, unite, and transform."

     There is a building being renovated in Kassel, Germany, with materials from the Black Cinema House in Chicago, USA, because of the vision of artist and urban planner, Theaster Gates.  The July, 2013 issue of W reported that Gates studied urban planning at Iowa State University and religion and fine arts at South Africa's University of Cape Town. His background prepared him not only to train workers to reclaim buildings and abandoned objects but also to form the Black Monks of Mississippi gospel band that plays a mix of spirituals and Buddhist chants. Although Gates has art on display in Hong Kong and Sao Paulo, he is considered part of a global movement that takes art out of galleries and museums and uses it as a social platform to transform impoverished areas. Viewed from this perspective, globalization gives greater meaning to the art youngsters around the world are creating, when they make villages out of cereal boxes, drums out of tin cans and sticks, or clay pinch pots to hold flowers.