It was a trip of a lifetime — one that a few lucky Barrhead Composite High School students have been able to make more than once.
Recently, 11 BCHS portrait photography student returned from a trip to New York where they worked with renowned photographer Ben Norman, who among other things is know for his work as a regular freelancer for the New York Times newspaper.
BCHS Com Tech teacher Bruce Tyrrell said New York is a favourite destination for the annual portrait photography trip because it offers a wide variety of photography educational opportunities that are hard to find anywhere else in the world.
“New York is one of, if not the, media centre of the world,” he said. “It has some of the most iconic and photographed structures in the world like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, the World Trade Centre and Central Park.”
This is the school’s third trip to New York while the others have been to Vancouver.
The opportunity to work with Norman was fortuitous. As a photography teacher, Tyrrell said he was familiar with his work so when he stumbled across an article on the Internet about how Norman was working with inner city students he took a flyer and e-mailed him asking if he would be willing to work with the BCHS group.
“He is the perfect type of photographer to talk to students,” he said. “Obviously he is a very talented photographer, but he knows the business. When he is not taking assignments for the New York Times, he has to drum up enough business to keep a downtown New York photography studio going.”
One of the first things on the itinerary when the students got to New York was a trip to Times Square.
Tyrrell said visually they arrived at close to a perfect time, being night and raining which provided a number of opportunities to capture unique images.
Erica Soetaert, Grade 11, agreed, but added the rain did prove to be a challenge.
The students, as part of the course, are provided with the equivalent of a Cannon T5i DSLR along with the standard 18-55 mm kit lens.
While it is quality equipment, they are not necessarily water sealed so the students had to work quickly.
“We really just had about 20 minutes to shoot, so we really had to plan and be efficient with our picture taking,” Soetaert said.
Other locations the students went to included Central Station and Central Park, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge and New Jersey for a pair of night shoots.
Although the group did bring tripods, for the most part all of the photographs they took were just through handholding. One of the reasons why is that they didn’t want to carry a lot of equipment because, as part of the learning experience, the group had to navigate to each sight by using transit.
“I had every student plan a trip to one of our photography sites,” Tyrrell said.
Of course not all the venues they went to had to do with photography. Students also had a chance to visit the Museum of Natural History, see Aladdin on Broadway, and a New York Mets baseball game.
However, Dylan Sekulich, Grade 10, said one of her favourite memories was the trip to the Ground Zero Memorial.
“It was really emotional and there were all these people there because it was Mother’s Day,” she said.
Tyrrell noted that although students weren’t required to take pictures at all the sites, they usually did because they had to be ready for two photo reviews where students submitted their five best photos for critique. One of those sessions was with Ben Norman.
Stephanie DeWaal said their time with Norman was very informative. One of the tips she took to heart most was to really plan and think about the shot before taking it.
Many professional photographers shoot in RAW format, as do BCHS photography students. The main advantage is that the format stores all the information in the file.
“RAW is more forgiving,” DeWaal said, noting mistakes in exposure can be more easily corrected. “But when he [Norman] is working for the New York Times and working under deadlines, he doesn’t have the time to edit, so he takes the time to get it right on the camera.”
As for how the students and the school pays for the trip, Tyrell said it is through the sale of the photography photo packages.
Unlike other schools that bring in professional photographers to take the standard graduation photo in a mass one or two day event, the portrait photography class takes the photos. About half of the funds go towards the annual trip. The other half goes towards buying equipment for the Com Tech program.
Depending on the year, how many students and where they are going the price of the trip varies. This year, everything in the weeklong trip, minus the students personal spending money, was about $25,000.
“Actually we were pretty lucky, I was able to buy all the big ticket items, such as the airfare and accommodations at the hostel before the [Canadian] dollar went down,” Tyrrell said.
In addition to lowering the amount of money students have to pay for the course, taking grad photos is a good learning experience.
He said the purpose of the course is to teach students from the beginning everything a professional photographer goes through, from arranging a photoshoot, to learning how to take the photographs and properly editing them, to the business behind running a successful photography business.
Tyrrell concluded by saying how proud he was of the students.
“They worked so hard during the trip, staying up half the night editing their photos and you can see the results,” he said. “If you take a look at everyone’s photos they are of professional quality.”
