This week at the National Portrait Gallery, we brought together 22 young people
to be inspired by the exhibit, learn about portraiture
and ultimately create their own self-portrait, how they see themselves,
how they'd want to be remembered and portrayed in an image.
I think a lot of people learn differently in this environment because
they had more resources to use also
another unique thing was that you feel
more important because you're in a museum environment
and it's like a top museum in the US and
you feel like you can learn better because you're in that type of environment.
The first thing that we did when the students entered the workshop was we
got them all on the social network and the beauty of social network is that
it allowed us to share everything that we would be doing for the next four days.
Starting day one, the first exercise they had to do was
think about someone that they admire and why and they would write that down in a blog,
they take some time
and then their job was to take the mobile device with a partner and shoot that person
in the quality that they admired and they would upload it to the site
and then we would review it.
They went in the galleries, they captured images that resonated with them
and then we talked about why and a lot of it had to do with
Oh, that person seemed really happy and that made me happy
but then in the afternoon, we actually went into the gallery and we talked
about the different types of portraits that they would find
so a symbolic portrait, the Lansdowne George Washington portrait is a classic example.
There are symbols that tell not only George Washington's story but the nation's story
and I think that the kids picked up on that and several of them,
for their portraits, brought in pieces. Somebody brought in a
photo of their family and in their portrait,
they're holding the photo of their family because that's what
again resonated with them so we really focused them
on the elements of portrayal and they then went out and
talked to each other and used the smartphones to capture those poses in their sample photo.
- Is this a portrait?
- I think it's the person's ashes molded into a brick so that might be a portrait.
- Okay, it very well could be. What other ideas do you have?
Day 2 was an opportunity to now
turn the tables to themselves and start to look at themselves and how people see them.
Most of the time, we were just taking pictures
and talking about ourselves because obviously, it's a self-portrait so
you have to get to know a little bit more about yourself so you can know how you want to be portrayed.
The beginning of day 3, pre-production was over and it was time to go into full production.
We had a professional photographer
and by group, the students would go to their chosen location and really
art direct the photographer of exactly how they see their photograph.
Day 3 ended with all the students selecting their favorite photograph.
When you look at it, you can't help but smile, I mean look at you, you're cheesing.
It was magical for them to see that this process that began as
somewhat of a tedious
introspective blog about Who Am I and how do people see me?
has now you know transitioned into like an 11 by 14
photograph of themselves, art directed by themselves that they are now proud to show
and so they framed the photos, they shared with the group their photo
because no one had really seen such an individual process of taking a photograph
and then, we went out into the courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery
and we had an exhibition, they stood by the photograph
and they shared the photograph with the general public and also with their peers.
I think many of them picked up on the elements
of portrayal, they were very aware and cognizant
of what they were going to be wearing, where in the museum
they were going to be photographed and what that meant so I think that there
were very thoughtful responses
and were certainly reflective of the entire week.
(Music)