The Raiatea Lomographic Schoolproject

Armed with a bunch of Lomographic cameras, one of our busiest Lomographers – Vicuna – set out to initiate his very first Lomographic schoolproject in French Polynesia! He has been working as a History, Geography, and Civic Instruction in secondary school, and is now spreading the Lomo-love in “Lycée des îles sous le vent”, in the city of Utoroa.

I wanted to do something about Lomography with my pupils for some time now, and this new opportunity I had to work in French Polynesia gave me the idea to launch a Lomographic schoolproject.

I talked about this idea to LSI and they supported it very generously by sending me some plastic cameras and films to have enough material to initiate the project. Thanks to LSI for this support!

After that, I needed to convince the principal and schoolboard about the utility of this Lomo project, get some money to process the films and print some shots for an exhibition at the end of the schoolyear. And they agreed it too, finding this project very interesting, new and different from all projects they had to look at until now… Of course, all this took some time before I could really start the project…

My project takes place in the course of civic instruction with a 1°S class (that means they’re around 16 years old and have scientific speciality), and the whole idea about it is that taking pictures needs to look around yourself, to observe your world and express a point of view by fixing it definitely on a film. In this way, the civic aspect of the project is to give these teenagers an opportunity to show how they see their everyday life and surroundings, that means first the school, their friends, the city and island where they live. And to add something more about it, they’ll make it with lomographic analogue cameras!

First of all, I needed to introduce my pupils to the fascinating world of analogue photography, to explain what it is and how it works, what are the basic functions of a camera, etc…. as some of them never heard about film cameras and thought photography had always been digital… some of them remembered that their parents/grandparents had something like that a long time ago but didn’t realize that you can still shoot analogue today! In the same time, I wanted that they have some references and examples in the history of photography and cinema, so we looked at some of the great works in photography and cinema of the XX° century. All this was to educate their eyes and thoughts about what it means to create images, what kind of language you use when shooting with a camera. Well, that was all the theoretical part of the project, and I was still waiting for all the administrative authorizations to start the shooting sessions. It wasn’t useless, I think, to give them such a cultural background about the history of pictures before they take pictures by themselves….

Finally, end of march, we could start the shooting part of the project. I introduced them to the spirit of Lomography (10 golden rules of course…) and showed them the cameras they’ll have in their hands: Fisheye (1 & 2), Supersampler, Colorsplash, Oktomat and Diana Mini. I showed them how to insert the film, and then… just shoot! :)) No need for special recommendations, no real theme, all I told them is to shoot what they wanted, as they feel it, and as we spent the first session inside the school, to have in mind to look around them and observe differently what they see everyday…. For the first session, we had one camera for 2 pupils, to share equally and one film per couple to make in one hour. And double exposures were of course allowed…. :) Was really great to see all these enthusiastic teenagers with their lomo cameras walking in the school, shooting like crazy and having a lot of fun! And they can’t wait for the next shooting session, this time outside the school, along the seaside and in the city…

Unfortunately, the next planned sessions were cancelled for various reasons as there where some special school exams for the pupils and administrative meetings and tasks for me, etc….and the shootings were postponed until now. But after the easter holidays, end of April we can go on with the shooting sessions! At the end of the project, every pupil will have shot one roll of film and should chose only one pictures of his roll to be printed and to be part of the final exhibition at the end of the schoolyear. I first thought at a cool lomowall, but it was a bit to expensive for the school to print all the shots, so only 28 prints will make it in the final exhibition…

For now, here are the first shots of the project. Of course I’ll update this with a new post as soon as we make a new shooting session. So enjoy the galleries and support these young lomographers, perhaps the first lomographic generation of French Polynesia! :))

written by vicuna on 2010-04-10 #news #school #oktomat #analogue #teenagers #cameras #colorsplash #lomography #supersampler #fisheye #pupils #raiatea #french-polynesia #uturoa #schoolproject #discovering-lomography