I spent twenty years trying to get high school kids through a wide range of photographic experieneces. This included simple pinhole and holga type cameras, 35mm, 2 1/4 - 6x7, 4x5 and a myriad of alternative processes - salt, cyanotype, ziatype, PT/PD and albumen. Whenever the Nikon D40's were released, I was able to purchase a classroom set and also began teaching digital combined with Photoshop. Mind you, in most cases I was teaching all the above at the same time with beginning, intermediate and advanced students in the same classroom.
Long and short of it was in this type of teaching environment, I never had time for myself. When summers came around, I was at one workshop or another learning how to be a better teacher and ever so often, such as the case with several I did at the Photographer's Formulary and at the Santa Fe workshops, I got to dabble a bit for just me with some rather stellar photographers - Al Weber, David Vestal, Christopher James, etc., but for the most part, my time for me as a learning photographer simply didn't exist.
I retired this year and for the most part have spent my time relearning techniques either I'd forgotten about or in the case of digital, didn't know. As a teacher, other than the D40 experience, I only taught B&W. Color chemistry wasn't allowed in the classroom. You could learn how to make bombs in chemistry but not a Cibachrome in photography - go figure. Funny thing is, with my alt pro classes, my students told me they did more hands-on chemistry lab with me than they did in chemistry class. They also learned more about writing in my classes than they ever did in their English classes...another go figure, but quite another story altogether.
Anyway, I am learning color, and how color works differently in composition than B&W does. As well, and this is probably the biggest thing, I am divesting myself of looking at 20 years - about 3,000 students of photography which ranged from really-really creative to really, really bad. Some kids just never got it...but their counselors insisted it was an art class, and who couldn't do art?
So, Jerome, I am going back to school, so to speak. What better place to learn than from my peers, from those who've mastered only what I scratched the surface of in attempting to get students onward and upward and many of these young people went on to graduate from schools like the Savannah College of Art & Design, University of Mass at Wesleylan with Christopher James, RISD, New Hampshire Institute of Art, UCLA, Stanford, etc. etc. etc. Recently, I learned one of my girls landed a job with Vogue. She was incredibly good. One of my students started her own business as a wedding photographer and was so good, I had her shoot my daughter's wedding.
In the photo below, just above and slightly to the left of the observer, the two large photographs belong to a young man who graduated last year and got a full ride to Rhode Island School of Art & Design. The young man won major prizes in the form of scholarships from his sophomore year on. Just to the right of the observer you can see a B&W Pt/PD print of a sunflower. This young lady won a near full ride to Florida State University in art. I know I had a great deal of influence on these young people, but at one time last year, I seriously began to question whether I was a better teacher than an artist...now there's a revelation that will set you back a step or two, if you really think about it...and I did.
Hence my stepping into this arena and testing all the theory I put forth to my students on myself. Ironically, some of it even makes sense...hahahahaha. It's kind of like this: I have read extensively on the mechanics of flying an airplane. I can do the calculations to get me from my house to just about anywhere and I could probably fly at night, but based on all this nice book-learned information, would you go flying with me? Not me, not on a bet. Anyway, I want to fly.