Photography Exhibition

Sunday was a busy day for me as I put the finishing touches to a special exhibition of photography which opens at the Wythenshawe Forum later on Monday.

The work will be on display for two weeks and the photographs have all been taken by my students who studied on a course which I developed (pardon the pun!) and delivered for Manchester city council.

The work started a number of months ago when another BBC freelancer and friend contacted me to ask if we could write a short course to introduce people to digital photography, so we got together and devised a four week course which was aimed at complete beginners, to show them the ropes and get to grips with some of the current crop of digital compacts.

I then tutored around sixty people from four different community centres around Manchester and we looked at the basics along with some of the more advanced techniques of how to get the best out of even the point-and-click digitals.

I suppose its a common mistake, but lots of people often think that you need to spend mega £££ to get equipment thats good enough to take an award winning photograph, and while it can help, I think most people found it refreshing to find out that its not a necessity. All thats really needed is a 'good eye' and a bit of luck by being in the right place at the right time.

Some of the group were just intrigued by what they could achieve with their new piece of kit whilst others wanted to incorporate photography with their own art-related hobbies and one lady (Janet) was learning how to take better pictures for her blog.

Whatever the reason for being on the course, I feel that digital photography has something to offer most people who give it a go and even as Damian and myself devised the course, I began to plan for a special exhibition which would be used to showcase some of the photos taken by those on the course. Its this exhibition which finally saw the light of day today and as we stood back from the pictures which had just been hung, I felt very proud of each and every photographer represented there.

It would be easy to finish my post be saying that the course went well and that I'd like to do another but I'm hoping we've achieved more than that. I'm hoping that we've inspired some people to take a closer look at the world around them and I hope that we've helped others to realise that they have the skills to learn and grow in areas that they never thought possible.

Sometimes, we may think that as we press the button down, we are showing people whats going on in the world outside of the camera lens, but quite often we are also allowing people a glimpse inside our minds and sometimes even our hearts too.



The photographs may be seen for two weeks at the Wythenshawe Forum, Manchester.