The father of Picasso
It’s been extremely busy month which I’ve spent it mostly teaching. Right after coming home from Val di Fiemme I did a four day intensive on sports photography (working with photographer Aki Loponen — a collaboration which I enjoyed immensely) and almost right after that one I started a two week intensive on journalistic multimedia and ‑video.
The sports photography course was demanding both physically and mentally. On Saturday each one of us did way over 12 hours (personally, I think I did 16 hours, if I count the journey from Porvoo to Lahti and back), the other days we averaged c. 10 hours.
But all worth it. The students were absolutely fantastic. First and second year students from Lahti University of Applied Sciencies (Muotoiluinstituutti) and third year students from Aalto University (TaiK) — with no prior experience in shooting sports. To some of them, it was the first time they ever even saw a sports event. First time ever they used a longer lens.
The story (and thus the reference in the title) about Picasso’s father came to my mind when I saw the images they produced. Pablo Ruiz’s father was a professional painter — a good one — but when he saw the stuff his fourteen year old son was producing, he just lifted his arms in desperation (and with pride) and said he’d stop painting himself.
That’s pretty much how I felt by the third day… Anyway, some of the pictures the students produced can be seen on this gallery we updated daily from the Salpausselkä Games 2013.
My sincerest thanks to all who participated — I really, really enjoyed it.
The video and multimedia course is still continuing — no more classes but the last homeworks are due next monday. I can already say that this is probably the most intensive period I have ever taught.
One thing I have definitely learned: a two week intensive is kind of an oxymoron…I don’t think I have totally recovered from it yet. Just too much … well, intensity.
Thus — to quote Robert Frost: “I’ll save that to another day…” and I promise to write about it when I have more or less digested the experience myself.
(UPDATE: I did write about it in Finnish in the DocImages blog).
Some of you might have seen another blogpost I wrote in the DocImages blog couple of days ago (in Finnish only). I will try to translate it one of these days. But it gives you an idea of the intensity…