Becky Moice
Photography workshop with Jodhpur project participants


As I had never met the students before I arrived I wasn’t sure what level of understanding to expect from them or how much of a problem the language barrier could be and so I began the workshops with very basic lessons. At first we talked about what photography is and how it is is used, I explained to them how pictures are made and we discussed the various different places that we see photographs being used. We looked at newspapers, magazines, books and advertisements as well as at wedding pictures, portraits, and passport pictures and drivers licenses. Most of the girls associated photography with fashion and advertising talking about makeup, jewellery photography as well as weddings and when I asked them what kinds of things they would like to photograph many of them said they would enjoy taking pictures of fashion items such as saris, make up and jewellery whilst a few girls were more interested in taking pictures of weddings, children or wildlife… in particular tigers!

Workshop photo

So once the girls had an understanding of the purpose of photography we moved on to learning about how to read pictures. For the next lesson we looked at a collection of different images and I asked the girls to decide whether they thought each picture was a good or a bad photo and put the pictures into two different groups. At first the girls were a little bit hesitant of being critical and they tended to base their opinions on the majority attitude and just going along with the general consensus but then as the discussion progressed they became more open and independent and began debating with each other about different aspects of the pictures and why they liked or disliked them. The point of this exercise was to get them to understand that photography is objective and there is no right or wrong answer, only personal interpretation.

After spending a few hours talking about photography and looking at pictures I tried to talk to the girls about some of the important elements of photography, we disused things like eye contact, focus and perspective and played a game where they looked at each other from a birds eye and then a bugs eye viewpoint. To practice using some of these techniques we cut out some paper frames and the girls used these to see how changing composition and viewing from different angles and distances could change the way you see a subject. They seemed to really enjoy these exercises and began to understand how different approaches to a subject can make it look very different.

After hammering the theory into them I thought it was about time they put some of this into practice and so I handed out the cameras for the first time. The buzz of excitement was promising and they passed the cameras around, studying them intently and asking lots of questions about how they use them. Their work over the next few days was to shoot 4 images per person per day of their homes, their families and their surroundings practicing all the things we had talked about. Over the next few days the girls showed great initiative, one group managed to obtain free access to the local museum to photograph some animals and archaeological pieces whilst another group used saris and brightly coloured materials they found at home to create dramatic backgrounds for portraits. I was very excited to see the results and when they came back these were quite varied and for a first attempt not bad. The girls were thrilled to see the product of their hard work and as we looked over their first shots we identified which were the strongest images and discussed how they could improve on some of the weaker ones.

For the next lesson then spent some more time looking at pictures from magazines. We looked at advertising images with the text covered up and I asked them to guess what they thought each picture was advertising. They enjoyed this and guessed correctly in the end for most of the shots but there were a few abstract or more subtle images that made them really think about what the image was doing and we talked about how the media uses lifestyle imagery to sell and to influence. After this exercise I asked the girls each to choose their favourite image from a selection of magazines ands to explain to me what it was that they liked about it. Their choices were really varied, some of them choosing fashion or advertising shots with others choosing pictures of children or wildlife and a few landscapes. Funnily enough none of the girls picked a picture from the professional photography magazine which is filled with award winning images and images used to visualise photographic theory and technique. It is interesting how the girls preferred the more common or glamorous mass produced media images.

Over the next few lessons we used the digital cameras for the girls to practice their techniques and review their work whilst taking the film cameras home with them to produce work for their exhibition. This gave the girls valuable practice with both capturing and interpreting images. I asked them to look at their own images and only keep their best four, deleting the others accordingly. At first they lacked the confidence to distinguish between the stronger and the poorer images however the more they practised the quicker and easier their judgement became. Unfortunately they had a bit of a blow when some of the students from the boys workshops got hold of the girls pictures and deleted them. This happened several times and the last time it happened I was furious because some of the deleted images had been really strong and perfect for the exhibition at the end of the workshops. The girls who lost their pictures really were in despair and I personally felt quite awful because I have been in that position where you lose your best shots and it really is gut wrenching, they had worked so hard and gone all over the place working on these images. The only thing I could do was to forbid the boys from using the digital cameras, this slightly appeased the girls and taught the boys an important lesson in respecting other peoples properties but I can’t help but feel that the girls affected found it hard to muster up the same level of enthusiasm as they had before and I felt that I had let them down.

Nevertheless we ploughed on with the classes and now we are at the stage where we are selecting the final prints for the exhibition. Organising the exhibition has proved to be far more difficult than anticipated and has opened my eyes to a level of official corruption that I had not imagined could exist. I spent some time last week looking for a place to hold the exhibition and had secured a venue at an agreed price of 500 rupees for the day. When Tamana and I then returned with a deposit we were told that we could not have the venue as it was otherwise hired by the local collector. We went to see the collector and waited for 4 hours to obtain an N.O.C from his office which would permit us to use the hall but when we presented our N.O.C to the auditorium we were advised that if we still wanted to hire the hall the price had increased to 3500 rupees for the day… a whopping 600% rise and the poor explanation that the price had gone up since we originally booked and there was nothing that could be done about it. I found this behaviour utterly disgraceful and especially because the use of the venue is for an NGO, it is not for a corporate company that can afford last minute bribes.

Now we have the challenging task of finding an alternative venue, printing up all the pictures and securing a local official to judge our photo competition in just two days. I am confident we will do it because we have to do it for the children who have worked so hard and come so far over the last few weeks. I am really looking forward to seeing their work on display and I am very proud of them.