Monday, September 28, 2009

Groznjan Photo Workshop

As a way for me to get to know the students and faculty we spent 6 days in Groznjan, a small hill top town on the Istrian peninsula, in northwest Croatia. (http://www.groznjan.com/en/uvod.php) The Academy of Dramatic Arts, part of the University of Zagreb, has a four story building in this idyllic village. With views from 360 degrees it rivals anything one could find in Tuscany.

The City at Twilight

Just Before Dawn

Morning Light

Grapes Ready to Harvest

The workshop was a view camera workshop. My colleague Professor Nenad Ilijić and I were teaching. He handled most of the view camera instruction with both of us working with students in the field. I presented lots of photographer’s work as well as many lectures about creativity and motivation. Our other colleagues Professor Sandra Vitaljić, Professor Jelena Blagović & Professor Darije Petković were doing everything from organizing to teaching.

The Croatian educational system is different in so many ways from the American system I am used to. In particular is the level of (outward) respect shown to the professors. All students address the professor as Professor Vitaljić or Professor Ilijić or Professor Petkovićor Professor Blagović. As I am not used to such formality, the question became how should the students refer to me. After discussion we decided on Professor Willijić.

Sandra Discussing the Days Activities

Nenad Teaching

Darije Photographing

Jelena Posing

Reviewing Negatives by Street Light

The ‘Darkroom’

Late Night Processing Fun

Sandra, Darija & Jelena Enjoying Coffee While Students Work

Reviewing Prints from the 'Response Exercise'

Making Closing Comments Quoting from the Book ‘Art & Fear’

Students’ attitudes are universal. The joy of going out for several days to concentrate on image making, learning about photography and yourself as well as stepping back in time in this wonderful artists colony makes for the perfect learning environment.

Gallery of Students at Work (and Play)









Other Things I Saw






Sunday, September 27, 2009

What Am I Doing Here?

About three decades ago I became aware of the Fulbright Scholar’s Grant and made it a career goal to attain one of them. A few years ago I was pondering an idea for my next sabbatical (#4) and realized that I needed to push myself to go through the laborious process of spending months organizing the idea and the application. As RIT has a ‘sister’ program in Dubrovnik, Croatia I organized taking a class there for a term in the spring of 2007 and was greatly impressed with the country.

During that academic year a Fulbright Scholar come from the University of Zagreb to RIT to observe our program as they were expanding their Cinematography degree where still photography was a requirement but not a major. Sandra Vitaljic would oversee and organize this evolution.

How it came to me sitting here in Croatia and the specific process? I’m not quite sure but here I am fulfilling this fantasy and living out the dream.

I often tell my students to dream big; go for the ‘grand prize’ because why not, we are all so fortunate that we can be taking all this time to learn how to make a photo and to live photography as a way of life. When there are so many people living from day-to-day with so little or living in a war zone we are truly privileged to be able to spend this amount of time dedicating our lives to image making!

As I am behind in getting all of this up I will recap my activities since arriving on September 11th. (A strange date to start all of this. A few friends said I was quite brave to travel on this date.)

I arrived on a Friday and spent a few days getting settled. Monday the final exams for the spring term were held. (Imagine, all you students, being able to have the entire summer to prepare your portfolios!) The students individually come before a group of about 5 faculty to present films and prints. The assignments vary between technical problems and aesthetical assignments (motion films made at dawn, dusk, of the trams, a ‘free’ assignment and more)(stills of the b&w landscape, color portraits, other technical problems and also a ‘free’ assignment).

Each student came into the room and presented her/his work. Then there was discussion with the faculty, the student left and the faculty discussed the grade and the student was asked back in and told what the grade was and how to proceed. All of the exams for all levels are done with a presentation of the work and discussion by a group of faculty. Very time consuming but well worth the energy. For me, of course, I missed most of the discussion as I speak virtually no Croatian but I could usually tell the tenor of the discussion by the tones in the faculty voices.

It was a good experience for me to meet the faculty from the film department as well as to see the student work and be able to meet them. Overall I was more impressed by the quality than I thought I would be.

A few images from the reviews:

A Student Showing Her Film.


Looking at Prints.

Sandra Offering Criticism.

In this image the faculty are checking the files of a student who is accused of cheating. His images were to be original transparencies but evidence was seen to the contrary. We did prove that they were in fact copies of digital files, not originals. The student was brought before the faculty and grilled as to the origin. At first he denied they were copies but with proof he admitted the cheat. I was sitting there watching and even though I could not understand the language the intonations were clear. (I was wondering how this situation would be handled different in the US. I don’t think a public display would be allowed. Perhaps there would be lawyers involved and it handled in a quite manner.) Once we had his admittance the entire class was brought in and told of the situation.

He was given a ‘D’ for the term which I feel sets a bad example and only, to some degree, encourages more to do it. This particular student has a history of cheating and I would have immediately failed him. However, if he had failed he would be expelled as he failed the course last year and is repeating it this year, you can only fail the same course once at this university.

As I understand cheating is frequent in Croatia. When I was in Dubrovnik there were several cases each term. Once while I was proctoring an exam for a distance learning class there was a student who was texting a friend for the answers. In most cases the student does not fail the course but is reprimanded. My take on this is that they are, to some degree, encouraging it.

Images of Faculty After the Reviews


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Finally Here

I awoke this morning and found myself in Zagreb, Croatia. It all seems like a crazy dream; a reoccurring dream. For the past few months I have been constantly doing paperwork and organizing and prepping and getting ready. Now, I find myself here, sitting in a nice old apartment by the train station looking at this screen.

What amazes me is that I could be home looking at this screen in my studio, which I was just a day ago. Time travel has a new meaning. I feel like I’m not here but when I look outside I see something different:

This is where I stopped to have my first cup of coffee at a café on my new block. I walked to the market to get supplies so the kitchen would look a little more personable. When I passed this café I stopped to have a coffee to fight the push of the lag and I was thinking about this as my new ‘hood’ for the next 5 months. When I do this sort of thing I like to stay local and patronize the locality and get familiar with a few of the baristas so they begin to recognize me. This helps me establish a sense of neighborhood. After all this will be my community for the next five months. I love this market as it is not one of the big box stores.

This market has been around for many years and they integrate the arts into the landscape.

What I want to do in the next few posts is to show what I find different as well as my first impressions.


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