To the Students in My First Photography Class…

This post is long and only has one photo, but it’s important to me to post. If you are here for the photos, I fully understand and welcome you to scroll down a bit to see my photo posts below. 🙂

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Many people don’t know this, but in addition to being a full-time photographer and running this business, I also teach 1 or 2 classes each semester at a community college here in SoCal. I’m going on my 5th year of teaching there and love that it allows me to share what I know with people who really want to learn. Inevitably, I learn from my students as well and am so grateful for the opportunity.

This past semester after having taught Photoshop for the previous semesters, I was so excited to have the opportunity to teach Beginning Digital Photography for the first time. Never before, had I felt so pumped going into a semester… and so nervous. I had these visions of being able to inspire the students, not just to teach them about f-stops and shutter speeds, but to really share just how passionate I am about what I do so that they were motivated to feel that way, too. The only thing was, I had no idea how to do this and was totally afraid of bombing… what if they thought I was crazy? What if I just couldn’t get the point across? What if I was just plain bad? What if I ruined photography for them and they never wanted to touch a camera again?

Wednesday was the last day of the semester and while I knew I would be sad that it was over, it didn’t really hit me how sad until the last few minutes of class. I had just given my “this semester was so fun, thank you so much” speech and was gathering my things to leave when half the class came up to my desk, all to say thank you. I got teary-eyed as they one-by-one took a moment to tell me how much they enjoyed the class, how much they learned, how excited they are to keep learning more about photography. In that moment, I was overwhelmed, all I could say was thank you right back when in reality I had so many other thoughts that, for some reason, I just couldn’t get out right then.

That night, I came home and was unable to stop thinking about my students… I wrote a letter to them and wanted to post it here so that they perhaps would read it and know my gratitude for each and every one of them.

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To all my amazing Photography students,

I have never felt so connected to a group of students in a class I have taught. Before this semester began, I had visions of what it would be like to teach photography to 25 students at a time. I was nervous- really nervous. I had expectations of myself, and I knew you all did as well, and I was afraid that none of those expectations would be met…

Before teaching this class, I didn’t realize how personal and intimate it is to teach photography. Each of you shared a piece of yourselves with me and the rest of the class- and because you were all willing to participate in that, I was able to see you grow over the past 16 weeks and am blown away by your talent and the skills you have all developed. Your final project presentations moved me.  To see your abilities to translate your visions into photographs and to realize that I had any part in that development was incredible and so rewarding.

I walk away from this class feeling so grateful to know each of you- you have further enhanced my passion for what I do, taught me things about photography and taught me things about myself, which I never anticipated happening. You inspired me to look at things with fresh eyes, encouraged me to question things I took for granted, and motivated me to photograph things even more often than I already did before.

You showed me that photography can truly bring people together, get people to connect and share with one another, which I have always found valuable. Seeing you all work together with each other and collaborate with people outside of class was something I had hoped would happen, and was so happy to actually see.

One of you emailed me after class and asked me to honestly say whether you should continue with photography or find something else on which to focus- I immediately emailed back and want to share with you all what I said, because I think this is a question that many of you may ask yourselves at some point…

To answer your question of whether or not to continue… my answer is a resounding, unhesitant YES!
Please! Decide to be a photographer and never look back. Even if it doesn’t become your main career, it’s an
incredible  thing to be able to do on the side… if not for anyone else, do it for yourself. When I first started this
all 8 years ago- I really wasn’t good. I actually didn’t even really love it and definitely didn’t want to make it my
career… but the more I did it, the more I realized I couldn’t not do it… So, while I am creating images for
clients most of the time, I’m actually doing it for myself, too- because I need to.

You have the mind and heart of a photographer, and I think you will find that as you become more comfortable
with the technical stuff, you will start to live for that next great shot. So, I hope you do continue… and I hope
that whether you continue with classes or just practice on your own, I hope that you never stop visualizing your next photo idea.

To each of you, thank you for an incredible semester. It’s a semester I will definitely remember for years to come. I look forward to keeping in touch with you all and can’t wait to see how you continue to grow and develop as photographers. 🙂

Sincerely and gratefully,

Heather

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Knowing my love for both photography and coffee, one of my students gave me this awesome coffee mug that looks like a Canon lens. One of my new favorite things. 🙂

I’m so looking forward to teaching another photography class in the future as teaching is definitely another love of mine. And, I have been thinking of other ways I can teach photography to people who want to learn- hopefully, I’ll be able to further develop those ideas in the new year.

Happy Friday!