Lakeside Middle School Career Fair!

When I was a senior in high school, we had a career day featuring members of the community in various professions. I went to the photography lecture, naturally, and the speaker was really down on photography as a profession. He talked about how little money there was in the business, and how it was easier to be an artist with a camera rather than learning how to draw or paint. That talk haunted me for years, and might have kept me from pursuing a fulltime career in photography. So when Jennifer Carlton at Lakeside Middle School asked me to participate in their career fair, I jumped at the chance to speak the truth to the young minds about my career of choice. 

"What are the pros and cons of photography?" "Fun and no money."

I really enjoyed encouraging the class to go beyond photography and get a degree in business, and to take art courses to learn composition and structure. 

Students posed for impromtu demonstrations of how my Boomerang Flash with MagMod deflector worked.

The student below asked me how to get that blurry background effect, so I took two shots of her, one at f/2.8 aperture and another at f/13:

f/2.8

f/13

And thanks to my helpful volunteers who got me signed in at the office and set up in the gym, sorry girls, I forget your names because I'm old and senile... :)

I had dispensed literally tens and tens of dollars worth of valuable advice to these aspiring artists! I look forward to the opportunity to speak again at the next event. I was actually sorry when it was time to pack up and go.