Hill Country Olive
In 2016 I was just getting my feet under me as a photography teacher. The Association of Texas Photography Instructors was and continues to be an invaluable resource. Every summer they hold a workshop for teachers somewhere in the state. The focus that year was on storytelling, and it was a blast.
We were split into groups and given four different assignments in and around Wimberly, Texas. We would cover two on the first day, produce a story that night at the hotel, then cover two the next day. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Two of my four assignments focused on food production and In will be including that work in two posts here.
These were all made at Hill Country Olive Co. outside Wimberly, Texas. We had to produce a photo story that would be shared with the group on the last day of the workshop. These are my images from this assignment and below is the video we produced. The audio was all captured using the voice memo apps on our phones. I remember kicking myself because I had a Zoom H5 that we had just purchased but I didn't know how to use it yet so I had left it back at school. The photo essay method I learned from Ian McVea on this assignment was one I brought back to my students and one that I still use when I work today.
You can see the rest of the projects from all the groups here. Since I was a photo teacher I made photo essays. The journalism teachers wrote features, the broadcast teachers made small documentaries, a lot of teachers did a little bit of everything. They are all worth a look.
This was one of the first Summer Workshops that I attended, it was one of my favorites, and now I teach at them. I can’t emphasize enough how valuable this education was, nor how important ATPI was to my formation as a photographer. (More on that later, probably as I dig up older stuff.)
