The county I live in used to offer a 4-H photography camp for 7-12 grade youth. And it's been a few years, but I had previously helped with a couple sessions in the past. Due to retirements, the organizers of this camp are now gone. Since my name was on a list of helpers, I got a call asking me to at least help set up something to replace this camp, perhaps with just a one day workshop since it's a bit late to organize a several day summer camp this year.
I have tried to offer 4-H classes in the past to teach exposure and manual camera usage. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that the vast majority of these kids will show up with low end point-and-shoot digital cameras, or even just their phones. There may be a couple kids who would bring DSLR's, but they would definitely be in the minority.
I believe the extension office has a dozen older laptops with Photoshop Elements on them, so assuming they are functional, we could at least do some basic editing on them. The high school here is teaching five sections of Photography class right now, I believe that is highly focused on the aesthetic side, not technical. So, I'm not sure how many high schoolers would even come or if it would be more middle school aged kids. Anyway, given these limitations, what do you think would be some good workshop ideas to offer that would draw kids' interest and bring them to a workshop, as well as be appropriate for their varying skill levels and limited equipment?
Thanks for your ideas and suggestions!
Bill
