5th session on Apr 23

How it went;

- Team building exercise: concentration with photos
- Larger group discussion led by Rodrigo

Reflections;

- Large group discussion
: It was led by Rodrigo, and very helpful in that it helped participants to get more ideas about what makes good photography explaining, for example, why background is important, how we can make images more powerful using literal signs in them, etc. It was also good that Rodrigo showed some photos from participants as samples and encouraged people.
Also, we brainstormed any words or statements from themes of racism & poverty on the chalkboard. Participants started speaking out lots of words related to those issues, so it was very helpful for them to have clearer ideas about our project and what to take.
We also talked about how we could visualize those brainstormed words & themes using photography, and Rodrigo talked about statement photography which he gave participants as homework for next week.
In general, this session was great and actually it should've been earlier in this project.... because we think some participants still don't have clear ideas about what to take with their cameras. Anyway, Better late than Never.
One more thing is... we think it would've been better to have some creative & fun activities according to the theme of Rodrigo's lecture. It's always important to let people experience and exercise themselves what they hear in class. We know it's not easy to find good exercises, but it would be good to find some OR invent some. :)

Because it took more time than we expected, we couldn't do the small group discussion this time.

- Late comers!
: It's hard to get the session started on time because of some late comers. We set the ground rules from the beginning, so we think we need to remind them our rules which is essential for running the sessions....!

- No camera
: Today, five persons didn't bring their cameras... which means there were no photos from them.. which also means it's no good for the project. We really should encourage participants to take more photos, but HOW? It's different from what we experienced in Kenya in this issue because kids in Kenya always wanted to take more & more photos. We know the two projects are totally different in many ways, but we still feel bad about people's less enthusiasm about their own photographs.