Capstone Process Week 10

July 12–16, 2021

“I am first and foremost a teacher that uses the medium of photography to teach students how to find a voice.”

I had the pleasure of speaking with Roderick Vesper — high school photography teacher and personal mentor — to gauge photography habits from the perspective of an educator. Understanding his insights as a seasoned field professional and visual artist has led me to better grasp the scope of contemporary photography and the opportunities of new technology to pose as tools within the bounds of the classroom.

Interview with Roderick Vesper

1. Introduce yourself and your current relationship with photography:

I’m Roderick Vesper and I teach photography at Turpin High School in Anderson Township, Ohio.

My current relationship with photography is complicated. I am first and foremost a teacher that uses the medium of photography to teach students how to find a voice.

My personal art practice has been very start and stop for the last couple of years. The death of my wife in a cycling accident has really impacted my ability to care much about creating. I’ve done some self-portraits in grief, a series of images of objects around the house that trigger me, and an Instagram series of images I take in the dark of my house when I battle insomnia.

The good thing is that it really has impacted my approach to teaching in a way that makes me more engaged.

2. What devices do you use to take photos in your daily life?

I actually use my iPhone quite a bit. The newer ones with the triple lens setups are pretty impressive the creative flexibility that they give you. I also use a GoPro for sports videos. If I’m working on something that is more project based, be it still or moving images I use my Nikon D600. I really like that camera and how it shoots.

3. How/when did you begin your photographic journey?

My journey had some staggered steps. When I was 12 or 13 my uncle visited us from California. He was a cartoonist and illustrator who also loved photography. Hard not to think he was the coolest. That visit he brought me a camera, and I dabbled for a while. Then when I was in my twenties I dated a photographer and that got me back into it. I picked up a 35 mm and started experimenting again.

4. What/who inspired you to get involved in education?

I had gotten a degree in English and through a weird path had ended up working in graphic design and pre-press. I had a short stint where I enrolled in a graduate program in film, but some family problems brought me home from that. Shortly after, I quit my job and went to work at a fitness and weight loss camp for the summer. Working with those kids felt so natural, and rewarding. I decided then and there that I wanted to teach. I could have pretty easily translated that into teaching English. But I was really more interested in creative fields. For some reason I felt like I could become a photography teacher. In retrospect, that’s insane. I was barely a photographer. I just had a hobby. But I was so determined, and I went and made it happen.

The inspiration piece is complicated. Much of my inspiration for becoming a teacher is based in the fact that I didn’t have any high school teachers that impacted me in any way. I guess I wanted to counter that.

I did have a professor during my English degree was taught some of my International Studies (I minored in Political Science) that had a huge impact on my world views, and I really looked up to the ways he challenged us as students to shift our perspective and consider things from other angles. It really translates pretty directly to what I try to do with my students. I’m pretty lucky to have found my inspirational teachers after I decided to go back to school to study education. It’s wild to have them be colleagues and friends now.

5. How long have you been educating others on photography?

17 years now. Prior to this, the longest I held any job was a little over a year.

6. How do you approach teaching introductory photography to your students?

I’m giving a lot of thought to this right now.

For the most part, we start with the basic building blocks. In non-pandemic years, I like to start with simple concepts about how light and chemistry made photography possible, so we work with pinhole cameras. Then we shift to the basics of shutter speed and aperture. Combining that with the “traditional” subjects of photography, we build a foundation that they can launch from to find what they like to photograph.

Along the way, I try to expose them to artists that push at the edges of what they think photography can be.

At the end of the first year I’m glad if they have the technical skills for both digital and traditional workflows. But I mostly want them to look at the world differently. More carefully. More critically.

7. What resources have you found helpful in instilling photographic literacy with your students?

Honestly, Instagram is huge. I know a lot of people think it’s going to destroy photography. But I find it takes a lot less time to educate kids on composition now. They’ve seen a lot of it in their daily viewing.

Lenswork is a good site that constantly has new work. And the articles are accessible to the kids.

I like to have a collection of websites that are reputable and let the kids explore and find their own way. It’s so different from when I was studying this, and very few artists had websites. I spend a lot of time in the library looking at books, trying to find the artists that would inspire me.

8. What kinds of creative exercises do you do when feeling photographically uninspired?

I look to literature a lot. Poetry, novels. The act of reading creative work forces us to imagine and visualize. It’s good exercise for the mind.

I’m lucky that I also work in music as well, I will often take breaks from the visual to focus on music, and vice versa.

I also can’t recommend journaling and sketching enough.

9. How has social media and mobile phones shaped your perception of photography?

I think that’s a mixed bag. There is so much good work out there that we would have never seen without social media. The flip side to this is that there is sooooo much work out there, that finding the good work can be difficult.