Thursday 5th May 2011 marked the beginning of the Photography Open Workshop Series at Kinyei, taught by Mr André Vandam. Andre is a freelance photographer who is interested in the history of Cambodia and capturing that history through photography.He start to follow his passion as a photographer and traveler in a couple of years ago. He changed the direction of his career from teaching to photography a couple years ago. His passion for photography has grown into a full time career while living abroad in China for 2 years and now Cambodia. In China he enjoyed photographing many beautiful landscapes. He will stay here (in Battambang) for two years as a photographer with his wife who is a volunteer at the Battambang’s Provincial Education Department.

This workshop series catered to organizations in Battambang needing to up skill their staff in how to take quality photo’s. This enables us to visually share our programs and community initiatives online with supporters and stakeholders.

15 participants attended the workshop series from many organizations around Battambang. Half the participants were foreign volunteers working in Cambodia who brought a Khmer counterpart to ensure the skills were passed on sustainably.

I am Untac, a participant in this amazing workshop and want to share what we learned. I got something that I never expected I would get from this workshop. That is taking a perfect picture by knowing how:

• To use shutter speed, appeture and ISO,
• The camera balances light,
• To use the rule of thirds and
• many more useful photography principles that we never knew.

For the last workshop session we had a photography contest and I got second place for the photo below. What do you see? This is what I see when I look at this photo:

“While I am sad this picture makes me better. If I am glad this picture reduce it because when I am sad this picture tell me that not only you who sad, I am also. And when I am glad this picture tells me that No… you have to help somebody to get them as happy as you because there are still many people around you who want happiness.”

This is a photo in Battambang along street 2 that I took for the contest

Because the photography workshop became so popular, Kinyei and Andre are running another one this month for those that missed out first time round. We still keep practicing and sharing our photography with each other on our very own Facebook Page called Battambang Photography. Be sure to check out the awesome photography coming out of Battambang by following us on Facebook.