Practice Session at the Japanese Gardens

On Saturday 14th August we held a combined practice session at the Japanese Gardens. It was a perfect day with opportunities for photographing the waterfall, flowers, landscape and portraits. This image was taken by © Rio Mansaray.

One Decade on - African Settlement on the Downs

What an exciting day for our third session. We began by downloading everyone's images and we are very grateful to have the use of the computers at TRAMS (Toowoomba Refugee and Migrant Service) because we have 12 to 15 community photographers at each session who each have lots of images to download. This week was particularly interesting because we started to talk about the images and why they were important to the theme of the project. There are so many rich and important traditions, many of which continue in Toowoomba. In other ways some things are changing. One of our photographers shared an image which showed her son learning to cook and while he appeared to be enjoying it, he may not have acquired this skill in his native Burundi.

Some of the project participants will have an opportunity to photograph the Toowoomba visit of the Primate of the Sudan His Grace, ECS Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul during the coming week.

The last 2 sessions for the Photovoice Project - "Life as it is with Asperger's" have been inspirational. Participants have brought several images to each session and we have all learned so much from the stories people share about the photographs they have taken. On the subjects of "Things that make me happy" and "Things that are important to me" we have had a range of very good documentary photographs which describe the joys and challenges of caring for children who have Asperger's. One of the early themes to emerge is how much education is required in the wider community. On Sunday we will have our first "outshoot" where we gather to practise our photography skills outdoors.
We are expecting this to be lots of fun and we are looking forward to having members of ESQuisITe Photoimaging Group join us to assist with tutoring.

PhotoVoice Projects

What a great start to 2010 with 2 exciting PhotoVoice projects which will commence in Toowoomba in February. Planning is well under way for the first of 18 workshops with three different groups in our "Life as it is with Asperger's" collaboritive project with Dr Pamela Seaton and Associates. The first workshop is scheduled for 15th February and we are all very excited to get started!!

Our next project due to commence in March is our Australian Government Regional Arts Fund grant project "One Decade On - African Settlement on the Downs". Ann and Lorraine are looking forward to working with the various different African communities in Toowoomba in conjunction with QPASST and TRAMS to deliver 12 workshops in Toowoomba and Gatton region, educating people in basic photography skills using the PhotoVoice methodology. More news on a start date for the first workshop soon!