A Very Revealing Graduation Speech

The following is a transcript of the speech delivered by PrairieView School of Photography's President, Craig Koshyk at the end of the 2013 Graduation Ceremony.

 

So I was in my darkroom the other day since old school photo geeks like me are like fungus, we do best in very dim light.

Anywho, I was mixing up a new batch of developer and something struck me about the packaging.  I noticed that the word “developer” was there in several languages.

And it turns out that to say Developer in German, you have to say Entwickler which sounds like the name of a really good beer or a kind of sausage. Or beer made from sausages.

But what I realized was that in French the word is not Developeur, it is Révélateur. In Italian and Spanish, the word is Rivelatore and Revelador.  And all those words are related to the English word '
reveal'.

And it makes sense.

Kiandra 'revealing' an image.

You see, in photography, when a photo is taken, on film or on a digital sensor, something called a latent image is formed. In other words, there is an image recorded, but it remains unseen until it is devoped or 'revealed' in the darkroom or the computer.

So as I worked away in my darkroom that day, it struck me that revelation is not just how photos are made, but also why they are made.

I realized that as photographers, we are in fact 'revealers'. We seek to reveal hidden truths, hidden beauty, unseen realities and reveal them to the world.

PrairieView therefore is actually all about the process of revelation. Through our program, not only do our students learn to become professional 'revealers', but much about them as individual is revealed in the process.

And we as teachers are treated to those wonderful revelations every day, in every class as we see our students develop before our very eyes. And just to underline the point, I want to tell you about a stunning revelation that I had about myself just this year. 

Now that I am, let's just say "of a certain age" and my eyes are not as good as they used to be, I wear glasses, often several pairs at the same time. But even with glasses, it seems that I am still unable to truly see everything I wish I could.

So one day I got to wondering why it is that as I speak my, in my mind’s eye all I see are calm, relaxed students enjoying the lesson. And in my mind’s eye, I am a mild mannered, subdued, relaxed teacher who gives gentle lessons and maintains a calm classroom atmosphere.

Yet I keep hearing reports that being in a class with me is like sitting in some sort of tornado wind tunnel of information and that students always leave a bit shell-shocked.

So I decided to conduct an experiment.

I set up a camera in the classroom while I was teaching to catch the real expressions on my students’s faces during the lesson, not the ones I had in my mind’s eye. And it turns out, I was wrong. The camera revealed that the image I had in my mind of my students while teaching was wrong.

Let me show you how wrong I was.  

Here is basically how I see some students.

In my mind's eye, this is Kellie McDonald

 And this is how I see Sophia Cardona

And this is how a I see Megan Wilson.

Now, this next shot may be a bit shocking to you all, but THIS is what the hidden camera revealed. This is how Kellie really looks during my class:

Wait for it....

Scroll down....

 

Yup, that is the REAL Kellie.



And this is how Sophia looks during my class

And this is how Megan looks

And they are not the only ones. I mean, look at these shell-shocked students!!
 

 

Even ROSS looks like he is facing a hurricane and he's not even in the same room!!!
 

So to figure out why the students look like that in my class I thought I would turn the camera around to see what I look  as I teach.

And as soon as I saw the photo, I totally understood.

This IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE AS I TEACH!

PV, where revelations occur every day

As photographers, we are called upon to reveal.

We seek hidden truths, hidden beauty and unseen realities so that we can reveal them to the world.

As graduates of the PrairieView program, we know that you all have a bright future in front of you.

It is a future of revelations.

About your subject.

About yourself.

And about the entire world around you, most of which is still waiting to be revealed.

Thank you and Congratulations!