Artist Jo Howell tells us all about her recent workshops with Equal Arts Creative Age project.

I’ve always loved the way that photography and art can help you to reframe the everyday. I realise that even without a camera in my hand that I am always looking at the world through an imaginary view finder.

We spend all day ever being bombarded with images. We are all visually literate. You just have to point out a few things that learners probably always knew but had never analysed or understood.

Equal Arts is about keeping your brain active through art as you age. Mostly working with people aged 55 and above. The group I was working with were brilliant. We worked together and went at their pace.

I break photography down into bite sized pieces for workshop courses. I think it can be very easy to overwhelm people with photography. There’s a lot of jargon and theory. I try to cut through that with humour and simplicity.

I teach that we should always get closer and focus on the small things. The rule of thirds and depth of field. The world is huge and our job as photographers is to show us a new perspective.

My classroom notations are crazy but handy. We create out flow diagram together leading us towards the concepts we will explore.

The artists in the group really worked hard to overcome some technophobia. The smartphones are wonderful tools but also sometimes quite complicated if you are just using them for texts and calls.

People are always surprised at how versatile and powerful these things are! We have more computing power in our hands than NASA had to send people to the moon. Well, that’s what I’ve heard and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true because I remember floppy disks with their huge capacity of 1.44mb.

I think we made some real inroads and I am sure that the participants will feel so much more confident using the camera on their phone.

Keep it simple stupid! KISS will keep you right throughout life. The aims of each session should be achievable- don’t overload people with too much too soon.

Photographers didn’t just magically get skills from the ether. Good photographs are built upon the language of painting. The photographers have learned the old rules and then played with them even more. Our visual language and culture is so rich and vast! There are nuances and subtext at play.

I think we did well.

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