All illustrations in this post copyright © Janika Kefel. All rights reserved.

Perfection is overrated, I keep saying.

This photo project presentation from one of my students back in 2009 proved the point so well that I remember it as if it was yesterday.

Anyone who is new to photography or has ever tried to take decent wild life images will find much that resonates. And there is an awful lot in that lesson for anyone interested in public speaking and presenting, too.

JK had her problems with talking freely like the rest of my class of young designers, but she was great at drawing, and for her final talk we had discussed how she could best use her specific skill set in order to make her feel as much at home as possible.

JK’s talk was great visual story telling and comic relief all rolled into one, but it was more than that; it was great content, and great delivery, and it wowed us all to see how she had overcome her difficulties as a speaker and a budding photographer within one and the same project.

                                                   

So how did she do it?

• JK took us along for the ride. She showed us how she had prepared for her very first photo project at our design department (shot at Hanover Sealife aquarium)
• She showed us how being prepared is everything and being overprepared is nothing and how there is always something you did not expect.
• She showed us how difficult it is to take photographs of moving animals, even more so in an articifial environment: a starfish was the only object she managed to »get«.
• She showed and talked us through her learning experience with time and available light, and we felt with her, and we laughed with her.
• She also showed us how, after tons of useless images, she came to realize that she had set her goals all wrong and she changed direction in mid flight: Instead of trying to avoid motion blur, she went after it, she hunted it down, and the results speak for themselves.

As for content, the only thing missing were some »hard facts«, some guidelines as to aperture and shutter speed, something on settings. But then JK’s talk was not about hard facts (which can easily go into a separate hand-out), quite the opposite. And that is exactly why it worked so well for everyone in the room.

Thanks for letting me use your story here!

I had my new rhetorical class for women only all set up. We would talk about voice control, learn how to break cute habits, and do some grounding exercises. We would grow tall and proud and talk like real people, not dolls. I had a deck of ten slides, each one lovingly prepared, each one supporting my points, each one a stimulus for conversation.

I also had audio, I had video, I had stories, I had a basket full of breathing exercises. Everything was picture book perfect. Including the weather. Bright enough to lighten up the room, not bright enough to make the slideshow hard to see or to make you wish you were somewhere else.

It is 10.00. Time to start. In walks the last participant. Steaming with fury. Full to the brim with a story she is bursting to share.

I press »B« on my keyboard and invite her to tell us what has happened.

It is a three sentence story about being over charged at a gas station for a service that she had not asked for in the first place. No big deal, but as a student she cannot really afford to be that generous, and as a woman she should not have to put up with being treated like a child.

»And what did you say in return?«, I ask, when she has  finished.

She is still glowing. »I said: Forget it, and walked away.«

And nothing I have prepared could be more impressive than this real life anger in her voice and her movements.

I take it from there and turn off the projector.

And we talk and practice, and talk and role play, and don’t talk and breathe, and practice some more, until we all  feel we have grown an inch or two.

I still show them the ten slides, a successful hour and a half later. They work great as a three-minute summary. A nice list of images. A nice list of ideas to take home and work on.

The real lesson today though was provided by life and common sense: When working with people, all you need is people, really. And a bit of imagination, and the courage to turn off the projector, once in a while, and see what happens next. You might actually like it.