About eleven years ago I took a part time gig at the Academy of Art University as a lab tech on the night shift. Not the most glamorous of positions to say the least, but I was flat broke and coming off a very long very disastrous and entirely tragic endeavour with a group of photographers that turned out to be a half million dollar con job. Honestly I was just trying to keep from getting evicted at that point.
Final prints submitted by Ian Chen
I lab teched for a few semesters, eventually moved up to full time, supervised the lab at night for a bit, started running the pool of camera equipment and the small studio in the New Media department. The director knew my background was in photography and offered me a class, and things just sort of snow balled from there. I started teaching more, did some workshops, re-wrote the class once or twice, and somehow a decade went by. This past Friday I taught my last class as a full time employee of the Academy of Art University. I am officially unemployed.
Final prints submitted by Ashley Davies
I'll continue to teach and do workshops going forward but only on a part time basis. My days of fixing cameras and lights and projectors and asking people if they turned it off and turned it back on again are over. I'm looking forward to spending less time in front of a screen and more time in a classroom for sure. Teaching was always the part of my time there that I enjoyed the most, and I'd like to do more of it in the future if I can. It's been quite a ride to say the least, I've worked with some amazing people, and seen a lot of folks come and go. If you'd have told me when I started that I'd spend a decade there I'd have said you're crazy, but such is life, and so it goes.
I'm in Florida at the moment, with family for the holidays, enjoying some long awaited down time with my wife and the new baby, looking forward to a quiet Christmas and a low key New Year. Turning the page on one chapter and ready to start another...