Healing scars with a laptop.

For the past few months I've run a photography group for single dads on a Monday afternoon. It's part of Barnardos, and the deal is I spend a couple of hours with a group of blokes, and we learn how to take better photographs, and use Photoshop, and build up a portfolio of images with themes like Family and Play etc. It's very informal, and is an opportunity for the dads to learn skills they can share with their kids.

I don't know anything about the background of the dads apart from what they choose to tell me, and it has been fascinating over the months to learn about them and their lives. And it has been inspiring to see them develop and talke photographs that they're proud of. The Photoshop side of things is somewthing they have really got into, and they are now fairly competent at tidying up and improving digital photographs.

A few weeks ago, we all came down to the Arts Cenre in Newbiggin and did some portrait photography using my lights and backdrops. Then last week, we were working on improving the raw shots, and making them as good as they could possibly be on the computers. I was showing them how to tidy up the background, adjust the exposure, crop to get the best composition, and use the clone tool to remove blemishes and little imperfections from the shot.

One of the dads asked me to help him with his portrait. He has a small scar on his upper lip which  had noticed but assumed to be as the result of an injury. He told me he was born with a hare lip, and although they'd been able to do something about it, he was still left with a scar and slightly raised section of lip which he really disliked. Could we use the clone tool in Photoshop to get rid of it in his portrat?

We worked together o it for a few minutes, after which we had a reasonably good photograph minus the scar. I can't tell you how this affected him. He said for the first time in his life he was looking at a pictue of him that he liked and actually wanted to print out and hang on a wall. He had never seen his own face without the scar, and whenever he sees himself it's the first thing he looks at. That session really made a difference to the way he sees himself, and was an an unexpected boost to my morale too. I hadn't predicted that such a simple thing would have brought so much joy. I'll remember that for a long time.

Comments

[suzy]

How fab, it is great when you get comments like that, I had some at the weekend about my course and it really makes you feel you are doing something good - yay jason!
x

[caroline]

Even geeky stuff can touch the heart. Saw you on the telly with ya uke.

[christine]

I WANT ONE!

(An airbrushed photograph.)
Please please pleeeeeeeeeeeease.
How come you have NEVER suggested this to me?

[Liz Curtis]

That is a very special thing, Jason. It's stuff like this that make me incredibly glad that I am a teacher.

[Stu Robson]

Wicked...love it! Nice one!