Posted: Thursday 26 May 2011
Through the Lens: The Photography Club at the Burrell Collection
S1 pupils Niamh Canning Waddington and Robyn Marshall report on the Photography Club's trip to the Burrell Collection.
The photography club went on a trip to the Burrell Collection to see the 'China through the Lens of John Thomson' exhibition. This collection contains photographs taken by Thomson in the late 1800s. He travelled to China and took portraits and landscapes of the developing country, not only showing the wealthy but also the poor and working-class people.
After eating our lunches we were shown the photography exhibition. There were different sections for different parts of China. The photographs revealed what China was like at that time. One of our favourite photos was of a night watchman. We like this one because it showed the poor conditions that working people would live in. The first time we saw it most of us thought he was begging! We also liked the way that the borders from the original picture was left, because it showed what it was really like and added atmosphere. We also did an exercise where we guessed which of two women in some photos was poor and which was rich the one who was rich seemed lot more sad than the poorer one.
Afterwards we tried dressing up in Chinese clothes to take photos on a set, which we all found fun. We also tried making prints of some of John Thomson's photographs by using special paper and putting it under a 2000-watt light.
We all really enjoyed the trip and had a lot of fun. Thanks to Mrs Tooth and Mrs Woods for organising the trip and thank you to everyone at the Burrell Collection for the great activities.