Fifty-six Palisades Charter High School photography students have their work on exhibit at the Palisades Branch Library on Alma Real Drive and at Caf’ Vida on Antioch Street. PaliHi teacher Rick Steil, who lives in the community with his family, chose the photos from thousands that were turned in as class assignments. The photos are on sale, and proceeds will be used to expand the school’s photography program. Steil, a veteran professional photographer, began teaching at PaliHi in September 2008. When he came to the classroom he found that photography students either had to own a camera or check one out for campus use only. ‘We have so many traveling students and I thought we were missing a great opportunity for them to take a camera home and then bring their life back into the classroom,’ Steil said. ‘It helped put them on a level playing field.’ Initially, the class had 12 digital and 12 film cameras, but with help from the booster club and the community, PaliHi now has 48 digital and 50 film cameras. The booster club also donated money for flashes, strobes and a wind machine, so Steil could turn part of the classroom into a modern photo studio. Steil teaches three beginning and one advanced photography class, yearbook and advanced placement photography. He averages 30 to 35 students in each of his classes. Beginning classes learn multi-imaging, Power Point technique and how to shoot both film and digital. ‘It’s important for kids to shoot film,’ Steil said. ‘It slows them down and takes them out of the instant gratification that our culture emphasizes.’ From the time students shoot film until it is developed and printed, a minimum of a week of class time elapses. Also by shooting film, students learn light, composition, quality and the principles of photography. Advanced classes work on more complex assignments, as students take photos that advance social commentary, express a point of view and affect people with emotion. Still on Steil’s wish list is a professional digital SLR camera, so that his yearbook class can take decent interior shots of plays and sporting events. ‘It’s so dark in the gym; my kids can’t get good photos.’ He praised his students, who come from a generation when everything is visual. ‘MTV, Facebook, social networking’there are social images everywhere, which means that their minds are open to visuals. They are good, and they say so much with their images.’ Steil initially had no aspirations to be a teacher, but one day after reading about PaliHi photography teacher Rob Doucette, he stopped by to say he was available to lecture or answer questions. Instead, Doucette, who was retiring, asked Steil to interview as his replacement. After 30 years on the road as a professional photographer, Steil wanted to spend more time with his wife, Nicole Fitzgerald, and their two children, Tyler (a junior at PaliHi) and Tucker (an eighth grader at Revere). Steil, who grew up in Iowa, earned a B.A. in marketing at the University of Dubuque before attending Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara to study photography. After graduation, he worked in New York City and Europe with photographers Hal Davis, who shot ads for Johnny Walker, Revlon and Nivea, and Mike Reinhardt, a major fashion photographer. Whitney Hubbs, who received her master’s degree in fine art from UCLA, where she is a photo lab supervisor, stopped by Steil’s classroom recently and complimented him on the maturity of the student photographs. ‘I had a smile on my face all day,’ Steil said.
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