So, we are preparing ourselves to work together and to work in/with this place called Gozdowo. We are in the middle of a 2 week visit and we are tired. (But rather excited I think.) We are painfully aware that we can do everything wrong, that maybe we are not doing everything right or in the right order or in the right room.
Yesterday evening I ran a workshop introducing Photoshop as a tool for cultural animation. I work with this tool myself. A lot. But not exclusively. I work also with paint, with performance, with chocolate, with statistics, with plastic bags. I am sure that I am not such a good teacher. About half an hour before the workshop started, I became really worried that I didn’t have a concrete plan about how the next 3 hours would look. I asked Katedra if they happened to have a copy of our communication where I described quite well what we hoped to accomplish and how we would do it. I would give a ‘tour’ introducing Photoshop, with lots of laptops so people could watch+do; and also to talk about how it could be used in workshop situations; and also to talk about how to use it as a way to promote or document what you are doing. This of course was crazy to try & accomplish in 3 hours. It was a sort of mitigated chaos.
Katedra asked me to help with the evaluation questionnaire so I already knew one of the questions would be “Are you satisfied the way the workshops were run and their overall quality?” They seemed satisfied and in fact one person wrote that “The workshop was run in a dynamic and interesting way. One could take part in it in an untamed way.”
Overall, it seems that people were interested but a bit afraid of Photoshop before the workshop – and now they say they are excited about it and not so afraid to try it again themselves, even if they won’t remember everything I showed them. Kolejny wielki sukces 
I asked everyone to talk a little about how they personally might use Photoshop for cultural animation, and it seemed everyone was full of ideas and enthusiasm. I suggested, since there were about 10 people and maybe another 10 will come on Wednesday, was that maybe they could set up a Photoshop support network – that they could exchange emails & maybe use google-chat or the Katedra website to help one another, to remember stuff and to share new tips and shortcuts. And to put information and ideas here on this website too.
Photoshop is an interesting tool to use with groups specifically because it is impossible to become a Master of Photoshop. Whenever I work with a group with Photoshop, I always have to say – “So, let’s do this together. I can show you some things but you will discover things that you can then share with me too. Ok?”
[mygal=photoshop]
so, it was really inspiring experience.
for me computer is like a typewriter and machine for internet… but recently i have been finding it as a great and exciting tool and discovering new areas of possible activity connected with it.
photoshop workshop was great for me – i had no idea how funny and in fact simple (you know – simple to do something not everythng;)) could it be. and how useful it might be in cultural animation – as it gives great effects (which seem to be really proffesional) and also possibility of making dreams real (i always wanted to have red hairs;)
so…we will see-maybe we could do smth with photoshop in Gozdowo? i think it is an attractive medium for young people – these interested in computer and maybe also for these who treat it like typewriter:)
p.s. in fact, now i’m playing with photoshop instead of writnig my master work