Fallbrook students enter photos in fair's Student Showcase

Ivy High School photography instructor Bodhi Smith has found the San Diego County Fair's Student Showcase to be a popular activity for his students, and this year he also taught a Saturday class at Fallbrook High School which allowed Fallbrook High School photographers to join their Ivy counterparts in the Student Showcase.

The Ivy participation for the 2016 fair consisted of 40 students with 65 photographs, while Fallbrook had 27 students with 50 photographs displayed. Fallbrook High School had not had a photography entry in the Student Showcase since 2014, when Connor Kuhn was a Fallbrook junior and a student in Bill Richardson's advanced placement studio art class (Kuhn's photo won Best of Division in the panoramic images competition).

"It was a good thing for the kids," Smith said. "It was a nice little feather in the district's cap."

Smith began teaching at Ivy High School in 1998, and when school resumes in late August, his 19th year at Ivy will be the longest of any Ivy faculty member in history. His actual teaching credential is in social studies and he teaches social studies (including psychology), art, and a Web Design class as well as serving as Ivy's photography instructor. He started Ivy's photography program in 2012.

The Fallbrook Union High School District has a Fallbrook Extended Learning Academy program which is open to all three of the district's schools (Oasis High School is the district's independent study school). "I did a Saturday program," Smith said.

The classes are normally 3 1/2 hours, not including a break, although Smith's classes didn't necessarily end four hours after they began.

"We did field trips as well," said Smith. "Some of the field trips went pretty long."

The field trips were as far north as Venice Beach and as far south as the San Diego Zoo.

Smith noted that the Fallbrook High School students who took his Fallbrook Extended Learning Academy class did so when they were not required to attend school. "It was their choice to be there," he said.

In 2011, Smith became a landscape photographer on days he wasn't teaching. The Saturday classes are not held on holiday weekends, when Smith can take longer trips for his landscape photography. "It didn't really affect my schedule that much," he said.

His classroom activities include visits from wedding or other event photographers and others who earn money for their photographic skills, but Smith limits discussion of his own activity since landscape photography is one of the least likely types of professional photography to provide income for full-time activity. "When I teach I don't really show much of my work," he said.

Smith had to make an exception when the Natural History Museum, which is part of Balboa Park in San Diego, invited him to a Saturday awards ceremony. The Natural History Museum's Best of Nature photography exhibit accepted 71 photographs, including four taken by Smith.

The awards ceremony included the announcement that the Best of Show award was for "Impressions in the Mist", which was taken on Smith's April 2015 trip to New Zealand and features a tree with part of the Devils Punchbowl Falls waterfall in the background.

"It was kind of an honor," Smith said. "The whole class was there to see it. That was kind of cool."

Smith's classes at Ivy High School are part of the school day on weekdays other than when field trips are taken.

"They're doing great," said Smith. "The program's still growing. They had some really good pictures this year. Everybody in the district loves the program."

In addition to the field trips, the Ivy students took photographs at or near the school.

"I'm impressed by the level of student work," Smith said. "They're buying into it."

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