About 3-4 months ago, I received a call from a high school principal. I seriously thought it was another tele-marketing call. That’s something what I hate to receive every time I work from home. But this time it was from a Christian high school. I was confused at the start why there was a school interested to make a call to our office contact no. The principle mentioned that there was a student of his who admired with our works and wondered whether it’s possible to have a work experience with Foto Expression. I had no hesitation to accept the invitation even though I wondered what kind of works that I could gave to her during her stay with me for a week.
Since I didn’t think I had enough materials for her to work on as most of daily operation had been taken care by my team, I gave her a private mentoring session instead for 5 days.
Her name is Olivia Erin. You can see her experience of learning from me a week over here.
She is one talented girl. You can have every talent and skill you need to have a good photographer, but if you don’t have the right attitude, passion and commitment, it’ll be useless. But Olivia definitely has what it takes to be a good photographer, I can’t wait to see how much she will grow in the near future.
On the first day, I spent time of helping her to discover what she’s passionate about and what’s her strength. For me, it was very important to consider at early stage of the career. Thus, she had a vision of what kind of photographer she wanted to be.
2nd Day, one of our past students came by to our studio. I told Olivia that the best learning was not to listen what I mentored them, but to observe what and how the real Pro live their lives. Because workshop and mentoring session can always talk the good things, but listening the real experience, she would learn what kind of lives the photographers had.
3rd day, I helped her to give some technical tips and how to use and to understand camera and equipments better. This was for the purpose of preparing herself for the 4th day practical session.
4th day, it was fun day. I was fortunate to have a friend whom I met in one of the weddings I shot, Stephanie. Note, this was my first try to have a fashion spree (or whatever you want to call it) compared to my usual natural and candid style. Check the photo below.
5th day, we started the day by looking at each other’s results from the day before session. I was in awe to see how much Olivia’s eye was definitely different than mine, but it was still good. Then she spent her time to run a bit of reflection of what she learnt from me. So it’s more questions and answers day.
In overall, I had a great time sharing. I didn’t receive any cent from this. I shared my experience and knowledge to strangers. It was a nice feeling that I can finally do something good deed. 
Well, it might be my selfish act of wanting to see her to be successful one day
Olivia is in action
If you want to see more, please view it in my facebook page.