Photography teacher Ms. Joellen Desautels is seeking donations of manual and analog cameras — the models that use actual film — as well as digital single lens reflex cameras for her students.

Students in her beginning classes that meet in Cunningham use film cameras before they advance to digital single lens reflex models, and all too often those cameras malfunction. Desautels said, “Inside (the camera) you have metal parts, gears, sprockets, springs that break.”

As a result of a Mothers’ Club grant that allowed for the purchase of film cameras last year, more students are getting the chance to learn photography basics. “There are a lot more technical skills (students) have to do (with analog cameras) in the darkroom versus (students with the digital cameras), who do more composition and Photoshop,” Desautels said.

Anyone who wishes to donate a camera may leave it at the school’s front office and inform the receptionist that the camera is for Desautels.