Ezra Nolan Middle School’s photography club, which has five student members, will be participating in the “Home of the Free” project sponsored by Washington Mutual bank. Home of the Free is a student photojournalism project designed for seventh and eighth grade classes.
“It gives the students the opportunity to learn about photojournalism and create lasting records of public servants and events,” said Kevin Flynn, a spokesman for Washington Mutual.
Eighth graders Emmanuel Rodriguez, Moses Louis, Patricia Bugarin, Devi Venkataramen and Erin Aponte will participate. Teacher Frank Borrotto said the students will arrange to follow and take photographs of local politicians and public figures.
“We will probably go down to City Hall, very likely next week,” said Borrotto. “The kids will take pictures of government people going about their daily work.”
The students have until Oct. 1 to enter six photos in a contest that is part of the program. “This is going to be a group effort and they will be entered as a group,” stated Borrotto.
“The selected pieces will be exhibited at the New York Historical Society, which is co-sponsoring the project,” said Flynn.
“I’m pretty excited about this,” said Venkataramen, who has been active in photography since the sixth grade. At P.S. 65 two years ago, she made a visual record of school history projects.
“The history students were covering ancient Egypt and I took pictures of the sculptures they built,” said Venkataramen. “The photos were later put in the school newspaper.”
Louis, who has also done some photography, mostly of family gatherings, has branched out into video.
“At church, I video tape all the revivals. I do most of the services,” said Moses, adding it is very hard to keep the camera still when the church shakes during religious services.
Louis believes that learning about photography will be help for him with his future plans to be an engineer. “Knowing what a place looks like in detail can be a very big help,” said Louis.
“There are very strict rules for this project,” said Borrotto. “We’ve been supplied with digital cameras by the organizers. However, the students can not alter the photographs in the computers. The only thing they can do is fix the contrast to make the pictures clearer.”
The students did express some reservations about photographing adults, but Louis seems to have least amount of reservations.
“I’ll just walk up to them and ask,” said Louis. “It can’t be hard.”
Aponte said she was used to taking pictures, since she serves as a photographer for the family.
“I have to take big group shots and that’s hard sometimes,” Aponte stated. “It is good practice, however.”
Aponte added that she liked to experiment with light and different camera angles when she is doing group shots.
Will attend exhibition
Flynn said all participating students will attend the Oct. 29 exhibition at the New York Historical Society of the work selected by the judges. According to Flynn, the panel will consist of Sarah Harbutt, Newsweek’s director of photography, photographer Arnold Newman, Margaret O’Conner, director of photography at The New York Times, and Michele Stephenson, photography director of Time Magazine.
“The kids are really excited about this,” Borrotto said. “I don’t think the kids are aware of how history can be captured by a photograph. You can describe something with words in a book, but a picture can say so much more.”
Borrotto said the photography club students have learned how to manipulate digital photos on school computers. Also, the students have learned to create different effects on photographs from what Borrotto called “solarization.”
“Solarization is when you heighten colors to the point when they become very bright,” said Borrotto. “It looks like a negative, almost. The kids didn’t seem to like it very much.”
“I really want to go to New York,” said Louis. “I want to go to the exhibit, but what I really want to do is photograph Ground Zero.”
“What the children learn from this experience will help them for the rest of their lives,” said Borrotto, adding the students would begin taking pictures for the contest hopefully in the coming week.