The Art of Photography

This week we are hosting our Spring Break Side by Side Photography Internship. This involves a large crew of people including the Intern Supervisor (or chief head counter), me April Sullivan, our instructor, local photographer Jo Ann Santangelo, five dedicated volunteers, Jeff, Robert, Michelle, Mary, and Yannik, three sign language interpreters Shea, Naomi, and Bethany, and twelve young adult interns with developmental disabilities, Berk, Ben, August, Kamand, Stephen, Thaddeus, Ricardo, Natalie, Rachel, Shelby, Kacie, and Lewis.

Together we are studying the world of photography. Jo Ann told us one of her favorite quotes by photographer Dorthea Lange, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” We practiced this concept as we took still life, nature, portrait, and animal photographs.

On Monday we learned still life photography. Here is one of Natalie’s still life images. She says, "I held the bird close to the camera when I took this photo. I wanted it to look like the viewer is looking down at the elephant from a birds eye view, literally. I wanted to show that the elephant travels a long way and I wanted the audience to be a part of that."

"Journey" by Natalie

Ricardo really enjoyed the photo shoot we did outside. He says, “My shots came out nice and clear. The scavenger hunt gave me a lot of opportunities. Trees and flowers were aesthetically pleasing. I really want to take more pics of nature to be clearer. I like how this is going.” Here is one of Ricardo’s photos from our scavenger hunt on the second day.

"House of Ages" by Ricardo

We took a field trip on Wednesday to a local urban farm, Hausbar Farms. Here is a group portrait from the farm. We took photos of bunnies, chickens, geese, donkeys, and plants.

Group photo at Hausbar Farms taken by Naomi

We have just a few more days of photographing and editing our images. The hard part is choosing a selection of photos for our portfolios and for display at our final showcase on Saturday, March 19th, from 3:30 – 4:30 pm.

Ben shows Mary the photo he has edited.