the end/reflection

A few pages from our zine:





Well, the end came and went. We made amazing zines full of our photography about the environment, presented at the parent/teacher exhibition at IS 230, presented at the Urban Arts Festival at the Bleecker Street Theater, and spent some time picking out which photos to leave behind in the hallways of the school. I am so proud of my students, they have grown as artists, photographers, and people. I will miss you!

Reflections:
Here are the students answering my questions, discussion style, about the year.

"Photos create memories, lots of memories. This program has been good for me because it could help me in the future, like it could help me get into a good school, the stuff that I've learned could help me in a lot of places." - Caryin

"Photos are like art. They represent something that you feel. Each pic can represent a different emotion and feeling you have inside." - Alan

"We got to express our emotions in our pictures, like we chose the pictures we took for a reason, like the one Dayana took of the flower, or the one Alan took of the tree..." - Daniela

"I liked best [Central] park and the MET, because I liked seeing nature and taking pictures. Or, you could take pictures of family and people you care about." - Dayana

"The school is so cramped up. All day long being inside the school is hard. [What I liked best here was] being outside and doing almost anything I wanted with the camera, you get to move and get better pics outside." - Caryin

"Pictures are like words." - Alan

"Pictures try to send messages in the attitude or the way the person or thing is doing or feeling or expressing." - Daniela

new work by Brenda

I like this picture because it shows the shadow of the tree but at the same time it shows all of my classmates in it too. I also like it because of the branches of the trees. We went to the MET museum to see the Lee Freidlander picture of a tree shaped like a hand. Then I tried to re-create the same picture but it came a little different. I think my picture looks like hands trying to reach us.

new work by Kevin

I like this picture because it shows a flower that is all alone and that’s its surrounded by leaves. It also shows loneliness

new work by Alan

I like this picture because in the picture it shows a flower but with some garbage around it and that shows how much litter is in the world.

Does this photograph change your perspective on nature?



I like the picture because it shows how the frown on what looks like a face on the tree shows how we are destroying nature.

new work by Nicole

I took this picture because it seemed to show something about nature and earth, it seemed to show how much trash there is on earth. It also shows my dog Oreo.- Nicole

new work by Daniela

I took this photo because I was playing in the playground and Dayana was under me I told her to stop. Also because it looks mysterious and sad, and half her face has light and half doesn’t.
I like this photo because I think that it shows that the garbage on the ground can hurt people and the environment. Also because it shows that garbage in the ground is hurting the person, which is the shadow.





The trees and earth save us. Don't cut it and don't damage it=( I like the emotion of the squirrel in this photo that why i chose it. Daniela

Metropolitan Museum of Art

We took a nice long field trip to the MET to see the Lee Friedlander exhibit of Olmsted's parks. Then, we went to Central Park and tried to recreate our favorites. It seems like the environment is becoming our theme. We honor and cherish it in our photographs. We have hundreds of photos to edit this week, but they're coming soon! Above are our our favorites from Friedlander.

Street Photography!

To collect photographs for our artist books and zines we have started to talk walks around the school, it's been loads of fun and the students' photographs are amazing! Do you think these are interesting photographs of community? What kinds of emotions do they display? Leave us comments, please.

"Shaddie Movimientos" By Natalie

"Chains" By Dayana

By Alan

By Edwin

Student Photo Essays

All the students have created photo essays in PowerPoint. The themes were family, immigration, cultural identity, and place. Each photographer labored for a long time editing their photos, deciding which ones to use, and then learning PowerPoint. Here I have put just one slide of each student's work, but their photo essays each held 5-10 slides. They were amazing and I am so proud of their hard work!

On Feb 4th we went to Long Island City High School to present our work to two other photo classes. We had a fun time even though we had to leave early, but we look forward to presenting more work to even more students in Manhattan in May at the Urban Arts Festival!

By Charmi


By Dayana


By Edwin


By Josephine


By Daniela


By Caryin


By Daihana


By Alan


By Brenda


By Nicole



By Maria


By Kevin


By Joshua

Field Trip! Lower East Side Tenement Museum

We went to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum! Click on the link for the website, where there are some really cool online activities.

We did a short walking tour of the area, but it was COLD! So we headed indoors for snacks and fun in the Confino Apartment where a costumed interpreter dressed as teenage Victoria Confino circa 1916 welcomed us as though we were newly arrived immigrants and taught us a few things about how to adapt to America. We were told our clothes looked funny and we would need to get some new ones or else we wouldn't fit in! We couldn't believe she had no t.v., no washing machine, and had to sleep on the kitchen floor!

Below are some photos the students took during the trip, click on them to enlarge. We shared cameras so it's hard to know who took which one. Also, we weren't allowed to take photos inside, sorry!

When asked to write about the most interesting thing they learned, the students wrote,

"The most amazing thing I learned at the museum is that there had to be 9-10 people per apartment and two families per bathroom." Alan

"In this trip I had so much fun. I think the most interesting thing to see was the acting because she is talking in other way. She is showing us odd things. I think in my mind this is the most fun and important thing." Tasnima

"

"What I learned on the trip was about the neighborhood and the things I heard about immigration life in the history channel video." Atenas
The most interesting thing I learned was about the stories on the LES, and the pink retail building." Dominique