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Community Programs Education Resources

PBS: Manipulating Photographs: Can You Trust Photographs?

Photographic manipulation has always been an issue in the 21st century. Because of the realism that a photograph can capture and depict, we often think photographs capture the truth, when in fact they can be (and often are) manipulated. Although photographs were also manipulated before the invention of the digital camera, with the introduction of Photoshop, photographic manipulation has transferred the emphasis from capturing to creating a photograph. Born into this era of photographic manipulation, many teens nowadays are not able to grasp the difference between the two. They are flooded by thousands of photographs daily that straddle the blurry line between creation and reality. A movement named SPARK questions the reality of images within teen magazines and has started a campaign to address this issue. Although we cannot ban photographic manipulation, we can educate students about it and highlight the artificiality that can exist in photographs.

In a PBS teaching blog,  a teacher’s guide entitled “Manipulating Photographs: Can You Trust Photographs?” shows creative ways to educate students on the topic of photographic manipulation, the power of photographs, and the role of ethics in photojournalism, the aim being to inform course-takers of the nature of the “new” photography. The guide starts out by asking students to list examples of photographs that have helped to cause changes throughout the 20th century, and to consider how photographs can act as agents of change. This helps student to come to the realization that photography is powerful and not just limited to the thousands of mundane images that they see daily.  Students are also asked to look at several photographs that have been altered by the photographer, and to analyze these photographs and the motivation behind the changes. This idea is extremely clever in that it helps students to understand why and how photographers make such adjustments. In the process, students will develop the skills to critically analyze photographs before believing they are genuine. Trying to understand the motives behind a photograph will help students to understand that photographs are not necessarily depictions of truth, but may have been constructed with certain motivations in mind. Then the students get hands-on experience in manipulating photographs, and finally, they are asked if their manipulation is acceptable or not. By being on the other side and manipulating the photographs, students will gain a better understanding of the nature and ease of photo manipulation.

The rest of the guide deals with photographic credibility and the accuracy of photographs. The guide is extremely useful, because a topic like photographic manipulation is extremely hard to educate students about. They may know of Photoshop, but many do not consider its usage and simply accept manipulated photographs of models and the pictures shown in news coverage as reality, which they may not be. It is important to teach students to question the images they consume and assess the motivations behind them in order to draw their own conclusions.

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They also have many interesting and creative teaching guides incorporating different ideas into the class room. Take a look at their site

Categories
Community Programs Resources

Mekong: Empowering the Southeast Asian Community in NYC

Created in 2012 as a response to the “lack of vital social services for Southeast Asians,” Mekong is a emerging non-profit organization located in the Bronx, NY that works with the Cambodian and Vietnamese community through organizing and various programs.  In fact, Mekong “aims to improve the quality of life of the Southeast Asian community in the Bronx and throughout New York City by achieving equity through community organizing and healing, promoting arts, culture, and language, and creating a safety net by improving access to essential social services.”

What I really admire about Mekong is that their “holistic approach to building community” centered around arts and culture to connect its inter-generational members together.  At the moment, I am working with Mekong to help them create a platform for documentation of their work with the Southeast Asian community in the Bronx.  One lesson I have learned from Mekong is their collaborations and partnerships with local individuals and groups.  Every time I attend an event or workshop with Mekong, there is always an organization that they are partnering with on a particular project or endeavor.  For example, Mekong has collaborated with Season of Cambodia on a number of events, including the current celebration of the Cambodian New Year.

Please check out Mekong’s website for postings of current events.

Categories
Community Programs Education Resources

Joy of Giving Something

Joy of Giving Something (JGS) is a non-proft organization “dedicated to photographic arts.”  JGS has a world-renowed collection of photographs as well as a journal, platforms, scholarships and education programs.

Two programs that I am very drawn to from JGS is the Forward Thinking Museum and Resolution.

Founded in 2007, the Forward Thinking Museum is “virtual space” that features video and contemporary photography that connects fine art and photojournalism.  The Museum also has a store that sells prints, books and DVDs with proceeds going to student scholarships in photographic studies.  Whereas Resolution is a program that provides opportunities “for teens to publish and exhibit work in the context of social awareness.”

Both the Forward Thinking Museum and Resolution are creative and innovative programs provide spaces for individuals of all ages the opportunity to exhibit and feature photography works that questions the status quo.  Using JGS’s resources, I have often referred their website to our high school students for examples of photography works as well as photo contests and opportunities to consider.

Be sure to check out JGS’s online gallery for on-going exhibitions.

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Community Programs Resources

Season of Cambodia: A Living Arts Festival

Season of Cambodia: A Living Arts Festival is an innovative two-month festival in New York City that currently features a diverse body of programs for April and May of 2013.  The festival partners with over 125 Cambodian artists and organizations in Cambodia and New York to host performances, shows, galleries, panels, residencies, platforms etc. celebrating Cambodia’s history, culture, and diaspora.

One featured Cambodian artist that I am very inspired by is Pete Pin because he uses documentary photography as a tool “to build meaningful dialogues within Diaspora communities in the US, and instigate connections to their personal and collective histories.”  Pin currently works with Cambodian American youth on a project in which the youth are utilizing their iphones to document their families’ photographs and immigration documents to America.  He is very interested in the process that the youth undergo in dialoguing with their families on their diasporic journeys and experiences.  Working with the Cambodian American communities, Pin creates spaces for both the youth and their families to create their own narratives and stories together.

Attending and immersing myself in Season of Cambodia’s programs and events have been useful for myself as both an artist and educator to take away ideas of bridging histories and culture together for creating spaces of more enriching and expansive narratives.

Check out some great events that are currently happening at their calendar!

Traditional Cambodian Dance
Categories
Community Programs Media Projects

D.C. students use photography to protest school security – The Washington Post

D.C. students use photography to protest school security – The Washington Post

The small band of guerrilla photographers spread out in schools across the District, snapping photos of metal detectors, police pat-downs, and scuffles between security guards and students. read more

The student photographers Critical Exposure, a nonprofit photography program that teaches youth to use the power of photography and their own voices to become effective advocates for school reform and social change, based in Washington, D.C.

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Community Programs

Great interview – Laundromat Project

As a follow up to Amy’s post about the Laundromat Project, here is an interview from the Laundromat Project blog with Program Director Petruska Bazin Larsen, who also happens to be an alumnus of Photography and Imaging.

How did you get connected with The LP?
I was thinking about starting my own non-profit organization when I didn’t see anything on the job market that really interested me. I contacted Risë, who I’ve known since 2002, to hear about how she started The LP. Fast forward ten months, and I started working with her to develop our Create Change Public Artist Residency program.

Has your work as Program Manager with The LP changed the way you think about art?
I am way more drawn to work that does something more than just look pretty. Art is most successful when it is both visually compelling and charged with social impact. Read more

 

Categories
Community Programs Media Projects

Sudden Flowers – Ethopia

 Sudden Flowers project in Ethopia

stories and videos from 2007.

I was reminded of this project today when I was looking at the work of co-founder Eric Gottesman. On his site is a more recent mobile portrait studio project he did with Sudden Flowers in 2011. Other projects with Sudden Flowers are on his site and I was especially intrigued with the touring 2006 project Abul Thona Baraka throughout Ethopia. Members of Sudden Flowers accompanied the exhibition in its travels and engaged audience members in dialog inspired by their photographs > look at the slide show.  Many more links to Sudden Flowers in the photographs and installations section of Eric’s site.

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Community Programs

The Laundromat Project

A few years ago, we blogged about a community program known as The Laundromat Project. The Laundromat Project is a community-based art program that takes place in local laundromats across New York City. What makes this program unique is the fact that they use a space where people of different races and backgrounds converge. The laundromat is a common ground that all types of people come to, and the downtime created in waiting for laundry creates a perfect opportunity to engage in art. Right now, the project works out of different laundromats in the city, but their long-term goal is to create an art center that adjoins a laundromat and create a more permanent dialogue with a particular space.

I found the most groundbreaking aspect of the project to be its offering of residencies for artists. In their Create Change program, artists have the chance to break out of the independent mindset of working as an individual. Most artist residencies give artists an incubation space for their own work. The Create Change program allows artists to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the community. This departs from the norm, and allows for the artists in residence to explore what is possible when art is integrated into a community setting that would otherwise not be a part.

You can keep up with what The Laundromat Project is doing by visiting their website and calendar.

Categories
Community Programs

Global Youth Connect

Global Youth Connect is a non-profit human rights activist organization aimed to empower and inspire passion in youth. It has helped to address a wide variety of human rights and social justice issues around the world since 1999. Global Youth Connect provides today’s youth with opportunities to engage in experiential learning in post-conflict countries that have a history of human rights abuses. International youth participants in delegations join local peers in their selected destinations in a combination of workshops, advocacy meetings, volunteer service with NGOS and site visits, through which they obtain vital information on the key human rights issues pertaining to their choice of location. International youth delegations are invited to work collectively in taking action for human rights and social justice.

Over the past decades, GYC has initiated 26 human rights training programs, involving more than 625 young individuals from 15 countries. There are currently twelve locations international participants can select from, such as Rwanda, El Salvador and Bosnia. The GYC programs provide comprehensive tools to inform and empower young people to make educated decisions in the human rights field.   Here is a video of an International Delegate talking about her experience in Rawanada. They are currently accepting Bosnia and Rawanda delegation applications. Be sure to also take a look at their blog.

 

Categories
Community Programs

Expanding the Walls

Over the past four weeks, I have been working with high school students from the Studio Museum in Harlem Expanding the Walls (ETW) program. This amazing program is for students that come from all over the New York area. It is an opportunity that allows the students to learn digital photography over the course of 8 months. They also participate in a variety of activities that help to inform their final photographic project such as museum and gallery visits.

The program approached us at Photography and Imaging because they wanted to expand the experience with photography by learning analog photography before diving into digital. That’s where I come in. Expanding the Walls needed an analog aficionado.  I was up for the challenge. Starting in the beginning of February the students of ETW made the journey to the Photography & Imaging Department of NYU’s Tisch. During these weeks the students learned how to operate an analog camera, make compelling images, and enlarge their negatives in the darkroom.

I was so excited to introduce to these students my passion and it was a joy to see their engagement with the amazing art of photography. The workshop has come to an end, but I’m looking forward to working with these students until the end of the semester as they transition into digital. I hope to see the concepts they’ve learned to extend into their images as they work toward a final project.

To learn more about Expanding the Walls, check out their website.

  photocrati gallery