The six students and at least as many volunteers arrived at the farm around 9am, and were cut loose with borrowed and donated digital cameras. “The idea was to get the kids out shooting when the light was O.K.,” said poet John Casteen IV, looking upon one young photographer as she took a picture of her friend, kneeling among what appeared to be heads of lettuce. “For poetry, language is not meant to communicate. It’s expressive.” So too with photography, says Casteen, who grew up on Orangedale Avenue, off Fifth Street Extended. “I wanted to work with kids who grew up where I did.”
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This year’s Southwood Youth Photography Project brought six students to Maple Hill educational farm in Scottsville for a day of photography instruction and cutting loose, country-style. |
This is the Southwood Youth Photography Project, a joint effort between the Bridge/PAI and Albemarle County Schools that began four years ago to connect students from the Southwood mobile home park, just outside Charlottesville, with four days of instruction in photography and creative writing. “The intention of the program is to get students to interact with nontraditional professionals, like artists, writers and photographers,” said Gloria Rockhold, community engagement manager at Albemarle County Schools. “With time and age, we learn these filters that help us define what’s a good picture and a bad picture. But children are very, very creative. And when you just open up creativity to children, you just kind of get out of their way.”
After a morning spent climbing trees and chasing fowl, Arnol Lopez sat at a picnic bench to scroll through the photos he’d taken with the point-and-shoot digital camera he preferred to the bulkier models other students were using. In one picture, three chickens seemed to be contemplating CDs that were hung on strings around the coop to scare off predators. “I used to have four chickens,” said Arnol Lopez.
“A dog ate them,” said Jose Lopez, Arnol’s older brother. On their cameras, they showed pictures of water running from a pump faucet, a pore-heavy closeup of photographer Billy Hunt (who’s guiding the project’s photography portion), and several pictures of a college-aged Bridge intern.
This year’s project took students to Maple Hill Farm. Once the source farm for the erstwhile Best of What’s Around CSA program, Maple Hill is owned by the Matthews family—of Dave fame. They partnered with the Local Food Hub to transform it into an educational center, and now hosts three high school interns and three full-time apprentices. Emily Manley, the farm’s outreach manager, said that part of the farm’s goal is to host kids who like “being outside for the day rather than in front of the computer.”
Ross McDermott, one of the photographers behind the American Festivals Project, pulled up in a pickup truck around 11am, just as the group was congregating to enjoy a cooler full of bottled water, frozen grapes and a generous supply of turkey sandwiches. Greg Kelly, the Bridge’s executive director, introduced McDermott to the group, saying that he’s done work for National Geographic. “Do you know Tom Something?” Arnol shouted above the clamor. “He works for National Geographic.”
“Nah, I don’t know him,” said McDermott.
Last year, the project led to a show at the Bridge called “El Barrio: The Neighborhood,” based around Southwood. The goal for the photographers—six of them, between the ages of 11 and 16—was to tell the park’s story through pictures and poetry. The gallery opening at the Bridge ran concurrent with the Festival of the Photograph, and even with the bustle on the Downtown Mall, “El Barrio” distinguished itself as the kind of event that many arts organizations around town try to do and often can’t: The show brought from vastly different walks of life into the same room in the name of art.
On the farm, the mood briefly turned dour when one Maple Hill employee showed up with a six-foot-long snakeskin. “You better get that thing out of here,” said Garcia.
Gabby Garcia, Miriam’s cousin, also 15, said, “I want to leave,” running her finger across an iPod Touch with a cracked display.
“Let’s look for snakes,” Arnol Lopez again shouted. He took off around the building with a stick in one hand, a camera in other.
