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June 4, 2002
Ready,
aim, click Armed
with cameras and a licence into cyberspace, kids across the country are
breaking down geographical barriers and building visual portals into their
lives in a way that hasn't been done before. It's
simple, really. When you take a photograph, add the Internet, multiply the
audience and subtract feelings of isolation, you're left with the Student Cross
Canada Photography Exhibit. It's
an equation that Toronto photographer Martha Henrickson, 60, came up with
last year when she launched the Web site. It gives teenagers a voice through
the visual medium of photography and an opportunity to share snapshots of
their lives. The
photos are mostly of rural communities that dot the country's landscape from
sea to sea, as seen through the eyes of teenagers. Sheets of ice cascading
down mountainsides and skateboarders frozen in mid-air during gravity-defying
feats reveal the sombre natural beauty that surrounds them and the typical
teenage antics they engage in. The
idea first came to Henrickson two years ago, while she was travelling by
train through Ontario's backwoods. There she was, looking out the window onto
an idyllic landscape slumbering beneath a blanket of snow, when a snowmobile
whizzed by, shattering the peaceful image and rousing her from her thoughts.
Suddenly, she thought of the many lives that stirred beyond the horizon,
inside each building and behind every curtain. "You
pass through so many small communities when you're on the train and I thought
of all the young people living out there who might feel isolated and were
looking for ways to express themselves with others across the country." After
numerous attempts, Henrickson finally got Kodak Canada to supply 500
disposable cameras and e-mailed invitations to museums, libraries and schools
everywhere. The process is simple. Contact her through the Web site, she
sends you a 27-exposure camera, you take pics, mail back the camera, she pays
for the developing, picks a few prints to put online and then returns the
original photos and negatives to you. She
hasn't had participants from Manitoba, New Brunswick, the Northwest
Territories or the Yukon, but she's hopeful they'll eventually respond,
making the Web site a veritable cross-Canada exhibit. There's
no cost to the student, so there's no excuse. Henrickson picks up the tab for
all the shipping and processing. She admits she lost count of how much she
was spending as soon as the costs started to mount. But she can't resist,
she's driven to keep covering them, making her a patron of her own art. "My
hope is to allow access to each community, enabling young people to
communicate with each other through their vision of the beauty of their
communities all across Canada," she writes in an invitation on her Web
site, to which 300 have responded. "I
hope they connect," she sighs. "That's the big question. Do they
really look at what others in the country are doing?" The
answer, it seems, is a resounding yes. "I
thought it'd be interesting to see what other people's communities were like
and how they saw it through their own eyes," says Andrea Valade, 19, of
Sudbury, who first heard of the project last year through the local library. "That's
the part that I enjoyed the most, was looking at other people's photos and
being able to share with them how I see my community." And
what she shared weren't images of dark smokestacks piercing the skyline —
most often associated with Sudbury, home of the giant Inco mine and the Big
Nickel — they were breathtaking snapshots of the beauty and colour of the
city. For
Valade, an avid photographer who's now studying photography at Ryerson
University in Toronto, the most challenging part was shooting with a
disposable camera. "It was tough because I couldn't control any
settings, so the photos I took were the raw thing — what it looked like to
the eye, there was no manipulation." For
sleepy-eyed teens in homeroom, morning announcements are a blaring wake-up
call. But for Stephanie Conway, news of a photographic Web site seeking
submissions pushed her deeper into dreaming about a career as a photographer
of rock bands. "My
dream is to work for Rolling Stone magazine or Spin," says
the 18-year-old from Newfoundland. "I love the emotions that come
through when musicians play — it's emotional and intense. But I also love
taking scenic pictures." Because
her school wasn't involved with the project, Conway took the initiative to
contact Henrickson, who then became a sort of mentor to the budding
photographer. It was an experience that cemented Conway's ambitions and a
connection that opened up a world of possibilities. "The
Web site really got me into taking photos. It was a good launching ground and
it was exciting to think that they'd appear on the Worldwide Web. "Taking
pictures is a way to express myself," says the dyed-red spiky-haired
teen from the small town of Paradise, where "everyone looks like a
clone." "Some
people express themselves when they go out with their friends and party, some
express themselves through their clothing, I do it through my pictures."
For
Winnie Ng, 16, of Penetanguishene, capturing the beauty of her town and
containing it to just one roll of film was tough. So she planned each shot
with precision before clicking, not wanting to waste even one frame. "Every
street, tree, rock, has a history that contributes to the community,"
she wrote in a note accompanying her photos. "It
was exciting," she recalls about the project that her Grade 10 art class
participated in last year. "It
got me interested in something I might want to pursue," she says, adding
she's still not sure what she'll study at university. "I
really learned a lot about photography," says the soft-spoken teenager,
whose prior experience was limited to a point and shoot approach, taking
pictures at family gatherings and goofing around with friends. "I
learned about setting, composition and how light projects to create certain
moods." Across
the country in Chase, B.C., Dalana Waterston, 19, felt the same frustration
as Ng in trying to capture the tranquility of her small fishing and logging
village, confining it to a frame and trying to convince the world of its
splendour. Nonetheless, it was one of the coolest class projects she's ever
worked on. "I
wanted to capture the fact that just because we're small, doesn't mean we're
not beautiful," she says. "It's cool to think that people are
acknowledging that we're here, that people want to know about us — because
they usually just pass through on their way to other tourist spots," she
says with a sigh. Fusing
teenagers with art and the Internet seemed like a perfect blend, recalls high
school teacher Grant McLaughlin about being approached with the idea last
year. "Kids
today are more savvy with the Internet, so it seemed like a good match. Every
year more and more kids use the Internet as a resource. It's the direction
we're moving in — even in art," says McLaughlin, a teacher at Central
Collegiate Secondary School in Moose Jaw, Sask. Thanks
to the Internet, today's teens have a greater connection to the world and
thanks to this project, they're sharing a tiny slice of it called Moose Jaw. "It
was a way to connect them with other kids across the country, to see what
others were doing and where they were living," he says. "They were
quite enthusiastic and excited that their pictures would be on the Net."
One
student, 17-year-old Sheena Edmiston, says capturing the beauty of her town
was an impossible feat, since there's nothing aesthetic about it. "I
don't like it here, so I took pictures of what was interesting." That
was a week-long challenge that confined Edmiston to the family's farm, where
an interest surfaced in surroundings she had always considered mundane. Bales
of hay stacked so high they looked like the leaning tower of Pisa, dry yellow
fields that stretched out to the horizon where they met with a dismal grey
sky, and a lone basketball net that hung motionless on the side of an old,
weather-beaten barn, all suddenly came alive, peaking her curiosity and
rousing her attention. Even
though she didn't connect to the "beauty" of Moose Jaw, she was
connecting with something more important — herself. It's
a sentiment succinctly captured by another Saskatchewan girl. "I am me, I have eyes and senses," the student wrote to Henrickson in a letter that accompanied her photographs. "They see in pictures and snapshots of life. I am only 15, yet I have stored a million snapshots in my brain. This is my life caught on camera. I looked at my backyard in the same light as usual, but saw it in a different one." |