Positive Vision

John Vettese sees what develops


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Published: Apr 14, 2009

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The North Philadelphia kids sitting on the panel at Penn's Fox Art Gallery seemed unaware how striking their photographs were.

Creepy Man is an appropriately haunting shot of a graffiti-stained corner store door. Paint drips down its translucent glass, while a blur of a man in a husky jacket stands on the other side of the pane, an obstacle from the inviting reds and yellows of row homes beyond. Its photographer, Manuel (artists were identified only by first names), is 11 years old.

Iridescent orange ripples fill the reflective surface of a playground slide in Silver Lining, shot by Guillermo, 8; surrounding it, soft pillows of blueish white snow.

My Vision (pictured), a sunburst over the Latino Corridor neighborhoods of Nicetown-Tioga and Kensington, is captured so vividly by photographer Richard, 12, it was used as the postcard for Fox's "My Community, My Vision" exhibit, which closed this week. But when the moderator at last month's opening asked Richard to talk about his image, it was all smiling reticence and nonchalant one-word answers.

"They'll realize when they're older the significance of what they're doing," said Augustina Warton, program coordinator for the Philadelphia-based Goodlands project. "I think there's only so much an 8- or 9-year-old is going to understand when you tell them their pictures are great. But hearing that instills confidence in them that lasts."

Goodlands is a community arts program based out of the Centro Nueva Creacion community center at Second and Tioga aimed at breaking through the negativity surrounding the Latino Corridor, often referred to as "the Badlands." Volunteers lead after-school groups around their neighborhoods to shoot photos with Canon PowerShot digitals. Warton talks of the uniqueness of their perspective — partly it's because the children literally have a different viewpoint, being shorter, seeing things from an angle closer to the ground, being able to squeeze into nooks and crannies where adults would not fit. Partly it's because they are so familiar with their neighborhood and know where to find hidden gems and bits of whimsy (the playful, perfectly staggered Girls Swinging in Park; the hysterically snarling Chihuahua in Mad Dog).

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While the project's mission is to bring out the good, Warton admits the neighborhood is rough — and is heartened that the children can still have such an unblemished view of their world.

"These children go through things that most adults will never have to experience," she says. "And they're still showing a positive vision of their life."

On display with the Goodlands students were two similar projects headed by photographer Tony Rocco, whose own work is rooted in breaking down negative stereotypes — those surrounding his mother's native Colombia.

The first project, Exposure, has operated out of The Lightroom photo co-op since 2001. It works from the opposite instructional end; rather than receiving a specific assignment to photograph their community during after-school sessions, students shoot on their own and have free rein over their subjects.

"As an artist, I don't want to tell kids 'only shoot this,'" Rocco says. "Part of my job is to get them to explore and find out what interests them."

When he does meet with his students, he teaches them technique behind darkroom developing and printing — "passing on this dying art to a new generation," Rocco says — but also walks the group through self-critiques, making them learn to identify the stories their photos tell.

"At first, they'll take a lot of pictures of dogs, cats, their brother giving the peace sign," Rocco chuckles. "And I teach them, 'That's nice, but what does that mean to you?'"

As he became more acclimated to teaching photography to children (his job teaching at Julia De Burgos Elementary helped), he expanded his outreach into South America with Cameras for Colombia, the third group that showed at Fox Art Gallery. Rocco visits the capital city of Cali annually, works with neighborhood children and local artists, and helps amass more resources each year — new digital cameras, donated computers and projectors. Eventually he hopes to build an exchange between his two programs.

"I want to get [my students] to the point where they're using their photographs as a means to talk to people about what is important to them in the world."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

For more information on either project, visit goodlands.org or philacpi.org/outreach.html.