Capturing Our Neighborhood: Photography
Ages 11-18.
Course Description:
Students use photography to see, document, and celebrate their community. Through hands-on lessons, students learn the fundamentals and history of photography, including composition, lighting, portraiture, storytelling, and visual perspective.
Students will photograph the people, places, objects, and everyday moments that make their communities meaningful. They will explore how photography can capture identity, memory, and create a sense of belonging, resilience, and pride while developing their own creative voice.
The objective of this course is for students to create individual photo projects, including portraits, environmental photography, and/or photo essays. The course encourages students to look closely at their surroundings, connect with their neighbors, and use their cameras to tell stories that might otherwise go unseen.
Anacostia Creates Connection:
Through photography, students will explore the people, places, and/or everyday moments that create a sense of connection and belonging in Anacostia and Southeast DC. In the photography lessons, students will photograph community members and/or objects in meaningful ways and create photo essays that combine portraits, places, and details to tell stories of identity, culture, pride, and belonging. Students will be encouraged to look closely at familiar spaces. Through their photographs, students will document and celebrate the stories, relationships, and creative traditions that connect generations and contribute to the shared visual story of Anacostia.
Meet Your Teaching Artist:
Storytelling is an integral part of Black culture. As a Caribbean oral historian and artist from Harlem, NY, this is a critical idea that propels Saida Blair’s work as a storyteller.
Blair’s interest in storytelling was sparked as a child when trying to understand her cultural background as a Trinidadian and Jamaican girl; sneaking into the hallway to grasp the whispers of her aunts and uncle gossiping about home. She pieced together these different narratives, creating a visual mosaic of what “home” looked like to her.
Blair carries on this methodology now as an adult. She collects stories shared with her and uses her passion for art to create conversations around topics and events that affect herself and her community. She uses a mixture of contemporary and archival images from various timelines to create a dynamic narrative of the past. Her goal in creating these spaces where Black art and history can be preserved, cared for, and celebrated.