"What would I change about my neighborhood and what would I keep the same? Who am I? Let me show you."
The essence of this project is young people and photography- utilizing artistic reflections in developing a sense of creative expression and self-understanding while simultaneously inducing cultural exchange between economic and culturally diverse students locally as well as internationally. Family, by blood or association, is a powerful topic that we believe most students can identify with and are sensitive to, regardless of cultural or economic affiliations. In this process they will be guided through their own creative minds in discovering the differences and similarities of experiences between themselves, their peers and unknown others.
The Artistic Eye Project works with a selected group of students with a diverse background in reference to culture and place, asking students to engage with a universally interconnected theme: Family and Neighborhood. Armed with their own cameras, we take students through a variety of creative assignments where they learn the very basics of composition, lighting, subject, digital editing and how to best identify a successfully conceived and executed photograph.
While educating students to the basics of photography, the technicalities of photography is not our main focus. Our purpose is to provide a platform for students to acknowledge and develop their own inner creativity through telling their own stories using a different medium of communication as seen through their artistic eye. We aim to help students develop this photographic perspective as it is a very useful means of communication in today's world; one that is dominated by visual communication. Photography is simply one tool that is used to express this truth and it will be taught to inspire confidence and leave students proud of their accomplishments with the means to continue telling stories with the same veracity and candor to their subject as they have towards themselves.
