Friday, Dec 12 2008, 2:14 am
A group of 12 Orland teens spent the fall learning about their town through photography in a program sponsored by the Orland Library.
They met on Tuesday afternoons for 10 weeks exploring the downtown district – looking at historical buildings and sites like the Hicks Building (Booth Hotel) on Fifth and Walker streets, Library Park, the Alta Schmidt Home and plenty of other interesting places.
On Saturday, an exhibit of photographs and writing created and assembled by eight of the young photo-journalists will go on display at the library, Dec. 13 to Jan 13. A reception with refreshments is scheduled at 1 p.m. Saturday.
This free event is part of the Orland Centennial kick-off that includes a full day of activities, music, and celebrations planned by the Orland Centennial Celebration Committee.
The exhibit is the culmination of a project called “How I See It: My Place”, a program of the California Council for the Humanities that included more than 300 young people in 21 libraries across the state in exploring and investigating their cities and towns using
digital cameras, direct observation and the resources of their respective libraries, according to Children’s librarian Jody Meza, who taught the Orland class and oversaw the local project.
The Council supplied the libraries with materials, equipment, a curriculum and a small grant to enable them to do the projects, she said.
Orland High freshman Tommy DeMarco put up about 12 of his photos Tuesday afternoon on a display board in the library.
He said the students walked around town seeing parts of Orland they had not seen, which was interesting, and he also learned how to take better photos.
“I’ve been told I take good pictures,” DeMarco said. “But the photography instruction helps a lot.”
He added he learned things about abandoned buildings’ histories and how they were used “back in the day.”
DeMarco said he discovered the Hicks or former Booth Hotel building once had a post office in it.
Besides taking shots of the older structures, he enjoyed shooting places he knew, DeMarco said, such as Pizza Palace and the Dude, Where’s My Video? Store.
One of his favorite subjects is Library Park. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Especially the trees and how the light hits them in the evening.”
Some of the park photos are included in the exhibit.
In addition to the history, DeMarco said he learned how to operate cameras through their different features and how to crop and edit photos on a computer.
He also said walking around allowed him more time to figure out what he wanted to shoot and compose the shot.
Brittany Allen is another student whose work is in the exhibit. She is an eighth grader at C.K. Price Middle School who took the course to improve her photography techniques.
“It was very fun,” she said. “The town has a different side to it. Walking around, I noticed places I’d never seen. It reminded me of history class.”
Places like the street front staircase of the Hicks Building and an old factory were sites Allen said she had not noticed previously.
Some of her photos were of random objects like a can propped up against the factory’s wall and a plant growing out of a sidewalk crevice.
“Even though it’s a weed, I thought it was really pretty,” Allen said.
When she was taking the pictures, they were just plain objects, she said, but once she thought about the finished picture, they became uncommon. “How could a plant come up through the concrete?,” she wondered.
The photos are displayed under themes such as “Transformation,” “Serendipity,” “Mystery” and “Palimpsest,” or a “layering of history,” Meza said.
Students chose which category they felt their work fit and put it on display there.
Even Meza’s husband, Ulises Meza, helped with the project. He worked Tuesday afternoon cutting and framing the photographs.
The librarian said the project was challenging, but it helped her look at her community in a different way.
“Things I’d normally overlook. I learned about right along with them (the students),” Jody Meza said.
She lives close to the library and walks to work regularly, she said. However, when historian Gene Russell pointed out imprints in the sidewalks or historic houses on a tour, she discovered things she had not noticed.
The students also will write some short essays or descriptions of their photos and learn how to curate the exhibit, she said.
“The program aims to create stronger connections between young people and their communities, promote intergenerational understanding and civic engagement, and highlight the role of libraries as centers of
community cultural life,” said Council Executive Director Ralph Lewin, in a press release. “Libraries have long encouraged people to read and seek information on topics of interest, but fostering communication between people of different ages, experiences and walks of life has grown increasingly more important as the state has become more and more diverse.”
In addition to library exhibits, the youths’ work will be featured in an online exhibit on the Council’s website in spring 2009, council officials said.
For more information about the Council’s youth projects, and its California Stories initiative, visit http://www.californiastories.org/ and http://calhum.org/programs/HowISeeIt_overview.htm.
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