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Arts & Entertainment

From the Lenses of Children

Pictures in the Ennis Beley Photography exhibit at the D&R Greenway share the talents and perspectives of young photographers.

The photos on view at the D&R Greenway’s Olivia Rainbow Student Gallery are insightful and thought-provoking. They nature scenes and city images in though-provoking ways and were captured by photographers with perceptive and creative eyes.

And they were taken by children.

Every summer, homeless and in-transition children from the Trenton area participate in the Ennis Beley Photography Project, named after a young photographer from Los Angeles who was killed in a drive-by shooting when he was just 15 years old. The children are given cameras and are taught photography techniques. Through Sept. 15, pictures taken by kids who participated in last year’s Ennis Beley Project are on view at the D&R.

In one picture, a dog is sleeping in a lot off a city sidewalk. He’s resting in sand (or is it dirt?) with most of his body in sunlight. Look closely and you’ll see some litter and perhaps you’ll wonder what made Manuel Rios want to take a picture of the dog. Is it his dog? Did he just come across the animal taking a nap? What’s happening outside the frame?

The photography program is run by the Young Audiences New Jersey Project with The Lawrenceville School and HomeFront. Rios participated in the program for four years and this year, worked at the camp as an assistant, according to William Vandever, the program’s instructor. When asked, Vandever says he isn’t surprised by his students’ talents.

“You see kids with abilities all the time in all different areas — sports, math, music,” he says. “I’m happy to see it but it doesn’t surprise me. I think it’s cool that a 10-year-old kid could have the ability and talent to do work that looks like… professional work.”

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Participants in the program not only learn how to take pictures but also how to process them. All the pictures in the exhibit were taken with film. Students developed their own black-and-white prints at the darkroom at The Lawrenceville School. Color pictures, like the one of the dog, are processed at a lab.

Vandever says using the darkroom allows the students to truly focus on photography. When kids work on a computer, he says, they get distracted and often end up sending e-mails or playing on-line games.

“With the darkroom, you can’t do anything but photography,” he says. “And they can (learn about) digital in school and other places, this is not something that’s easily accessible and it’s a classic form of art.”

Part of the program involves the young photographers going to different sites with their cameras. In Te’quan Harris’ picture taken outside the D&R Greenway’s Johnson Education Center, one of David Robinson’s benches are framed by two trees. A much different picture taken by Harris is of a brick building in a city with ivy growing on it. Electric cables span the frame of the image.

Another picture taken by Rios is of the D&R’s gazebo area. It’s taken from behind a framed wooden bench. Look closely and you’ll see Robert Cannon’s “terraform” sculpture in the center of the frame.

A black-and-white picture of a meadow taken by Tahir Henry has a 19th-century tint to it. Wondrous leaves rest at the bottom of the frame, and a cone-shaped tree grows near the center, rising above the top of the picture. The scene is filled with foliage, which appears to blend together and affect the shapes of the trees and plants.

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Another interesting nature scene was taken by Lucius Copeland. It shows two thin trees, shot from below, with their leafless branches resembling thin spindles. One of Copeland’s most interesting pictures shows a brilliant blue sky bordered by a brick building to the left and a utility pole to the right. Cables and wires cross the frame and look closely to the right and you’ll see wind chimes. And if you’re like me, you’ll wonder just who put those wind chimes there.

“I teach them the rules of composition and how to frame a picture but once they learn it’s up to them in how they see it,” Vandever says. “Some of them have a unique way of seeing the world around them, which is good. I try to stress that they should develop their own style, don’t be like me or don’t be like anybody else but have your own style.”

The 2011 Ennis Beley Photography exhibit is on view at the D&R Greenway, One Preservation Place, Princeton, through Sept. 15. For information, go to DRGreenway.org.

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