WSVN — It’s the way most kids communicate — posting pictures on sites like Facebook and Instagram. But what are those pictures telling the world and what can mom and dad learn from their kid’s photos? 7’s Lynn Martinez shows us in tonight’s Parent to Parent.
These students are getting a rare shot! Each one received a brand new camera phone, thanks to a program called “Through My Lens: Art is Life Photography.”
Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant: “It was an opportunity for young kids from high school to get a chance to capture life as they see it.”
The challenge: to hit the streets of their community and tell their story through pictures.
Award-winning photojournalist Carl Juste hopes to teach the kids how to take perfect pictures by using critical thinking skills.
Carl Juste: “You have to do the math, you have to do the science, understand how light works, how it reflects.”
With so many teens posting pics on social media sites, he says this is how kids choose to communicate, but he says taking pictures is not just about documenting something. It’s about making a connection.
Carl Juste: “How do you connect these three components, the photographer, the subject and the viewer.”
So instead of taking selfies, the students are asked to focus on their subject and really think about what they want their photo to say to the world.
Carl Juste: “You have a responsibility. That’s the difference between taking an image and making an image.”
Youth leader Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant says parents can use their child’s pictures to really see into their lives.
Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant: “That’s a moment parents can say ‘Hmm, what were you thinking when you captured that picture? What did it make you feel like?'”
High school senior Robert Jenkins says he feels happy when he looks at his favorite picture of a couple he met on the street.
Robert Jenkins: “From the angle that I took it, it had both the whole mural, a tree and them.”
He says the image means something to him.
Robert Jenkins: “When I later looked at it, it was like, the get-together of a family.”
Carl says that’s what this experience is all about — making kids think about what they want the viewer to feel from seeing their image.
Carl Juste: “No one writes a song not to be heard, and no one makes an image not to be seen.”
The top ten pictures will be displayed at Art Basel this week.
In the Plex, Lynn Martinez, 7News.