It is our thesis that through digital photography we will be able to help incarcerated
juveniles (aged 11 to 21) to successfully re-enter society. This thesis has
four strands:
The first strand is practical. The communication of images is becoming more and more digitalized, and the skills of digitally capturing, digitally storing and printing, and digitally transmitting images are becoming increasingly valuable. It is our hope that by enabling incarcerated youngsters to be part of the technological revolution, we will be both stimulating their interest in an area that might eventually provide them with jobs, and encouraging in them the feeling of being insiders rather than outsiders.
The second strand is therapeutic. To start with, photography slows you down and makes you think creatively. Making a photograph involves a series of decisions whose result is concrete and for which the photographer has obvious responsibility. These decisions enable the photographer to retrace the steps leading to desirable and undesirable outcomes and to repeat the former and avoid the latter. To make a good photograph, you must think ahead, and to analyze a photograph you must reflect. As you think about your work you begin to see patterns in yourself about which you may not have been aware. And as you compare your work to that of others, you begin to appreciate points of view that may differ from your own. Much of photography requires the cooperation of at least one other person (who could be an assistant to move lights, hold scrims, and so on, or simply someone whom you wish to ask to move out of the way.) Finally, photography teaches you to give, and accept, constructive criticism. (We critique only the formal properties of a photograph, never the photographer.)
The third strand is ethical. Looking at photographs gives rise to questions about the rights of the photographer as well as the rights of the subject. In such discussions we try to tease out definitions of art, beauty, truth, etc.
The fourth strand is communal. It is a means by which the young photographers can accept themselves as accomplished human beings with a place in the larger community and the potential for further success. And a means by which their families, friends, and the larger community can see them in a new light and accept them as deserving of an opportunity to further prove themselves.
All this is not to say that we believe photography to be a panacea for damaged lives. But for us, the Fresh Eyes photographers, photography has been a means of learning, communicating, and having fun, and that is what we wish to pass along.