A show of prize-winning photographs by last year’s seniors inspires this year’s students.
Works by four former BHS students – Julia Buckwalter, Lily Grainger, Madeline Breskin and Stephanie Bohnert – are on view at the high school library through October as part of a traveling exhibit from the nation’s largest annual student photography competition.
“We’ve never had the show come here before because we’d only have one or two winners and you have to have three or more to qualify,” said BHS photography teacher Linda Holsman. “But last year we had four from this strong group of seniors.”
The show of 36 images – culled from 3,600 submissions representing 74 Washington high schools – is one-tenth Bainbridge students.
Bohnert’s photograph took third place for hand-tinted images, and BHS locked up the color category, with Buckwalter winning first place, Grainger taking second and Breskin placing third.
Breskin, now a freshman at New York University, says that Holsman kindled her enthusiasm for the subject.
“She’s the greatest teacher, ” Breskin said, “She’s so fun and enthusiastic. It didn’t matter what we were doing – everything was fun.”
Holsman’s classes this year carry on the eight-year tradition of fun and photography.
Students in the beginning photography class get an overview of the field, and shoot 15 rolls of black-and-white film with a single-lens reflex camera.
“For other schools, the standard is three rolls of film,” Holsman said, “but we shoot 15, and the reason is, I don’t want them to be precious about the film.
“The more they shoot and shoot, the more they become willing to take chances, to experiment.”
Career focus
Considered a “career and technical” class, photography receives slightly enhanced state funding to help pay for materials and supplies. The Bainbridge Island Rotary Club also contributed three back-up cameras for emergencies.
Still, students must bring their own camera to class and kick in a $65 lab fee. “It’s expensive,” Holsman said. “We used $30,000 worth of chemicals last year, and just one tiny tube of oil paint for hand-tinting costs $7.”
In her intermediate photography class, students again shoot black-and-white film and also develop more of the negatives they took in the first class, learning to process the film in different ways.
Advanced students, who are screened for entry to the third class, graduate to color film, and use such varied techniques as Cyanotype prints made on light-sensitive paper or fabric; infrared film; pinhole cameras; fisheye lenses and digital imaging.
Finally, each student completes an independent project.
Holsman says it is the independence of their vision that she values.
“What I do is try to get them outside the box to have fun with their cameras and take risks,” Holsman said. “That’s why I teach technique and let them find their own subject matter.
“Each student is so interesting – each looks from a different angle.”
Students appreciate the encouragement.
Grainger, now a freshman at Stanford University said, “It was obvious how much she wanted us, her students, to produce work that we were proud of and work that we had put some heart and thought into.”
Photo finish
The students’ personal points of view must be supported by state-of-the-art teaching, so Holsman, who sells and shows her own work, gets support in the classroom from community volunteers like Bainbridge Island Photo Club members David Warren, Don Cooper and Tom DeVange.
Holsman also convenes a curriculum advisory committee of outside experts four times a year, a group that includes Puget Sound photographers and college faculty from Seattle Central Community College and Seattle Art Institute.
The Art Institute representative was so impressed with the BHS photo curriculum that the college’s beginning photo classes are waived for BHS students who attend.
Holsman knows that only 10 of the 300 students who pass through her classroom in any given year will seek a career in photography. Those who do have been admitted to some of the country’s outstanding schools, including Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute in New York City, and Brooks Photography Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif.
The rest of her students, Holsman says, often find that the things they learned in photo class enhance their perceptions of the world around them.
For the four winning seniors, the images they made last year are a reminder of their high school years and the teacher who helped them to see.
“And that’s one of the reasons I love photography so much,” Grainger said, “because it captures a memory, a moment in time made unique by the touch of the photographer.”
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The work of former BHS students is among prize-winning photographs from the 2002 Washington State High School Photography Competition on display at the high school library through October.
Call Bainbridge High School at 842-2634 for information.
