Learning To See: Brookfield Photographer Mentors Three NHS Students

By Martha Coville

Three Newtown High School students who recently completed a ten-week mentoring group with professional photographer Laurie Klein bubbled over with enthusiasm as they discussed their experiences.

“Laurie was definitely one of the best teachers I ever had,” junior Alex Caracciolo said of the Brookfield photographer. “She totally took on the role of mentor. We did this on our own, but we all worked together, which was something that I liked, because we all ended up learning from each other.”

Jackie Hornak, a senior, said the course helped her raise her artistic standards. “As the weeks went on,” she said, “I found that the pictures I thought were good were actually mediocre.”

And senior Lauren Busser said Ms Klein helped her learned to take more psychologically complex pictures. Lauren, who has a background in painting, brought her experience as a painter to the course.

“I really like painting color,” she said. “I didn’t get into telling stories [with my pictures] right away, I just did people in colorful shirts.”

The mentoring group has also changed the way Ms Klein approaches her profession.

“I taught photography at a college level,” she said. “And I’ve done mentoring and interning before. But this course really inspired me to go back to teaching, so I’m going to do some workshops in the winter.”

‘Really Motivated’ Kids

Ms Klein has been a commercial photographer for 25 years. Her gallery on Federal Road in Brookfield displays some of her current work, including a series she describes as “bodies in water.” In muted colors, the photographs show mostly female nudes, buoyed, but not weightless, in the water, their long hair wrapping around their backs and necks. She said she also enjoying painting what she calls “life journeys” because “it’s women celebrating where they are in life,” she said. Ms Klein described her professional experience modestly, but Lauren whispered quietly, “She was a student of Ansel Adams.”

Ms Klein said that although she ran the program “kinda like a pilot,” she also looked for students who were committed to photography.

“I approached Peg Ragaini in the NHS career center, and said I wanted kids who are really motivated,” said the photographer. “I asked for a resume and a recommendation from an art teacher.”

Alex said she learned about the program through an e-mail sent to all NHS juniors and seniors. Ms Klein also offered space in the program to students from other local high schools. Alex said that once students sent in their resumes and recommendations, “It was first come, first served.”

All three NHS students said they were interested in joining the mentoring group because they wanted to develop their photography skills.

“I took the chance because we only have one photography class at Newtown, and I took it as a sophomore,” said Alex.

Jackie, who said she grew up in an “artistic” family and plans to major in photography, said the school’s photography class “is just basically an introduction. I didn’t feel that it was enough to prepare me for college.” She also said that the work she did with Ms Klein evolved into the art portfolio she sent with her college applications.

Although Lauren Busser has taken private art classes for many years, she also enjoys studying science.

“I think I like chemistry a little more than I biology, but I like them both,” she said. She hopes to put her photography skills to a more utilitarian use. “I want to be a forensic photographer,” she said.

One Teacher, Three

Different Artistic Visions

Ms Klein’s three NHS students brought several similar experiences to the table. All three shot on film.

“I shoot film,” Jackie said, “because that’s the camera I was taught on in the high school’s photography class.” Each student has also completed the high school’s only photography course, and wanted to learn more about the discipline.

But Alex, Jackie, and Lauren also brought very different artistic backgrounds to Ms Klein’s studio. When Ms Klein asked each student to create an artistic statement, Alex drew a simple sun-shaped medallion, with bronze colored rays curling out from the circle.

“My theme is basically the innocence of childhood,” Alex said. She found her theme practically enough, by using her younger sister as a model. “I started out photographing her,” Alex said, “and then I moved on.” In her pictures, her sister remains unselfconscious, comfortable in the solipsistic world of childhood.

Jackie Hornak, who grew up surrounded by artists, said that when she came to Ms Klein’s course, photography was among the several disciplines she enjoyed.

“I took three years of ceramics,” she said. “Before this internship, I wasn’t really sure [about photography] but right now I’m really secure in what I’m going into.” Ms Klein’s course also helped Jackie focus her goals in photography. “I’m looking forward to having a digital camera,” she said, “and I want to learn to shoot portraits.”

She is also interested in shooting in black and white. “I haven’t learned how to see with a black and white eye, she said.

Lauren Busser said that prior to Ms Klein’s course, “I had taken four years of drawing classes,” and she had participated in a multicultural arts program at Central Connecticut State University.

“I took photography there, and I feel in love with it,” she said. She said that when she showed her colorful photographs to the other students, she received unexpected feedback. “I kept getting told I had this strange sort of psychology,” she said. “To them, they were kind of creepy.” Her later pictures play with focus. In one, a cat and a box of Cheerios sit on a table; the Cheerios are in focus, but not the cat. In another, she points her camera at a mirror for a self portrait. Her pictures do begin to tell unsettling stories.

The Bee spoke to Ms Klein’s students in her small, comfortable gallery as they were preparing to exhibit their work. Alex, Jackie, and Lauren were busy hanging their carefully matted pictures, and trying to decide what looked best where. But activity stopped when they described their work. In ten weekly classes, Ms Klein had developed “motivated kids” into passionate students.