In this 4 week online class students took time to explore the work of photographers who focus on capturing the Winter Landscape. They studied basic camera settings, and different tips and tricks used when photographing during this special season. Most importantly the class shared and discussed personal work to learn from and inspire one another .

Below is a gallery of photographs created by students Helena Brissenden, Susan Lyons, Amanda Tierson, and Timothy Wilson.

The Personal Documentary Class at Flower City Arts Center is an outlet for photography students to practice critically looking at and discussing photo edits, essays and bodies of work. It also serves as a building block for the students to start making their own body of work and thinking of how to present their body of work in forms of edits.

Each week, the students shared their edits and their experiences during the pandemic. Together in class, we discussed what works and doesn’t work in the edits and the experiences in building our bodies of work. In just eight classes, each of the students were able to discover using photography as a tool to not only document their life but as an attempt to make sense of and/or cope with the world around us.

My vision for this class was for the students to have their own pop-up show for the last class as part of the learning experience, inviting members of the Flower City Arts Center community. Since that cannot happen, some students have chosen to display their work on this blog.

I moved to Rochester in 2015, and before that, I lived in Chicago for seven years. During that time, I lived in four different apartments. Between the four apartments, there were six bathrooms. And only one had a window. They were mostly like tombs, dark and wet, deemed unimportant, tucked away at the center of structures. A shored up bunker to retreat during nasty storms or if you heard a tornado siren, no chance of broken glass. Just fluorescent bulbs in place of sunlight. In 2016, I started renting half of a duplex in Swillburg, and the bathroom is the reason I signed the lease. The walls are half white tile, topped with plaster painted the color of a moody sky. The white bathtub is in one corner and open on two sides, with just a clear plastic shower curtain liner, to let in as much light as possible. The ceiling is glossy white beadboard, and the floor is dark one-inch square stone tile that reminds me of river rocks, but more orderly. And there is a glorious old window, with two painted wooden frames that unlock and swing into the room when open. Even though this bathroom is easily my favorite room in the house (perhaps in any place I’ve ever called home, if I’m honest), when I signed up for this photo class, I would have laughed if someone suggested that it would become the primary site of my photographic explorations. The bathroom? Ridiculous. But from the very first assignment, I made a beeline for my medicine cabinet. And then the window caught in its mirror’s reflection. My cat, Eartha Kitt, spends a lot of time in that window, now that it is open daily to let the early summer breeze in. The padded stool where I sit while my partner cuts my hair. The vanity, where so much handwashing has taken place. The bathtub, to wash the day away. It is a meditative refuge in a sea of uncertainty. A calm sanctuary when the outside world is a mess. An intimate space, where gentle care can take place.

Class Roll:
Kathryn Mariner
Chad Collier