Home > Metrospective

Epiphanies in print
'Illuminations' art exhibit spotlights Metro's visual journalists
By Josie klemaier
jklemaie@mscd.edu

Photo by Kenn Bisio • bisio@mscd.edu The journalists of Illuminations. Back row from left: William Blackburn, Amie Cribley, Dawn Madura, Rachel Crick, Heather A. Longway-Burke, Jenn LeBlanc, Adam Goldstein, Adrian DiUbaldo, Cora Kemp, Ian Bisio and Kyle Bisio. Front row from left: J. Isaac Small, Tyler William Walton. (not pictured: Joe Nguyen, Andrew Bisset, David Yost and Ryan Deuschle)

Photos serve as important aids to the information journalists seek to share. However, when those photos are taken away from the text and presented as art, they can still illuminate a hard-to-express emotion or story. Alone in their frame, without headlines or captions, without restrictions, they can reach an audience with unexpected power, as they did April 6 at The Other Side Arts gallery.

The gallery hosted Illuminations, a night of visual storytelling featuring the work of 17 Metro journalists, totaling approximately 140 pieces. An estimated 250 to 300 guests browsed the works on display, which included those previously published in The Metropolitan. Among the published works was a series of photos by Heather Longway-Burke documenting the recovery of Metro student Mark Mather from a disease that took portions of each of his limbs.

There were also unpublished works, such as Rachel Crick’s series “Other Check.” Crick’s piece was a collection of child-parent portraits with short accompanying captions quoting children and their parents, displaying the unique experiences they face living in biracial families.

One of the most talked about collections was Jenn LeBlanc’s series “Momma,” which documented her mother’s struggle with cancer.

“This whole wall has been amazing. I lost my mom to cancer as well,” attendee Mindy McConville said.

LeBlanc is the photo editor of The Metropolitan and organized the event, from designing the ads and program to recruiting the featured works. While the photos of her mother – on her front porch, being placed in an ambulance for a ride she would not remember and lying in a hospital bed clutching the hands of her daughter and granddaughters – present an emotional journey, LeBlanc said they also represent an important step in her studies as a photographer. “It’s how I learned to tell stories with my camera,” she said. The series was also featured along with an essay in the Oct. 12, 2006, issue of The Metropolitan.

LeBlanc has an internship lined up with Evergreen’s The Canyon Courier this summer and is graduating this May. Her later ambitions are simple.

“My only plans are to take as many pictures as I can and share with as many people as I can,” she said.

Photojournalism professor Kenn Bisio was at the opening to support each of his student’s work.

“It’s a very well-thought out event. It represents a lot of years of work,” he said. “It really warms my heart because I know the personal stories of all of the students.”

For Bisio, Illuminations was about “the idea of visual conversation,” he said.

McConville expressed a similar sentiment. “To me it’s a picture of the heart, the soul, it goes in so deep. It expresses things you can’t say,” McConville said.

Illuminations moved beyond the weathered cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. The photos’ true worth could be seen in the gaping faces, intense conversations and emotional stares of a captivated audience.