NEXT-GEN PRESS

Next Generation Center, Children’s Aid Society, Bronx, New York

Next Gen Press Pilot Workshop
October  – November 2009

The ‘Next Gen Press,’ a digital photography and storytelling workshop developed by Photographer Trix Rosen, completed a three week pilot program in November 2009 at the Next Generation Center, Bronx NY. Participants who regularly visit the Center were hand-picked by the staff to attend the program and six teens successfully finished the course.

The final workshop output consisted of a print exhibition, a slide show of images accompanied by music, and a compelling narration by each participant of their personal photo essay in front of invited guests, family and friends. For two of the boys who had recently witnessed the shooting death of their best friend, the presentation proved to be an emotionally revealing moment of self awareness and creativity. Both teens used documentary and symbolic images to visually describe the Bronx - shots of buildings they grew up in, alleys, doorways, and the street where the incident took place. They used portraiture to capture the innocence of childhood and landscapes to record their hope for the future. They set up and photographed a still life to honor their friend’s memory.  

“Look at life through one of my eyes” said Andrew Smith, age 18, describing in words and images “a tragedy stricken community,” and asking for “no more victims of hate and fear.” Jonathan Brinson, age 19, read his own poetry about “the memory of a young man passed down to the future” accompanied by multiple images of an older and younger boy. He ended with a beautiful black and white photo of the local overhead train tracks back-lighted by rays of the sun emerging from a cloud with the text “the boy inside the man that is waiting to be free.”