NEXT-GEN PRESS
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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.”
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