If this picture could talk...

IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH 2

Lisa Kahane, Courtney, 1999. Photograph (C) Lisa Kahane.

For a while I taught photography one day a week to girls selected by their middle school. My students were mostly,

though not exclusively, young women of color. My efforts were part of a gender specific program run by a non-profit arts organization in a small city upstate. The program was funded by the federal government as part of a study to determine if art can prevent delinquency. The answer seemed obvious to me as an artist. The success of my workshop however, was quite different from what I expected.

The stated goals of the program were to present the girls with "options ... other than trouble." The goal of the visual arts component was to have them work together on a group project, creating a message for other girls dealing with similar personal issues. How difficult this was for our girls speaks to the painful gap between the goals we set for them and what they need.

Though I'm trained neither as an educator nor a therapist, I have confidence in my ability to relate to kids. I enjoy spending time in the South Bronx with my camera and have worked informally with youth groups. I trusted the other workshop leaders to address the more difficult psychological issues. Hired as a photographer, I determined to teach a technical skill and point my students in the right direction. The girls would create and collect images of their lives that dealt with the concerns of the grant. I made a list of subjects for them to choose. They could photograph their family, their daily life and special occasions, places they liked, things that made them happy or sad, a person they admired. I described many ways they could create self-portraits.

It was immediately suggested to me that I wouldn't be able to get through much of the list and that I not offer my students a choice of subject, but assign one. Indeed, a list of possibilities did confuse them at first. They weren't sure what I wanted them to do. Not that it got in the way of their seizing disposable cameras and reporters' notebooks like the starving at a banquet. They considered my list of suggested subjects. Some of them even kept it. It soon became apparent however that each girl had her own agenda. Providing independence within a structured environment gave me my first lessons in dealing with the contradictory demands for attention and privacy that alternate unexpectedly in the teenage heart.

My students were strongly attracted to the camera-as subjects. When someone photographed them, they said "I took a picture." They were only too happy to pose. When I protested that they were supposed to be taking the pictures, they replied, "But you're the photographer!" True enough. My project became to move them from the subject to the author of the image.

Pictures-regardless of who took them-were claimed eagerly by the subjects and disappeared into jealously guarded collections. It was difficult to persuade the girls to give up even one to hang on the wall. The boldest girl relinquished a few of hers "'cause I'm not in them.' Duplicates would be bartered for a cupcake or a bag of chips, but displaying their pictures was not easy for them. They liked albums they could close. Frames were something to be taken home. I only got to see their photos when I insisted, which I didn't do often. They shared their work more easily with the other members of my team-a high school student from the community and art therapist Karen Rehm, who volunteered to help me in addition to conducting her own workshops. I was in the teacher's role, from which these girls remained painfully disconnected.

I took their overwhelming eagerness to claim the envelope back from the lab as a good enough measure of involvement. I taught each day's lesson-Photo Basics, How To Photograph Kids, How to Take a Group Shot-before I handed them out. My girls were not interested in the mechanics of photography. When books by women photographers lay untouched in the center of the table, I opened them in front of the least recalcitrant student. If she showed some interest the others would ask her to describe what she saw. Books about girls their age were not plentiful. Perhaps that's why pictures of girls their age interested them less than images of celebrities. Too many magazines contained sexually explicit articles. Some guile was needed to introduce even the most appropriate. One morning B. took the copy of Vibe I offered her and slammed it face down on the table. When the art therapist picked it up however, B. almost tipped over her chair trying to look over her shoulder.

They were fascinated by teens as the picture on page one, so I was happy when the local paper photographed one group, even though I wasn't around for the shoot. The copy I brought to class was greeted with an angry chorus of "We've seen it! We're not in the paper!" Rather than a group shot, there was a picture of one girl. "I'm glad it wasn't me," someone growled. I tried to explain to them that the photographer doesn't decide which photos appear. "But the other woman was here!" they insisted. Yes, but she was the writer. The editor makes the decisions. I talked about things you can and can't control, but they were inconsolable. We didn't discuss the text, which declared all the girls in the program at risk of delinquency.

Photography would seem to be a good way to begin a conversation. Whenever I tried to talk about anything besides how pictures are made, however, there was a great hue and cry. The less I said beyond, "If you're pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough," the better. Questions I asked were ignored as often as answered. Did they not know, or didn't they want to say? They had intense personal conversations about their photos with their friends but weren't comfortable presenting their opinions to the group as a whole. Perhaps that's when they felt at risk. Fitting in rather than speaking out, so often described as a problem of adolescence, would seem to be a dilemma women and girls share.

I struggled to create a photography curriculum that would address the concerns of the program indirectly. At first it was difficult just finding material. Finally I had too much. The problem wasn't a clever lesson plan, although I certainly needed one. The real challenge was translating a written plan into the present tense. My girls had little patience for anything that was written down. "Just tell us!" they insisted. When I left the room for a moment one day, someone hid my glasses. Without them my notes for the day may as well not have existed. I was stymied until I stepped back from the table and saw my glasses neatly folded on the floor underneath. I picked them up, scanned a few lines ahead and carried on. The next week I brought two pairs but never needed the second one.

Each week's plan included a written exercise borrowed from another photographer's syllabus. Choose one of your photos. Describe what is happening. How is the person feeling? What other pictures will you take? Make a list. Somehow, I never used these instructions. Eliciting even a oneword caption was a struggle, though sometimes they did it on their own. One week I handed out a page with an unfinished sentence midway down. "If this photo could talk, it would say.."The girls wrote some humorous and some interesting things. They enjoyed the exercise, but only a few did it more than once. The second time around, most just groaned when I offered them the paper.

Why didn't I force them to complete the assignments I designed? Certainly it would have improved my relationship with the program's administrators, who thought I was handing out too much film and favored a more traditional regimen of effort and reward. When one girl's film came back from the lab totally opaque, the coordinator scolded her. The girl slipped into a tantrum and declared she was quitting. Most likely she had pried open the camera to see how it worked. I gave her another disposable. Although she always needed extra attention and was often suspended or expelled from school, she showed up an hour early every week, eager for something to do.

My plans were about photography, but my notes were about behavior. The girls didn't lack for enthusiasm when they had some measure of control. They did what I first did-took pictures of their friends at school. It conferred undeniable status on them to be the one with the camera. News travels fast in middle school. The fall class knew in minute detail what the summer girls had done. Siblings were willing subjects, mothers were more reluctant, perhaps reflecting the difficult relationship mothers and daughters often develop during adolescence. The girls saw themselves mostly through pictures I took of them. Did this further my goal of moving them from the subject to the author? One way to make a self-portrait is to give the camera to someone else, but choose the pose and setting yourself, a strategy chosen by many contemporary artists. Perhaps my students were more sophisticated than I realized.

I wanted them to enjoy photography. I introduced it as something you can do on your own and encouraged them to speak out, politely, in the group. I had hoped I could teach them about image making as memory or help them to see the miraculous in the ordinary. Their sense of wonder was not readily available, nor were they playful. I presented the subject with enthusiasm. Look at this, isn't it terrific? Their reply was another question. What else have you got? There were days when how far they could push me interested them more than anything I had to say about photography. Who I was became what I taught.

When I had their attention I did my best to balance the needs of the group with the need for individual attention. I practiced a kind of artistic triage, deciding which tantrum was most likely to set the others off and handing out art supplies accordingly. It was important to allow them a bad mood and then move on. Apologies were never offered but a girl who was defiant one week would make amends by asking me a question or remembering something I'd said. I listed everyone alphabetically by first name on the invitation to their group show. "You just didn't want anyone's feelings to be hurt," S. remarked. This was not the lesson I thought I was teaching.

I worried that a lack of technical skills would interfere with their feeling of accomplishment but the mere possession of an album full of snapshots was enough for them. Their needs were emotional and material more than intellectual. In a 10-week session I could hardly undo what eight years of traditional schooling had put in place. Our girls represented a range of difficulties, from the awkward new girl to the beauty with identifiable psychological distress. They were screened not for aptitude or interest, but trouble, and knew why they were in the program. From time to time I raised my voice, but mandating good behavior only helps in the short run. I wanted them to do what I asked, but I came to realize it was equally, if not more, valuable for them to create something on their own.

Our program ran the risk of any study-serving the research more than the subjects. The course was almost over before I felt the girls trusted me. They were willing to go on to the next level, but there wasn't one. A new group would be selected for the next session. Perhaps the sting of missed opportunity taught them something. Perhaps it just reinforced their reluctance to trust adults. Certainly there were enough girls around to populate the program many times over.

Girls showed up for the photography workshop without fail, even when they cut school. Although often uncooperative, they were reluctant to leave at the end of the day. The more difficult the group, the more upset they were when the program ended. The girl I thought least likely to be paying attention stunned me on the last day. "You're always talking!" she complained. "How do you expect me to remember all these things?"

Girls at risk are visible but have no voice. They are silenced and their anger is considered symptomatic of delinquency. Their opinions need to be heard, their disappointments acknowledged. Perhaps there are no specifically teenage concerns. Teenagers are in the grip of emotions that will inform their adult lives, without benefit of experience.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

LISA KAHANE, a professional photographer in New York City for 25 years, specializes in documentary work and portraiture. Widely published, her work is in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library.