By Jeremy Walsh
If you live in western Queens, odds are you have walked past students from LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City dozens of times. But you have never seen them like they will appear on the college’s walls for the next few months.
The 60 portraits in “Faces of LaGuardia,” all of students and taken by students from the school’s sizable photography program, casts a different light on people whose families hail from more than 153 countries, but who otherwise might just be young people with backpacks on the No. 7 train.
“We have so many incredible faces at the college and so many talented photography students who are able to come up with different concepts revolving around the idea of student portraiture,” said Scott Sternbach, chairman of the commercial photography program, in a statement, “that the project seemed like a perfect idea.”
Students submitted more than 200 images, including classic studio portraiture, experimental abstract work, high-resolution photographs taken with large format cameras, environmental portraiture and on-location shots.
The diversity of styles is almost as striking as the diversity of the student body. Akiko Higuchi stages dramatic shots of water splashing and pudding coating his subjects, while Alvaro Corzo’s portraits are hyper-craggy black and white studies of skin pores and raw energy.
Luis Lei’s carefully composed but nonetheless more naturalistic shots of students in their homes are surrounded by the accessories and detritus of everyday life.
Lei, 22, of Elmhurst, took a medium-format camera from the 1960s and visited his subjects at home, capturing the stark white of the walls in contrast to the vibrant colors of their blankets, posters and clothing. He said the project took him an entire year to complete.
“The idea was to see how the lives of students were,” he said. “I basically learned the different hardships the students have to overcome to be at school.”
Lei said most of the people he asked said no, but enough agreed for him to have a few memorable experiences. His favorite was photographing a single mother in her living room on a sunny afternoon.
“Suddenly her son comes running into the room and hugs her in front of the camera,” he said. “She was looking at her son, and this kid was just looking at the camera and he just had a huge smile on his face. I don’t know — maybe he was hungry for the spotlight. You could see how caring she was. It wasn’t staged or anything. It just happened.”
This is the first year for the exhibition and LaGuardia spokeswoman Randy Fader-Smith called it a success.
“Everyone was extremely pleased with the results of the exhibition,” she said. “Students were really excited about it, and for a lot of them this is the first time that their works were ever displayed.”
If You Go
Faces of LaGuardia
When: Through June 15. Viewing hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: LaGuardia Gallery of Photographic Arts, B Building, 30-20 Thomson Ave.
For more: 718-482-5985 or 718-349-4028 or ssternbach@lagcc.cuny.edu.
Web site: www.laguardia.edu/faces
