Camera-ready teens learning to shoot

If a picture is worth a thousand words, student photographers from Nellie Stone Johnson Community School have spread a library's measure.

For the past four weeks, the students' photos have been on exhibit in the main floor hall at the Central Library in downtown Minneapolis, where they can be viewed by hundreds of passing visitors each day.

The students created the images as part of a free after-school class, a partnership between their north Minneapolis school and the YMCA Beacons program. During "Capture This!" classes over the past three months, they snapped photos of each other, as well as portraits of kindergartners on the playground, children in the halls, and kids under trees and in the classroom.

"The kids really stepped up and surprised us," said instructor Tristin Auclerc.

Lessons transcended composition and angle, she said. "It taught them a lot, as far as they see each other."

Luis Lopez, 10, a fourth-grader, proudly showed his black-and-white photograph of kindergartners soaring through the air on a tire swing. "When people swing, they like to swing, and that person is smiling," he said. "I'm happy to have a good picture."

What did he learn?

"To have good angles, to have good edges, how to use a camera and do your best with a camera," he said, beaming. "I feel so amazing and so happy with myself."

The exhibit will be on display until Dec. 13.