Photographs by Ansel Adams and other noted artists were featured in the recent Art Appreciation class taught by San Quentin’s Prison University Project.
Instructors Nigel Poor and Doug Dertinger focused on the history and power of images through the medium of photography.
The teachers are professional photographers and teachers at California State University in Sacramento.
“Photography can help us talk about taboo topics like addiction,” said Poor, who holds a master’s degree in fine arts. “It’s a legitimate way to visually describe the world around us. It gives you a way to connect with people.”
The San Diego Balboa Park museum featured her photographs.
“I have always had an interest in disregarded objects,” Poor said. “My exhibit show-cased 287, one to three-inch size photos of flies, the small photos hung on strings attached to the ceiling.”
The Harpswell Anchor, the Photo Metro, and the San Francisco Chronicle have featured Poor’s photographs. An upcoming exhibit will feature books banned from schools, towns and other countries.
Student Curtis Roberts said he now looks at photographs differently. For example, photos in the prison’s visiting area are supposed to be a special moment between prisoners and their families, but he said the backdrop of the Golden Gate takes away from that.
“Photography has become one of the most common ways we communicate with one another,” Dertinger said. He said the popularity of cell phone cameras has caused people to compromise the quality of photos because of the cell phone accessibility.
“With technology, we are more interested in the now, not quality; we want quality but we don’t want to do repetition,” said Dertinger.
Dertinger has been teaching photography since 2000 and his works have been featured in New Orleans’ Home Front Gallery. In class, his lectures detailed how images have molded American history.
“Pictures take us to places where many of us can’t travel, to thousands of places where we can’t go,” said Aly Tamboura a class member. “Images are in every aspect of our lives, from advertising to movies to images of our family.”
www.prisonuniversityproject.org
