The NMI Council for the Humanities opened of a community photographic exhibit at the CNMI Museum of History and Culture on Wednesday, March 3.
The exhibit featured winning images produced by high school students from around the Commonwealth as a part of the “My Place in the CNMI” digital photography project.
This three-week project was supported by funding received from the National Endowment for the Humanities under the “We the People” grant initiative.
As a part of the project, students attended two workshops facilitated by professional photographer Dr. Dirk HR Spennemann.
The first workshop introduced participants to the concepts of community photography and to the principles of composition, lighting, and camera management. The second taught students basic post-processing skills and digital darkroom techniques.
Student photographers produced images under eight thematic categories: self, self-image, family, village, island, the Commonwealth as a whole, the future of the Commonwealth, and art.
Images were scored by a three-judge panel which included Spennemann, artist and Museum Executive Director Robert Hunter, and professional photographer Dr. Jack Hardy.
First through third place winners in each category were announced at the exhibit together with an overall best in exhibit winner. Participants also selected a “public choice” winner from among all images.
All images produced by this project are posted on a special project website (http://myplacecnmi.org). This website will be online for at least two years and will allow student photographers to share their work with a world-wide audience.
Spennemann is a professor in cultural heritage studies at Charles Sturt University in Albury, Australia. He is also a photographic artist with several exhibitions in museums and galleries in Australia, the CNMI, and Alaska.