photo by David Snow

Browsing the artworks are Bradley Mills (left), an incoming sophomore at Tuscaloosa County High School and Brianna Jones, an incoming sophomore at Livingston High School. Mills, who was a student at Livingston Junior High when he took his photographs, said he would like to have a career involving photography.

The Black Belt through the eyes of 100 Lenses

Published Wednesday, July 15, 2009

DEMOPOLIS — The Bryan W. Whitfield Memorial Hospital opened its third exhibition of the year on Sunday with a display of photographs taken by students throughout the Black Belt region.

The sponsoring program, called “Black Belt 100 Lenses,” began two years ago as a partnership between the Center for Community-Based Partnerships at the University of Alabama and the Black Belt Community Foundation.

Black Belt 100 Lenses was piloted in Sumter County in 2007, and has since been conducted in Greene, Hale, Macon, and Perry counties. Community exhibits were held in each county in order to share the students’ perspective and to encourage discussion within the respective communities.

There are plans to extend the program to students in the other seven Black Belt counties as well, including Marengo County.

Ninety photographs, equivalent to one photograph from each participant over the last two years, are displayed in the hospital’s main hallway for the next three months.

Some 16 to 20 students from each county are chosen to participate in Black Belt 100 Lenses by advisory committees comprised of teachers, educators and community leaders of that county.

Students apply by creating a submission of prose, poetry, drawing, photography or any form of art with the purpose of finishing the statement, “The Black Belt is...” Once the participants are selected, Black Belt 100 Lenses holds a training session for the students and lends them a camera and two rolls of film. Students then meet later to observe and discuss the photographs they have taken.

“A couple of my ideas came from things that I used to do that had been closed down or demolished,” said Bradley Mills, an incoming sophomore at Tuscaloosa County High School who was a student at Livingston Junior High when he worked with the project. “Things that I couldn’t do any more or things that I was doing at the time.

“[Working with Black Belt 100 Lenses] was fun because I love to take pictures anyway.”

Mills said that he would like to have a career that involved photography.

“These are really incredible,” said Stella Anderson, a Sumter County community associate for the Black Belt Community Foundation. “They show a lot about the youth perspective, what they’re seeing and what they think about. It’s more than just taking pictures; it’s capturing their explanation for it. This was a really tremendous opportunity for them.”

The complete collection of photographs taken by the students of Black Belt 100 Lenses can be found at www.blackbelt100lenses.org.

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