By Jack Lewis and Mariah Zeigler (CHS Students) and Hilary Nichols (Teacher)
We asked our fellow Community High School students, Claire Lewis and Jacqueline Boynton, to share their perspective about the community resource program at Community High and their experience in photography class.
We learned that the biggest thing that pushed Claire Lewis out of her comfort zone was how she dressed for her CR photoshoots. For one such photoshoot, she remembers being dressed up in a long, puffy, royal blue dress. Shooting location: the middle of nowhere. “I couldn’t tell you where it was,” Lewis said, “We just drove until we saw a spot.”
She and three other Community High School students drove deep into the Michigan countryside in the backseat of Community Resource (CR) teacher Hilary Nichols’ car. Balanced precariously in Nichols’ trunk was an entire living-room chair, costume trunk, and step stool, plus camera equipment. As soon as they stepped out, students Jacqueline Boynton, Ionie Steudle, and Julia Harrison all had cameras in hand while Nichols directed Lewis into a variety of captivating poses.
“It was just very Hilary. She’s just kind of wild in the way she thinks and the way she wants to explore everything,” Lewis said. “I think that was a time that I just remember most because of how kind of out of the ordinary it was.”
“Our final project was having a gallery and we had ours at the Cafe Verde gallery in the People’s Food Co-Op, just down the street from Community High. We did a lot of planning. We all had a photo shoot that we wanted to do, and so Hilary wanted us to put in a lot of time and thinking beforehand,” Lewis said.
The process leading up to the gallery show required that the students take the wheel and have creative control; they had to decide on the theme of their shoots, design costumes, scout locations, and find models. Luckily, they learned basic camera skills in the early weeks of their class, so they were well equipped to take the lead on their final project. “I had to just trust and believe in the process because when Hilary introduced the final I was like, ‘Wait, I can't do all that. That's crazy. Like, I can't be a director of my own stuff,’ but I did. And it was good,” Boynton said.
“I think CR helps students really discover what they're truly passionate about,” CR monitor Becky Brent said. Brent assists students in finding and creating classes that fit their interests by exploring classes beyond the conventional curriculum and ones that include hands-on experiences out in the world that can’t be recreated in a classroom.
“I think it starts with a student realizing that they have a passion toward a subject or an interest toward a career that we just don't offer an educational opportunity for here,” Brent said. “And that's kind of the beauty of the program—the learning then connects to the community.”
Brent is just one of the many CR monitors at CHS that helps to guide students to new opportunities as well as connecting them to professionals in the community.
“I think the CR program just gave me the opportunity to explore photography in a way that I haven't had before,” Lewis said. “I think that Hilary Nichols helped me push myself in a way that I don't think I would [have] if just in journalism.”
The Community Resource Program: A Teacher’s Perspective
By Teacher Hilary Nichols
The community resource program is offered for all Community High School students to intern or apprentice in a workplace setting alongside a professional to ignite and expand their professional goals. The CR counseling department at Community High School supports the learning of these students to meet their criteria in multidisciplinary studies. In 2023, I was approached by sophomore Ionie Stuedel. She asked if she could intern with Hilary Nichols Photography for the Spring semester. I was excited to share my passion, experience, and knowledge with an eager student. She then expanded the query to see if she could include her three friends. Happily, Claire Lewis, Julia Harrison, and Jacqueline Boynton joined the group. Our semester began with a photographic survey, to explore the many fields of photography. We looked at magazines and billboards and the world around to expand their awareness of documentary, photojournalism, landscape, and fashion photography.
As a student-designed program they were tasked with compiling their own resource guide from Youtube, Instagram, and Pinterest to create a sort of vision board of what style of photography they would be most interested in. With cameras in hand, we approached each class as a field trip to wander town and the surrounding areas, discovering their passions and expanding their skills. Once they determined their key interest, we deepened their focus. Working in pairs, their creative partnerships grew each week, to build a body of work that they designed and orchestrated themselves. They scouted locations, planned settings, picked costuming, and crafted their compositions, then continued with the tasks of editing, printing, and framing their work. The semester culminated in their student-led artist reception at Verde Cafe and Gallery. These teen photographers impressed me, not only with their artistry and event planning, but mostly with their perspective shift from student to artist. Witnessing them fine-tune their viewpoint to see the world from the vantage point of an artist with curiosity was the most gratifying gain of the semester.
Community High School teacher Tracy Anderson said, “In class, Ionie had a bunch of her photos from your Community Resource class up on her screen. From across the room, they were breathtaking. I went over to talk to her about them, and fifteen minutes later, we had a plan for her to develop a larger fashion/lifestyle section in our magazine. The other day when I was entering work into a national competition, I was amazed by the work that was coming out of your CR. The angles, the colors, the stories...they were all amazing. I love that you get students to really think about what the photo is going to be before the shoot happens. There is always that moment of action, reaction, surprise in the pieces, but there is also the feeling that there was work and thought and creativity that went into the photo. It is stunning. I am so grateful that our students at CHS get the chance to study with you and learn.”
In 2024, Community High school sophomores Jack Lewis and Mariah Zeigler approached me to repeat this CR offering. I was happy to reprise the role of photography teacher. The two close friends had their own vision for their CR semester. It was fun to guide these independent teens to design their own curriculum and schedule the semester of photography outings to meet their interests and grow their skills. Together we explored the streets, parks, and forests with cameras in hand. On rainy days we sourced indoor settings at The Graduate Hotel, Kerrytown, and in-home studios. Together we sought additional instruction from other professionals. Mid-semester these students created, edited, printed, and hung their work at Culture Verse art gallery on Main Street, and then they kept shooting to further their distinct projects and to expand their body of work.
Both Jack and Mariah lit up as they grew their knowledge to control for depth of field for an elegant effect and create their most artistic work. But more than the basic exposure triangle, I was much more gratified as they grew their excitement and passion for self-expression. Their semester was complete when they met all of their goals. They published a photo-journalism piece on their experience, and successfully curated their final gallery show and artist reception at Neutral Zone. These two students are now true photographers with an impressive and varied portfolio to be proud of, and they have expanded their perspectives to see their world through the eyes of an artist with the know-how to apply their new tools to any subject they might explore. I am so happy to have been able to guide and inspire these young visionaries and future professionals as they expand their capacities and develop their passions in art and in life.
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