ORLANDO, Fla. — A picture is worth one thousand words. Or simply just tells a good story.
Dozens of Orange County Public School photography students participated in a black-and-white challenge. It’s called “Through Their Eyes 2020.”
“It was scary in the sense of, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next,’” said student Tristan Kaos Green.
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The project shows the pain of the pandemic through the lens of a teenager.
“On my way to school for the first day, I remember showing up and seeing nobody I use to see from last year. Green said. “It just felt a lot more empty than what I knew Boone was.”
It was an emptiness that made life tough.
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Green had high hopes for his senior year and for his little brother, who was starting the ninth grade, but the pandemic squashed those plans.
For student Javia Lee and her family, it was tough to make ends meet.
“I am online. My mom lost her job and had to search for a new job,” Lee said. “So that was the inspiration for most of my photos.”
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Peeking through the lens of his students, depicting the pain of the pandemic, was a lesson learned even for their teacher.
“I was surprised at the ranges of responses to COVID that were out there,” said teacher John Burke with Boone High School. “Not seeing so many students face to face daily, to visually see what they are going through, through their artwork was very powerful.”
Cox Media Group
