Hayley’s amazing photography entries for Reflections contest

Posted by Michelle on Nov 6, 2008 in Hayley

The National PTA Reflections Program is an arts recognition and achievement program for students. The Reflections Program provides opportunities for students to express themselves creatively and to receive positive recognition for original works of art inspired by a pre-selected theme, while increasing community awareness on the importance of the arts in education.

(she’s not smiling because this is her serious artist look, haha)

Hayley is entering two of her photographs from the beach for a school based art competition. Recognition is great but this was more about creating something. We had a great time doing it and you know when your ten year old thanks you repeatedly for doing it, you know you are on the right track.

Getting some good photos for the competition was something we worked on at the beach. The theme for this year’s competition is ‘WOW’ so we figured we’d have some good wow things down there. She’s got a great eye and is completely comfortable using my big Nikon.

This was a great process for her to go through – setting up shots, looking at light and perspective, picking the good shots (25 down to 12 down to 2), editing them (cropping and brightening/contrast) all her decisions on how to do it. The moment she picked them up at the print shop was really neat, she was beaming.

We mounted them on canvas, put them in protective sleeves. Then I had to fill out 4 pages of stuff and she had to work on her part – titles and she had to make an ‘artist statement’ for each on how the work connect to the theme. I put the photos and her ‘statements’ below.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

My photo called Cape Hatteras Lighthouse shows how tall the lighthouse is when you take a photo looking up at it. It has 268 steps up it and I climbed them. It is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. It is 208 feet high and weighs 4800 tons.

It was built right after the Civil War in 1870. In 1999, it was moved because the ocean was going to move up around it. It looks like it could crush you to move anything that tall and big.

The lighthouse says WOW to me because it is big, tall, historic and beautiful.

Wild Foal
My photo called Wild Foal is of a young horse eating grass in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

I went in an open top Jeep through the beach and sand dunes to see the wild horses that live near Corolla. This horse is one of the wild horses that are descendants from the Spanish mustangs brought by explorers almost 500 years ago. The herd roams free and there only about 100 wild horses in the herd.

I saw this one particular foal by itself eating in a beautiful open area and I thought it was WOW because it lives in the open and can roam anywhere it wants to. It has its all the dunes and beach for its home. By law you can’t get more than 50 feet close to them so my picture is as close as you can get to this amazing beautiful animal.

Tags: crafts & cooking, fun, school