Upper School Photographers Showcase Their Work

5/1/2024

For Remy Pearlman ’25, her love of photography first clicked in ninth grade when she signed up to be the videographer for a student-run documentary series.

“The visions and ideas I had from that experience encouraged me to take that newfound interest and translate it to still images,” Pearlman said. “Since then, I have been practically attached to my camera at the hip.”

Pearlman’s work and those of four fellow Photo Major students (Clive Chong ’25, Maya Davidson ’26, Rory Frasch ’25 and Lainey Spencer ’24) were recently on display in the exhibition “JPEG Photo Major Gallery” in the Wenberg Gallery in the Fonseca Center.

“Each student was asked to create eight to 10 final images for their body of work project,” explained Rachel Langosch, upper school visual arts teacher. “I asked students to assess the space and their individual projects to decide how many works to hang as they made thoughtful decisions about size, scale and how their work would be curated on the wall.”

Junior Clive Chong titled his work “Yellow” and said his theme was influenced by “my father's jaundice and the yellow mid-tones I used when color grading some of my images.”

Collectively, Chong’s photographs represented personal significant items and places in his life. “Each image captures a detached view of what it's like to be in my family, since I'm mostly away from them as a seven-day boarder,” he explained. “The collection reveals some of my family's flaws, which I'm not too comfortable with, but I think my journey of discovering my familial history necessitates a relatively unfiltered perspective.”

Pearlman’s untitled display also came from a personal place. “My body of work tells the story of holding onto childhood memories,” she said. “The work speaks about growing up as my own best friend and the beauty I have always found in my surroundings.”

Her pieces consisted of mixed-media collages using a matchbook, a cassette tape filled with meaningful songs, an old license plate and poetry. One work included images of Pearlman and her mother isolated from the background of the images and interacting with the galaxy. “I composed both using scissors and glue as well as a share of Photoshop and digital post-production editing software, to create vignettes to tell my story.”

“It’s such a privilege to witness student growth and to see each project develop, from the initial proposals to the final moments in the gallery,” she said. “I am in awe at the bravery and strength of each student artist as they each pushed themselves and took true creative risks. Their work is stronger than many of the projects I see in professional NYC galleries."