by Gloria Cowdin, photos compiled by Julia Hammond

Last May, several STA digital photography students submitted their work to a New York Times blog, Lens, for a project called “My Hometown.” The purpose of this project was to compile photos taken by high schoolers across the country of their hometowns.

“The images create an important and lasting document of America today as seen by teenagers,” compiler/author of the blog, James Estrin, says on Lens.

Students in Mr. Thomas’s Digital Photography class were required to upload five photos to the blog as part of a photojournalism assignment. According to the blog, over 3,000 teens from 45 states submitted photos to the project. A total of 4,289 photos are now compiled in the “My Hometown” project.

“[The project] got me open to the idea of thinking about maybe doing something with photojournalism when I get older,” junior Madi Sage said.

Along with Sage, 17 other STA girls submitted their work, which is now viewable in the online gallery.

“I was impressed with a lot of other people’s photos that were submitted,” senior Katherine Becker said. “I liked looking around at all the cool [pictures] that other people had [taken] and I got cool ideas from them.”

According to Lens, many of the photos will eventually be archived at the Library of Congress.

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