Many students walk up and down this same staircase every day, yet they never stop to notice the outstanding art gallery on the walls that surround it. This rotating exhibit, comprised primarily of Photography 2 Honors artwork, can be viewed on each landing of the Leonard H. Vogel double staircase.
“The Vogel staircase is a nice place for some of our higher-performing art students to have their work displayed,” Photography Teacher Luke Suttile explained. “The school hallways can often be very drab, and the display of artwork gives passing students something to look at.”
Photography 2 Honors is a smaller-sized class, made up of about 10-15 students who have fulfilled the Photography 1 prerequisite and are working toward perfecting their skills in the medium. Each student’s displayed work conveys a unique style of artistry and individual talent.
Liz Bukh’s carefully crafted piece appears first. Her painting, modeled around the work of Vincent Van Gogh, features a silhouette walking by. As Bukh explained, to capture the shot, she positioned the camera behind stone columns in the foreground in order to create depth and achieved an illusive effect through the projection of Van Gogh’s pieces on the walls and floor.
Cameron Longa created a piece using old film stock. Shooting on Kodak Gold 35mm film, the resulting photographs were scanned digitally from shots taken with an analog camera to allow for a more vintage aesthetic.
A common technique in photography is emphasizing a foreground object by blurring the background. Scott Bailey’s picture incorporates this blur technique during a roller coaster ride to emphasize the wooden track.
Pierce Laing photographed a shirtless Tyler Founds standing before a blurred sunset, which creates a glowing effect.
Peyton Enama used another common photography technique known as layering. In the foreground of her piece, she captured a silhouette of trees before a background of a cemetery. A cloud layer was superimposed over the image, making it seem as if the background is the sky.
Lindsey Kudriavetz’s work features a wide range of the school culture she participates in as an RHS student, which includes positions as editor-in chief of Rampage and executive producer of the Ram Report morning announcement show. Her blurred background image of host Addie Cozza on the set of Ram Report is duplicated in the foreground image of a framed camera shot. The complete work offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the morning show at RHS, one that students can watch during homeroom but have limited technical knowledge of how it’s produced.
“Having my piece in the gallery is amazing, as I can show my work to all of RHS,” Kudriavetz stated. “I’ve seen artwork displayed there through all my years in RHS, and now I feel like I am a part of this tradition.”
The gallery, spanning two floors, highlights the work of many student artists throughout the course of the year. The staircase has served as an exhibition space for the many visual arts courses at RHS since the late 2000s, when it was dedicated to distinguished art educator Leonard H. Vogel.
Make sure to look out for more visual art student work displayed in the Vogel Gallery throughout the remainder of the year.
