Making Memories

Scrapbooks are rarities among foster children. Many wards of the court--bounced from caregiver to caregiver--have no such treasures. Few can even remember what they looked like when they were younger because they have no baby pictures.

But a group of such teenagers living in four group homes throughout the west San Fernando Valley is making its own memories now thanks to students from Cal State Northridge’s beginning photography class: Art 151, “Photography as Art.”

For three weeks, 15 students from three sections of the class have volunteered to teach the teenagers the basics of photography and why a snapshot of their temporary homes might someday be meaningful.

“Our instructor says that taking photos is like drawing a picture. I thought this would be a nice way of helping the kids express their lives . . . in the houses,” said 18-year-old CSUN photography student Irene Siller.

Six foster children between ages 11 and 17 live in each of the houses, managed by the county-contracted organization Children Are Our Future.

The homes--and seven others like them in the West Valley--operate on a loving yet strict schedule of group therapy, enrichment and mentoring sandwiched in among school, homework and chores. Wake-up is 5:30 a.m., lights out at 10 p.m.

Last week, Siller and eight other CSUN photography students met with house residents David, Brandon, Salvador, Travis and Stuart at their two-story temporary digs on a quiet cul-de-sac in Northridge. It was a photo shoot free-for-all.

“To be put on the same level and accepted by college students, I think, means a lot to these kids,” said Michael Linquata, executive director of Children Are Our Future, which was founded in 1986 to help foster kids who have often had difficulty in traditional foster home settings.

Armed with disposable cameras, the foster children and college students scattered in, around and outside the house. Everything was a possible shot--except the foster kids’ faces, to protect their privacy.

They took pictures of food cooking on the stove, endearing and odd angles of their “house parents,” and trees, plants and flowers, among other subjects.

Siller and 17-year-old David--who has been in foster care since a 1997 arrest in connection with an arson--hit it off immediately. Both were in hand casts for various minor injuries.

“We took pictures of our hands--his and mine together,” she said. “We talked about our families. We made friends.”

Another student, 19-year-old Michael Adelmann, worked with a foster child on artistic technique.

“You should try and get some pictures without people,” the freshman told Salvador. “You’d be surprised at how interesting things are.”

The two worked for the perfect shot of a patch of bougainvillea in the backyard. “Don’t just frame it,” Adelmann instructed. “Everyone does that. Get it a little bit off-center.”

Just a week earlier, Adelmann said Salvador had poked fun at the project when the two groups met for an informal photography lecture. But now--with his disposable camera in hand--the stocky boy with a buzz haircut had taken the project to heart.

“For a few more months,” Adelmann said, “I’m still a teenage boy. And I know what photography has done for me in helping me to express myself. These [foster] kids aren’t any different.”

Stuart, 13, who first was placed in foster care when he was 4 weeks old--was especially enthusiastic. By the end of the hourlong session, he had shot three rolls of film of subjects ranging from his beloved Pokemon backpack to various collectibles on his dresser.

“I’ve been told my parents just couldn’t take care of me,” he said in between snapshots. “They made me drink rubbing alcohol and let my sister eat a whole bunch of pills.”

Stuart can’t remember how many different places he’s lived in during his short life--12 or 13, he thinks. So for him, chronicling the “Terry House,” as the home is nicknamed, was especially meaningful.

“These kids have no history,” said house manager Irving Carter, who graduated from the program in 1990 and is now helping other kids in trouble while he attends college. “These kids have nothing to draw upon.”

The kids will be able to keep some of the photos. Others will be duplicated and bound into chapter books as mementos for the four foster houses. Thomas Bros. Maps Educational Foundation--which sponsored the project--will also get copies of the albums to keep as part of its Community Treasures Program. That program was designed to help California elementary school-age students explore their communities, but CSUN officials persuaded the organization to include their students too.

“I think this project made my students feel useful,” said photography instructor Lesley Krane, “that they could teach these foster kids how to look at something with a new perspective.”

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