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The George Eastman Museum’s latest exhibit at its Gallery Obscura celebrates the creative work of Rochester middle school students.
“It’s so exciting to have work from youth photographers here, not just for them, but for us too,” says Emma Rathe, manager of programs and exhibition production at the George Eastman Museum.
“This partnership is just so phenomenal and so supportive of us,” adds Markus Essien, photography and digital arts program coordinator at the Flower City Arts Center. “They have a mini scale model of (Gallery Obscura) with magnetized walls which (Rathe) brought over. We preprinted all these little miniaturized prints and the students actually had a chance to have a design of their own space. It was really cool.”
The creative works now displayed at the community gallery represent the culmination of learning from the 2025/2026 Studio 678 Photo Club. The after-school program is offered free of charge through Flower City Arts to students in grades six through eight. The group consisted of 18 students from seven local schools.
During their time in the 25-week program, students learned how to use 35mm film cameras and produced their own black-and-white prints in the darkroom.
“It’s a really traditional process. Our kids really get a sense of delayed gratification, which is not something that many of us, even as adults, get to do anymore,” Essien remarks. “Shoot, but then you have to wait to find out what comes out next week.”
The process is a hands-on journey, with students practicing their skills both in the studio and throughout the area, visiting local landmarks and community spaces. Experiences that stood out for students included trips to Lollypop Farm, Village Gate, and A Horse’s Friend, as well as a photo session with therapy dogs at RocDog.
In addition to photos, students collaborated with local poets to reflect on their imagery and write creatively about their art. Essien says this encourages youth to express both their vision and their voice, building confidence and fostering conceptual thinking skills.
At the exhibit, viewers are also encouraged to go through the same process with an interactive display. Archival photos from the 2009 678 Photo Club are presented in a section where visitors can write their own poems to display alongside the images.
Gallery Obscura is now in its fourth year and seeks to feature exhibitions from community institutions and school and youth programs, projects focused on or thematically related to Greater Rochester, or support other museum initiatives and programming.
“I call this a gateway gallery because we want people to feel welcome here, especially for people who don’t often go to museums or feel welcome in those spaces,” Rathe says. “Our goal institutionally is to make sure that people recognize that they deserve to be in these spaces too.”
The creative work from the 678 Photo Club will be on display at Gallery Obscura through June 21. A photobook for students will also be created through the Flower City Arts Center in the upcoming months.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
(A non-political reply) I think this program from the Flower City Arts Center is great to expose middle-school kids to our Rochester photo history. Support their efforts by supporting Flower City Arts Center programs and visiting the student work at the George Eastman Museum.
No replies. Interesting. Does any article written in the the Beacon have to relate to politics to get a response? This once again shows the ignorance of our RCSD, RCSB and the likes of Adam Urbanski. They don’t get what education ought to look like. I’ll repeat, ALL KIDS HAVE INNATE SKILLS AND OR GIFTS. The way to have kids discover their skill or gift is to show them, live, professions, careers and vocations. Let them discover their future in the K-12 journey and then build on that with a post high school success. A bright future and a sense of belonging. A way to support one self and having a family. Nope, says the RCSD. We need to have kids be bored with academics which show them nothing but graduation day (if they survive that) with nothing to look forward to. It amazes me that an individual like Adam Urbanski cannot grasp that. A Phd. with zero vision. One who can attain that but can’t seem to share that personal success. When are we, the public, going to get it? Urban kids have what it takes, they just need help in discovering it. Decades of failure, not by the kids, but by the likes of Adam Urbanski. Semper Fi.
Agreed. It’s a shame. He’s annoyed me for years.