ISLAND FAMILY LIVING

Landmarks of Nantucket!
The island through 30 pairs of eyes

"Old Mill Arm" by Gilberto Tejada This spring 30 students were each given a camera and asked to photograph an island landmark they would miss the most, should that landmark vanish.

The results of this photographic safari will be shown in "Landmarks of Nantucket!" a student-curated photography exhibition that opens this Sunday, May 31 at 2 p.m. in the Candle Factory of the Whaling Museum.

"Photographer Cary Hazlegrove made a presentation to the students and they asked her questions," said Steve Sortevik, the 7th grade teacher who helped organize the after-school program with the Nantucket Historical Association. "The children were instructed on how to use the camera and they also learned how to frame a subject and look at things in a new way."

This is the second time in three years that students participated in the program organized by the Nantucket Historical Association and funded with a $10,000 grant from the Nantucket Golf Foundation.

Nantucket Historical Association executive director Bill Tramposch broached the idea three years ago, recalling a painful childhood memory of razed landmarks from his native home in Monroe, Connecticut.

PHOTOS BY KIM MCCRAY Thirty students from Cyrus Peirce, including Olivia Funderburg, Lydia Gullicksen, Logan Hennessy, Hannah Nicolle, Catherine Robinson, Amanda Sandoval, Matias Sejersen, Joseph Tallman and Ashley Wilson photographed Nantucket landmarks. The exhibit opens Sunday at the Whaling Museum. "When I was in junior high, I grew up on a town common, replete with churches, maple trees and the feel of a big natural room surrounded by great buildings, one of them being my home," said Tramposch. "One day, when I came home from school, I noticed three of the 12 buildings - all on one side of the common - being destroyed. I couldn't believe the difference it made to my feeling of home. Here on Nantucket, where the whole island is a National Historic Landmark, I wondered what its children believe they would miss most if it disappeared."

Matias Sejersen, age 13, said that he learned a great deal about the technical aspects of photography.

"We learned how to frame a subject and how to make photographs look better," said Sejersen, who took photos of Brant Point Lighthouse and ray eggs along the 'Sconset beach.

"Brant Point Lighthouse" by Logan Hennessy "I learned a lot about Nantucket. I took pictures of the Old Mill, since it is near my house," said 13-year-old Jake Adams. "I think the Old Mill is cool. It still works today and it grinds corn. Although I live near the mill, I never noticed the cobblestones there, until I started photographing it."

While students claimed they did not learn anything new about their fellow classmates, they were quick to compliment each other's work.

"Mikayla took a cool picture of the bike rack," said Lydia Gullicksen, 13, who said she would miss the view of the harbor from the Unitarian Church.

"One of, if not the most, rewarding and enjoyable aspects of this project for me was seeing the myriad of positive affects it had on a broad spectrum of students," Sortevik said. "Not just those whose names consistently appear on the honor roll or who have previously exhibited artistic talents. The talents and interests of all of these students were allowed to bloom in ways that we are not always able to support and encourage in school nowadays with the pressures of MCAS testing and school finances." I