With the push of a shutter-release button, a moment is captured and frozen in time. Syracuse University’s art photography students are very familiar with this action, studying photography and the way stories can be told without words.

For 10 seniors majoring in art photography at SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, their hard work has paid off as their photographs are currently on display at the Transmedia Photography Annual exhibition in the Hallway Gallery at Light Work.

Barbara Tannenbaum — the chair of prints, drawings and photographs and curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art — judged the artwork, carefully selecting the Best of Show and honorable mentions. Mollie M. Crandell, Charlotte Lester and Siyaka Taylor-Lewis were each granted an honorable mention award for their photographs.

Tyanna Seton won Best of Show for her piece that was inspired by her relationship with her father. The untitled video incorporates still images, audio and video to formulate an “emotionally nuanced tale (that) doesn’t offer resolution, but it does hold out hope,” Tannenbaum said in her judge’s statement.

At first, Seton didn’t plan on sharing her very personal composition.

“It was going to sit on my computer forever if one of my classmates hadn’t encouraged me to show it,” Seton said. “So, I didn’t make it in hopes to get reactions from a larger audience, I made it from the heart.”

Seton added that she finds inspiration for her artwork in the prevalent social injustices that people of color live through in the United States. Her father’s incarceration caused a troublesome relationship between the two — but with the help of her art, she said she was able to establish a sense of peace about their relationship.

“I guess it speaks to my hopes at the time of rebuilding our foundation and letting him know I am understanding of his circumstances, and love and support him no matter what,” Seton said.

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Like Seton, Catherine Doherty’s photography was also motivated by a social issue. Her thesis is a series about sexual assault and its effects on the victims, aiming to shed light on the #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport movements that have swept the nation.

“As a woman and someone who has experienced it, I think it’s really important to make work about it,” Doherty said.

For art photography students, collaboration and feedback from one another is essential. These students become a family, encouraging each other to produce their best work and give advice on how to improve.

For many of the students involved, this is the first opportunity to have their art professionally exhibited. Laura Heyman, an associate professor in the department of transmedia, said the students’ ability to have their photographs displayed at the gallery in Light Work is crucial to their success in the future.

The students were also able to work alongside members of Light Work in preparation for the exhibition. John Mannion and Victor Rivera, Light Work staff members, attended classes to discuss with students which images should go in the exhibition, Heyman said.

In regard to Tannenbaum serving as the juror, Heyman added how important it is for a successful individual in the field of photography to see the students’ compositions.

Although the event can be seen as the seniors’ farewell, Heyman said that the exhibition is not so much an end, but a new beginning.

“We encourage them not to think about it as the last thing, but rather the first thing,” Heyman said. “It’s their first way of working on a project the way that a professional artist would work on a project.”

Published on February 17, 2019 at 8:37 pm