A few months ago, Liz Maugans called and put me on speaker phone with Amy Callahan, director of Waterloo Arts. They were looking to connect South African photographer, Dale Yudelman, with a local school so that he could work with students teaching them about street photography.

Dale is one of the current Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion Artists in residence here in Cleveland, sharing his talents and learning from us as well; a collaborative international exchange of artistic ideas. He wanted to show the kids how accessible photography can be by shooting on phones, as he did with his most recent project, Life Under Democracy.

After the initial introduction and logistical bits and bobs, we had ourselves a nice group of 24 kids which eventually was whittled down to a dozen or so. Field trips to Waterloo Road, the RTA Windermere Station, and Public Square and Tower City happened, and each time the boys grew bolder and more discerning with their photography.

It was just absolutely pure joy working on this project with everyone from the awesome talent that Dale brought to the table, to watching the kids' perspectives shift as they looked at the world through their tiny phone camera lenses, to Amy's passion for her work with art and with the children of the city of Cleveland.

From here, with this group of a dozen young men who are learning to express themselves and to process the world through a camera lens, I am considering how the Ginn Academy blog website are going to evolve. I think we might now have the 2014 version of a school newspaper photo staff!

Words & location images by Karin Mckenna