By Pat Healy

For the Journal

     Every picture tells a story, and in the "Through Our Eyes" exhibit each of those stories is written by a person whose first language is not English.

     Opening June 3^rd at 167 Holland Street, the exhibit is a collection of photographs taken by students in the Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences (SCALE) program. What began last fall as an assignment for 20 students has blown up into a program-wide project for more than 350 participants, and will culminate in this exhibit. The students were given disposable cameras donated by Brooks Pharmacy in Somerville and CVS in Cambridge, told to take photographs of subjects that were important to them, and then told to write about their photos in English. The photos were developed with the financial help of the Tufts Neighborhood Grant.

     The stories and photographs together are glimpses into aspects of the cultures in our community that we may not always notice. Divided into categories of Family Portraits, Work, Special Subject, Nature, and Architecture, the choices of subjects are extremely personal.

     One photo entitled "Two Girls" shows a pregnant girl on a porch smiling proudly but shyly, her hand cupped around the bottom of her ballooned belly. The text is more like poetry than English through a filter, reading, "look so beautiful and is a woman and life."

     "It doesn’t matter what your language level is," said Charlotte Knox, a family literacy educator and teacher of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) with the Somerville Family Network, who along with technology coordinator and ESOL program administrator Ngaio Schiff, made Through Our Eyes happen.

     "This is something everyone can do," said Knox. "It’s a leveling process where somehow the photography puts everyone on the same level."

     Knox solicited additional donations from eager funders such as Trader Joes, Roche Brothers, Foodmaster and Nellie’s Wildflowers. A group of local photographers who found out about the project through the Somerville Arts Council also helped out. They came into the ESOL classes and shared ideas about composition and the technical aspects of how to get the best results from a disposable camera.

     One recent afternoon those photographers, along with Knox and Schiff, laid out all the photos on tables and put colored Post-it notes on the ones they particularly liked. Schiff stood with her arms folded, biting her bottom lip, trying to decide which photographs should be enlarged for the exhibit. She put a bright pink Post-it on a photo depicting a reflection of the sky in a puddle. The bright pink Post-it conveys that the accompanying story is worthy of merit on its own. The paragraph in carefully crafted letters tells how the picture was taken on the first day the U.S. went to war with Iraq, and that the rain symbolized the same tears the photographer was crying.

     Knox speaks like a proud parent, filled with wonder and excitement about the subjects her students chose to photograph. She tells a tale of a limo driver who brought in photos of the bus that goes back and forth from Mohegan Sun. His dream was to drive that bus, but he needs a high school diploma or a GED to do so, which is why he enrolled in the ESOL class. She said some students even took photos of their television screens when their favorite television shows were on.

     "You don’t necessarily have to have that perfect picture to feel pleased and proud of what you’ve done," she said, "which is really telling other people about who you are."

Schiff said some of the pictures that spoke most clearly were the ones by people who didn’t necessarily have the best command over the English language.

     "Even people that had limited communication skills could take a picture that could be very moving," she said.

     After much deliberation the group finally decided that all the photos will be exhibited, but only the best ones will be enlarged. They will be broken into categories of Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Honorable Mention.

     Schiff said this exhibit communicates the way other cultures view the community, while allowing different communities to view each others’ cultures. When the students first received their photos back from being developed the teachers had them lay them out on the table, which promoted a lot of dialogue.

     "It’s another dimension that’s not commonly revealed in the classroom," said Schiff.

Knox said this change will be demonstrated further when the exhibit is on display fulltime.

"I think it really makes the students feel like the school is their own school, and not just some building where they come to learn English," she said.

     The opening of "Through Our Eyes" takes place on Tuesday, June 3rd at 167 Holland Street in Somerville from 5:30 to 7:30. For more information visit www.scalesomerville.org