In summary

The collaboration between CalMatters and Catchlight Local enables students to tell their own stories.

The impact of COVID on our health, lives and communities has been chronicled by journalists across the world. A unique partnership puts students in the storytelling role.

The four-part photo series gives students in three different California school districts an opportunity to visually capture and tell their stories of a year in elementary school and high school and during the pandemic.

The project was made possible through collaboration between CalMatters and CatchLight Local, with the Salinas Californian collaborating on one of the stories.

“With COVID and schools, we often hear from parents, teachers and administrators, but rarely from the children themselves,” says CalMatters photo editor Miguel Guttierrez, Jr. “This project gives us an opportunity to hear from the students about what they’ve experienced over these last few years.”

As part of the “Student Reflections: Looking Back on School during COVID” series, students in each community were given disposable cameras to document their own experiences. They photographed their friends, classrooms, changing mask mandates, recess, after-school activities and senior prom.

The project shows the stark contrast of using disposable cameras in a digital world where photographers go without filters, previews and a limited number of exposures.

In a different CatchLight interview with Italian photographer Camilla Ferrari, she reminisced about using disposable cameras as a young student. “I remember taking pictures without a real intention or awareness of what I was doing, apart from knowing that those images would become a memory of that time.”

This photo collaboration uniquely represents the junction of CalMatters’ mission to improve California’s democracy through accountability-focused and informative journalism, and CatchLight’s mission to inform, connect and transform communities.

This project was produced by CalMatters and CatchLight as part of the CatchLight Local CA Visual Desk. Contributors include Joe Hong, Miguel Gutierrez Jr. and Martin do Nascimento of CalMatters, as well as Mabel Jimenez and Jenny Jacklin-Stratton of CatchLight. The San Antonio Elementary School component of the project was produced through additional collaboration with the Salinas Californian.

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.