Chapter Four: Hutterites
I engaged with students at the Maple River Hutterite Colony near Ellendale, North Dakota. Hutterite children must attend school taught by North Dakota public school teachers until age sixteen. I gave a presentation to all twenty-five students about my personal relationship with photography. I then asked each student to write a short essay about what photography meant to them. Which was an interesting proposition given that Hutterites believe photography is blasphemous (in accordance with their interpretation of the Christian Bible). I then set up a portable studio with backdrop and lights and invited the students to make self-portraits. Since Hutterite's have a negative relationship with photography, I appreciate that doing so was ethically dubious. However, I have never exhibited or published these photographs.
