Program helps students express themselves

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:04AM

Raindrops on flowers. Hands clasped. A fiery amber twilight.

Such pictures may just be the catalysts of a larger, nationwide photography concept that started with Express Yourself in Barrington.

It has been said pictures can capture thoughts, so how fascinating it is when the photos are taken by special needs children.

Barrington-native and renowned area portrait photographer Thomas Balsamo thought so too and the result is a remarkable series of photos by 28 area special needs children, featuring flowers, clasped hands and the colors of a sunset as seen through their eyes.

The project, which resulted in a book by the same name, is so successful Balsamo envisions expanding the concept.

“I have plans to do this on a national level,” Balsamo said at his two-story studio build adjacent to his home. “I’d like to extend this to individuals with cancer and see the world through their eyes ... terminal kids in hospitals. It could have a virtual side, uploading onto a website. I’d like to do a series of books.”

Balsamo has some experience already with books on a national scale, having collaborated with author Sharon Rosenbloom on “Souls Beneath & Beyond,” a book published by McGraw-Hill and carried by Toys R’ Us and featured on CNN. The project for the group Autism Speaks raised $6.5 million and his photos appeared on Health and Human Services posters throughout the country.

“I had an epiphany in 1999,” Balsamo said. “I started realizing I should be doing things that make a difference with my work ... Now, I help non-profits get their message out. Which has been awesome.”

Sliced onions

Developed jointly with the Barrington Area Special Voices, Express Yourself began last spring with a photography training session for 28 local special needs kids at the Garlands of Barrington senior living and retirement community.

Participants were given creative subject categories. Something that: makes you laugh; you love; you can’t live without; makes you feel bad; is beautiful; makes you cry.

“I told them, this is your opportunity to let the world know, this is how you see things,” Balsamo said.

Sliced onions make Jared Schor, 10, of Buffalo Grove, cry so he featured a whimsical close-up. It was just one of the portraits featured this month at the Barrington Area Library.

“I thought it was kinda funny and kinda sweet,” said Marci Schor, Jared’s mother, at Friday’s showing of Express Yourself work at the library. “And it was kinda neat it was a contest too because a lot of these kids don’t get to compete in contests.”

Once the Garlands training session was finished, the kids were sent out into the community to take pictures of anything that held significance to them. Each was also assigned a “photo buddy,” or professional photographer to help guide and edit them.

Balsamo “called in favors” from area photographers who helped whittle down the entries and then judge a contest.

Leonardo Joseph Milik, 9, of Lake Barrington won the People’s Choice award for his burning sunset photo. Michael Asher, 23, of Barrington, won the Photographer’s Choice award for a simple portrait of hands clasped.

However, these Express Yourself portraits aren’t just what they appear to be.

Photographer Ansel Adams once said photos must be looked at and “looked into.”

The back stories of each Express Yourself portrait infuses the pictures with meaning and insights.

Asher’s clasped hands represent “myself and my 12-year-old brother, Charlie, I love my brother.” Milik saw “God’s creation” in the twilight.

Manhole cover

Giving the special needs children cameras and telling them to express themselves had its desired empowerment, parents said at Friday’s library showing. However, their artistry also ricocheted to the viewer.

“I just thought, if we give them a chance to communicate in their way, maybe we can tap into their wisdom,” Balsamo said.

Skip Gianopulos is a Barrington Hills trustee and the father of contestant Jessica, 9, who photographed her feet under a lime colored dress.

Her caption, or back story, in the book reads as follows: “I love to dance, especially when I am wearing my ‘twirling dress.’ I like to spin around. I dance with the stars.”

“It was awesome to see how proud these kids were over this,” Skip Gianopulos said at Friday’s library event. “And frankly, the photography is pretty good.”

Jake McManus, 15, chose the category of “something I can’t live without” and took a picture of a horse’s tail. Not much of a shot without the back story.

“It reminds me of Harry, my favorite horse, and how I ride him bareback because he is special for me. Horseback riding makes me feel excited and happy and important,” he wrote in the book.

Balsamo said the book signings at the Garlands, Lake Barrington Field House and the library are among his favorite parts of the project. He keeps his own signed book, like a fan book.

Matt Aki, 12, photographed a portion of a manhole cover, revealing something undefined below.

“I want to go down there,” he wrote. “It looks like fun down there.”

Eight ball on a
billiard table

Domenic Migliore, 21, stood up at the book signing ceremony at the Barrington library and told the crowd how difficult it was to make his black and white portrait, with nuanced shadows, of a billiard table.

“I kept taking it over and over for several months until I got it,” said Migliore, of the table with carefully placed balls and pool sticks.

If there is one thought Balsamo wants viewers to come away with after seeing this project it is to see the capabilities of the special needs individual.

“I would say, look at this project and see how talented these special needs people are,” Balsamo said. “See they all have something to share, gifts and talents and passion.”

The photography concept could catch on, Balsamo said, but it already is a success in Barrington.

“Twenty-eight kids,” Balsamo said, “got to do maybe the coolest thing they’ve ever done.”