From the Nominator

The Lewis Center for the Arts puts the arts at the heart of the Princeton University experience. For their senior independent project, students in the theater program have the opportunity to write, direct, act, design, compose, or stage-manage projects under the guidance of faculty and visiting artists. One of these productions was The Amish Project, a one-woman play by Jessica Dickey. It tells the fictional story of a real-life 2006 event in Nickel Mines, a small village in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where someone from outside the community shot students in an Amish school. A poster had to be created for the play. The goal was to achieve a balance between respect and sensitivity and creating an impactful image. The original concept was to take photos of the actor (also the project proposer) in costume and use those in multiples to communicate the idea of one person playing multiple roles. Working closely with the thesis student and my photographer-colleague, Jon Sweeney, we conducted a photo shoot on campus. This session resulted in a variety of beautiful images to use for the poster, as well as content for our social media channels and website event page. While multiple poster drafts were generated, I focused on a strong image of the play's protagonist for the final version, further enforcing themes of resilience, loss, and forgiveness. As a result, there was a full turnout of diverse audience members, including artists, faculty, and community members.

From the Judges

We agreed that these photos are dynamic and beautiful. Additionally, they enjoyed the great technical execution. We appreciated learning about the extensive preparation that the photographer undertook to capture these stunning photos.