Film Photography & Social and Emotional Well Being: Counselor Roxanna Angles on the New Cielo Vista Charter Film Photography Society
Film Photography Project founder Michael Raso was a guest speaker at The Darkroom’s second annual Film Photography Paideia held the weekend of March 2, 2019. While there, he met many passionate film shooters including Roxanna Angles, School Counselor for Cielo Vista Charter School in Palm Springs, California. Roxanna had plans to launch an analog photography program at her school but needed cameras and processing donations to move forward. The Film Photography Project (The FPP) came through with refurbished and tested film cameras, and soon Roxanne was on her way! Here’s what she has to say about the program now that the pilot has been completed –
Cielo Vista Charter Film Photography Society
Spring/Summer 2019
The pilot of the Cielo Vista Charter Film Photography Society has been officially completed! It has been a trimester of trial and error and fun program development. Before going into the preliminary results, let me share the basis of this program.
I am a school counselor in Palm Springs, California. I work with students in a variety of settings such as individual, group counseling and classroom lessons on various topics. Some of the topics I cover are ones of social emotional well being. In my personal life I am an analog photographer that uses this medium to de-stress. Film photography helps ME de-stress and helps relieves anxiety, so why wouldn’t it help kids?
My first step was to analyze data. All students completed a social emotional survey that measures growth mindset, grit, self management, self efficacy and social awareness. I gathered a pool of students with low SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills and interviewed them for interest and also measured current stress levels. As this was a pilot study (I will be beginning the program Fall 2019), I only chose four students. They all had various stress factors. The excitement to begin was high!
I am thankful for The FPP and Cinestill as they donated cameras and Monobath developer. I was able to lend each student a camera and gift development chemistry to them. We scheduled a development day to have them come in and first watch. Next year they will learn how to develop themselves!
Both students and their parents loved the program. I received phone calls from parents. Thankful for the program and excited for the direction their child was going with it! All of the photographs here are made by my students. I will be working with the same students along with more in the fall. I will then collect the post data in the spring. I hypothesize that there will be growth! I will be posting more through my Instagram through the year if you’d like to stay tuned. Instagram: @roxannalog
I am also always taking film donations of all sorts! We will be fundraising throughout the year to pay for the film students use. The more supplies I have the more students I can take into the program. Again a HUGE thank you to the Film Photography Project in helping getting this off the ground!!
Roxanna Angles
Cielo Vista Charter School Counselor
All photos from the Cielo Vista Charter School Film Society