Film, English major spends summer photographing children’s camp
The multitude of options for students over the summer is overwhelming, senior Alex Pretorius spent his summer photographer for a camp. Pictured on left. Photo Courtesy of: Alex Pretorius
While many college students spend their summers working jobs to make some money for the semester or doing an internship in their future field, one student from the University of Rhode Island did this while also making a positive change for others.
Alexander Pretorius, a senior film and English double major, spent his summer working as a staff photographer at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, Connecticut.
Hole in the Wall is a camp that provides children with serious illnesses a fun-filled week with family and friends.
“You have kids who are coming all over the place, but also most of the time hospitals,” Pretorius said. “A lot of these kids live in hospitals, a lot of these kids don’t really get to live a normal childhood, don’t get to make friends. So, the big thing about Hole in the Wall is that for one week, the kids get to be kids.”
Pretorius spent 10 weeks at the camp from June until the end of Auust taking photos of the children for the camp. Each week, a different group of children went to the camp.
The photos he took are used on Hole in the Wall social media websites, and eventually will be used for the camp’s official website and in the camp’s publication, the Gazette.
According to him, the big goal for him each week was to create a slideshow with photos from each group of children. On the second to last day of camp, the children would watch the slideshow of their week at camp.
“I like to say it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done,” Pretorius said. “It sort of shifted my mind to the power of photography. If people want to see what’s happening. That’s me. That’s my job.”
Last spring, Nick Corsano, associate director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media and a film professor for Pretorius, mentioned that Hole in the Wall needed a photographer for the summer. Between his interest in photography and past experience working with kids, he decided to apply to be the photographer this summer at Hole in the Wall.
“In high school, from 15 to 18 years old I worked at a summer camp in Rehoboth, Massachusetts and really liked that,” Pretorius said. “I liked working with the kids. It sounded like a perfect job.”
Pretorius said he was first introduced to photography in high school. He grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and graduated from Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts. It wasn’t until his senior year that he took a film elective, sparking his interest in film.
While Pretorius’s focus was to make camp as meaningful as possible for the campers, he said that he gained a lot from his experience as well.
“Camp is love,” he said. “Camp really helped me sort of just love more in my everyday life. We have this saying at camp ‘meet the kids where they’re at,’ because we have kids coming from all over the place. We just basically take every relationship and lead it with love and take it one step at a time.”
After graduating in the spring, Pretorius hopes to have the chance to go back to camp for weekends this fall and spring to continue working as a staff photographer.
“To be the eyes for the camp and to be the eyes for the family and kids to look back on,” Pretorius said. “That’s me, and that felt really important.”