You are looking at the photography of YERO STERLING. As you can see by his work, he is facsinated by Architecture. In the beginning of the program he told his instructor, Kwame Adansi-Bona, that he wanted to be an Architect and that he makes models of houses and buildings of wood. With this in mind we formulated a photography curriculum that focused on his interests. We took him all over the Lower Eastside where he shot, “The Doors” and “Williamsburg Bridge”, the roof of our building for “The Roof Top” and “Empire State”, Broadway, where construction was being done for “The Crane” and The Guggenheim Museum for “Sky Lite”. Yero has a sharp eye for detail. He finds beauty in places where others young and old might miss. It was a joy for me, as his tour guide, to see this young guy in action!

The prints on display today are mainly digital with one exception, “The Roof Top”. All photos were shot by Yero using a conventional 35mm camera and Tmax 400 Black and White film. Yero shot his own pictures, developed his own negatives (at home using his own chemicals), prepared the darkroom with chemicals and printed his own pictures. In the darkroom, Yero learned sophisticated darkroom techniques such as dodging, burning and using filters for contrast. Once Yero took his prints as far as he could in the darkroom he scanned them into the computer where he learned to digitally enhance his images.

What we are witnessing is a young 11 year old learning the techniques of the “Old School” and bringing them into the new, from darkroom to digital.