The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Sharon Historical Society intern sharpens her focus
SHARON — While Perla Lopez, a senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, hasn’t been in a classroom all school year due to the pandemic, she’s been very occupied with her duties as an intern at the Sharon Historical Society & Museum.
Lopez has been completing the 80-hour internship over the course of the school year. The internship, which was made possible through a collaboration between her high school and the society, was awarded to Lopez for becoming the second winner of the Frances Kelly Young Photographer’s Fund. The fund is managed by the Berkshire Taconic Community and was established to nurture and champion students’ studies in photography.
Lopez is contributing to the Historical Society and Museum through community and collections projects. One project involves filming episodes of the “Reinventing Farming” oral history series, which is a collection of interviews by author Carol Ascher aimed at promoting awareness of local food producers and agricultural innovators.
Ascher has conducted interviews
“I work with angles of the sun and shadows and create effects that make the photos more than just a shot of a flower or a stone wall.” Perla Lopez
with local farms, including Ridgway Farm, Freund’s Farm Market, Smokedown Farm, and “Chick Arrivals” at the Q Farms.
Lopez also is photographing the society’s collections in support of an inventory project. Her photographs are being posted on the society’s website, Instagram and Facebook pages.
Another assignment Lopez got involved with is photographing objects and papers in what is known as a “shadow box,” and turning them into digital images that can be posted online.
She’s also been editing video clips that the library and museum has in its collections for online access by the public.
“What interested me in the museum is the Iron Room Collection because I did not know there was so much industrial history in the town,” she said. “What I found very interesting is how they made toys out of iron for children.”
Examples include an iron toy train and pair of jacks, she said.
Lopez also organizes artifacts on online files so they can be looked up easily in the future. She also captures images with the camera in her smartphone and with a Canon standalone camera.
Additionally, Lopez was trained on the handling of artifacts, collections, inventory documentation, documentation of collections photographs, use of a light box for photography of artifacts, and how to produce various views of an artifact for a digital collections database.
She said she enjoys photographing still life; flowers and landscapes, and also trying her hand at portraits of family members, which, she said, have turned out quite well.
“I work with angles of the sun and shadows and create effects that make the photos more than just a shot of a flower or a stone wall,” she said. “I’m still learning and trying out new techniques and ways to shoot subjects. I took a photo of a ladder against a wall that I tried to make special and (look) more than just a ladder leaning on a wall.”
She also dabbles in drawing, working with pencil or pastels.
She said the internship has been very rewarding so far. “I really enjoy my time here and I’m learning a lot that I hope will help me as I continue my pursuit of a career in photography,” she added.