“Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.”
—Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1957
Although darkroom photography is no longer part of many high school art programs, photography itself is more prevalent than ever. These days, most high school students walk around with camera phones in their back pockets, and snapping photos is almost second nature. As a visiting artist at Mitchell High School in Spruce Pine, NC, Mercedes Jelinek’s goal was to show students that these photos could be more than just a way to record and share—they could be a form of creative expression.
“Photos can mean a lot more than just representing likeness,” Mercedes tells her students at the beginning of class on a Wednesday morning. The students are seated in bright yellow chairs around a projector in Jennifer Robinson’s Art 1 class. On the screen, Mercedes is advancing through portraits they took of each other yesterday, each original photograph shown next to an edited version. “What makes this one so good?” she asks. Her students respond with their thoughts about composition, lighting, framing. Despite being taken with simple cellphone cameras, the photos do look good—really good. There’s personality coming through in each one.
As a resident artist here at Penland, Mercedes has years of professional photography experience—both film and digital—to share with her students. Her three-day visit to Mitchell High was part of the Professional Craft Study for High School Students, one of Penland’s Community Collaborations programs to bring creative experiences to students in the surrounding counties. During her lessons, Mercedes started with basics such as camera controls and simple editing, but her students were soon talking about how to interact with subjects to make them comfortable and relaxed and how to set up a shot to lead the viewer’s eye.
On her final day of teaching, Mercedes used the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson as an inspiration for her students. Cartier-Bresson is known for The Decisive Moment, a book of black-and-white street photography. “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression,” he wrote.
In asking her students to take photographs of “decisive moments” as their final assignment, Mercedes enabled them to bring together the technical concepts they had practiced such as lighting and exposure time with their own view of the world. “Go set up the shot absolutely perfectly, then have somebody walk through it,” she instructed them. “You decide the perfect moment to take your shot.”
There was nothing uncommon about the laughter that followed, or the knots of two or three teens talking in groups, or the students wandering on the grassy stretch in front of the school. What was uncommon was the particular care and attention taken to document it all.
—Sarah Parkinson
See more photographs from Mitchell High School Art 1 students on the MHS Art Instagram.
All of Penland’s Community Collaborations programs are funded by grants and donations. The Professional Craft Study for High School Students is able to bring artists like Mercedes to Mitchell High School thanks to the generous support of the Samuel L. Phillips Family Foundation Education Partnership Endowment.
Annie Evelyn received her BFA and MFA in furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has taught classes in furniture design, woodworking, and upholstery at The New School (NY), Anderson Ranch, RISD, Penland, and others. A recipient of the Windgate Fellowship in 2010, Annie spent a year as an artist in residence at Indiana University Center for Turning and Furniture Design. Her work has been shown throughout the US and abroad, most recently at the 2013 International Contemporary Furniture Fair. From 2010 to 2011, she worked in New Orleans as set decorator, assistant casting director, and associate producer on the award-winning film Beasts of the Southern Wild, all the while maintaining 
Andrew Hayes studied art at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and arrived at Penland as a core fellow in 2007. For four years during and following his core fellowship, Andrew worked as a studio assistant to former Penland resident artist Hoss Haley, while beginning to exhibit his altered books throughout the US. In 2013, Andrew established his own studio in Asheville, NC, and began work as a full-time artist. He is now represented by galleries in California, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Canada. In 2012, Andrew was an Emerging Artist Spotlight presenter at the national Society of North American Goldsmiths conference. 
Mercedes Jelinek earned a BFA from SUNY Purchase in 2007 and an MFA from Louisiana State University in 2012. Her work has been shown nationally and has recently been included in exhibits at the Ogden Museum (Louisiana) and Cuchifritos Gallery (NYC). Mercedes has built a freelance career working in several genres of commercial photography— architecture, fashion, events, and journalism. She is one of the first photographers to be granted access to the top of the new World Trade Center building, and is currently photographing its final construction. Mercedes has taught in several universities and photo centers, run professional and community photo studios, and assisted several elite photographers.
Jaydan Moore earned his BFA in jewelry/metal arts from California College of the Arts in 2008 and an MA and MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2011 and 2012. He has taught at several esteemed metals programs throughout the country and has studied under and/or assisted master metalsmiths including Richard Mawdsley, Fred Fenster, Bob Coogan, and Marilyn da Silva. Jaydan was a university fellow at UW/Madison in 2009; a resident artist at the Houston Contemporary Craft Center in 2012; and is currently the Fountainhead Fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Craft and Material Studies. He is also teaching in the metals department at VCU.