Martin Benjamin, professor of photography, has been awarded the 1997 Golden Light Award for Photography Educator of the Year by the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine.
Benjamin earned one of the most prestigious awards in photography education for both the work done over two years with the Schenectady Adult Retarded
Citizens (ARC) and for the Union College student involvement in the project.
Among the Union students on the ARC project were Manisha Tinani
'96, Noelle Pirnie '97, Doug Tanner '98, Bryan Serrell '98, Azul
Jaffer '98, and Michalena Skiadas '98. Azul and Michalena are doing an
independent study and internship with Schenectady ARC and photography. Photographs by the
Union students as well Benjamin's works with the ARC students were considered for
this award.
The Union/ARC Photography Project is continuing, and the exhibition
“Good Shots” is traveling. It will appear at Southern Light Gallery in Amarillo,
Texas, in June and July 1998, and at LuLu Gallery in Albany in April 1998. The exhibition
was hosted this fall by the Kirkland Arts Center in Clinton, N.Y.