{"id":13016,"date":"2016-01-06T13:10:11","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T18:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13016"},"modified":"2016-02-24T21:56:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T02:56:33","slug":"looking-backward-is-looking-forward-for-local-photographers-and-subjects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/looking-backward-is-looking-forward-for-local-photographers-and-subjects\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking backward is looking forward for local photographers and subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re still sticking with them, you\u2019re about a week into your New Year\u2019s resolutions and if you\u2019ve made it this far, you still have your eyes set firmly ahead on a goal.<\/p>\n

Recently, however, some members of the Aurora community have been looking back in order to look forward, setting pen to paper on words of wisdom they would like to go back and pass on to their younger selves.<\/p>\n

The result is \u201cNote to Self\u201d, a new photo exhibition and accompanying book launching this week at the Aurora Public Library featuring portraits of residents from Aurora and beyond alongside recollections, recommendations, and maybe even a warning or two about pitfalls ahead they would give to themselves as a kid. <\/p>\n

The project is the brainchild of Aurora-based photographer Angela Durante Dukat and the Aurora Public Library Camera Club. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was born in an Aurora coffee shop where some friends of mine in a local photography club were talking about how wintertime tends to be a slow season for some photographers who are doing retail work and we thought, \u2018Gosh, why not just do something fun?\u2019 We started playing around with the idea of shooting portraits of people we know and then portraits of people in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting off with people in their club, they quickly branched out to family members, then friends, and then the community at large.
\n\u201cWe wanted to give it depth beyond portraiture and we wanted it to be meaningful for the people we were inviting to sit for us,\u201d says Ms. Durante Dukat. \u201cBeing a historian, the natural thing for me is for people to pull from their past because I think that has the greatest value for others. The point is not for the project to be, but for the project to influence and strike a chord with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once they set their game plan, the project became even more ambitious after Ronen Grunberg of the Aurora Public Library Camera Club invited Angela to speak to the group about the idea. Her pitch of doing 100 portraits might have caused a titter or two but, before long, they were well underway. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis task was really big,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was not just about photographing people, it was about teasing out of them their stories and their reflections. It was an extra level of challenge because for people to come and look their best is something we do regularly, but to dig deep and try to produce something that will be meaningful to others is just far more difficult and something we have never been asked to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results are a heady mix of poignant memories, pearls of wisdom, and some home truths about everyday life. As the results from the eight participating photographers began to roll in, Ms. Durante Dukat says she has come to see that for the people of this community age doesn\u2019t matter in the slightest in determining what people have experienced and how reflective they can be.<\/p>\n

It has also taught her, she says, to be more empathetic to friends and strangers because until you ask those all-important questions you don\u2019t get insight into who they are and why they are the way they are. <\/p>\n

Before this project, had she been asked what words of advice he would give to herself, Ms. Durante Dukat says she probably should have said something \u201cclich\u00e9 like \u2018believe in yourself.\u2019\u201d Valuable advice, to be sure, but after taking over 70 photos herself and collecting her subjects\u2019 written words, she\u2019s thinking deeper.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has encouraged me to think more deeply about the lasting impact of the note I write; that the note I write is not just an exercise in time right now, it is something I am giving,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is my legacy to the people who read it. Because this project developed organically, we weren\u2019t encouraging people to be as reflective, as deep, as thoughtful as we did later on because we just didn\u2019t know what we were looking for. In the beginning, I might have just used some quotations, reached into the annals of wise people around the world and pulled from there. Now, I would have used my own voice because I feel I have something more to contribute having met all these people I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Note to Self project might have evolved organically, it is a natural fit for this photographer who is a historian. Both of these hemispheres fit together well, she says, in a symbiotic way, because the end result has turned into a unique social history project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be a potentially life altering exhibit for people who are willing to delve through the notes,\u201d she says. \u201cI really think this is an exhibit platformed on personal growth and self-acceptance. I think when you read through these letters and see the childhood images and now, you see the portraits now and you see there is a lot of wisdom in the people who we walk by in the grocery store and the people we sit beside on the bus or at the coffee shop in our own Town.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Note to Self Project, featuring the works of Ms. Durant Dukat, Ronen Grunburg, Rhodri Ford, Melanie Hillock, Holly Thomas, and others, opens at the Aurora Public Library\u2019s Colleen Abbott Gallery this Saturday, January 9, running through February 20. A special opening reception, featuring the book of all 100 portraits, will be held at the Library next Thursday, January 14, from 7 \u2013 8.30 p.m.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you could go back in time and give some advice to your younger self, what would you say? 101 Aurorans take on the challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/2016-01-07-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3nW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 12:02:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}