FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - Just last year, Carroll High School photography teacher Nicole Croy had professional ambitions to write her own textbook, a goal she later made more manageable by narrowing her focus to a chapter.
Little did she know that her expertise on pinhole photography would soon be in the second edition of “Focus on Photography,” a textbook published by Davis Publications.
If that weren’t enough, she was invited to submit her students’ images for consideration. Nearly two dozen pieces by 16 Northwest Allen County Schools students, including alumni and those in middle school, were published.
“It’s mind-blowing to me,” said Croy, who is in her 16th year at Carroll.
Ask her how the opportunity came about, and she’ll say she doesn’t quite know what led to the whirlwind, just that it began with a request for pinhole images. She submitted her work immediately, she said.
“They were blown away by how involved I was in it,” Croy said.
Croy’s pinhole images have ranged from tiny - about the size of a business card - to huge, she said, noting some measure 4 feet by 8 feet. Similarly, her work includes images with exposures ranging from minutes to months.
She said she enjoys pinhole photography because she never knows what she will get.
“It’s definitely the happy accidents,” Croy said.
Although she never dreamed she would be a writer, Croy said writing for the textbook came easily because she knows the topic so well.
Croy said she’s almost more excited for her students, whom she encourages to share their work and to enter contests.
Claire MacDonald, a 2016 graduate, said she’s grateful she had Croy as a teacher.
“I feel if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be chosen for the textbook,” the Indiana University student said, calling it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Alumna Hannah Engelsrud, who had a digital photograph published, said she has been inspired by content in textbooks, so it’s cool that her work might inspire someone else.
“It’s super exciting,” the IPFW student said. “I don’t know many people who have been published in a textbook.”
Croy said it will be especially exciting when she can integrate the publication into her classroom. When that happens, she said, the middle school students who had their photography selected should be in her classes at Carroll. She said it will be interesting if their peers open the textbook and say, “Wait, isn’t that your name?”
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Source: The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette, https://bit.ly/2hR0tWs
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, https://www.journalgazette.net
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