Artist's ReflectionThis essay personally came fairly natural to me. I took my true feelings about each picture and experience and put them into a short documentation/story. The experience while visiting Our Next Generation was one I will never forget. I decided to take a taxi cab to the destination because I was curious about what a local had to say about the area I was going to. The first words out of the cab driver's mouth were “ I'm bringing you to the hood”. This frightened me somewhat because I grew up in a large suburb, nothing close to the hood. As we were driving I looked out the window and saw run down buildings, unkept streets, and people dressed in big baggy “ghetto” clothing. The taxi cab driver, who was from Africa, said he would never walk these streets alone at night. He described even though he was black, he was from a different country. So he would be discriminated against by the locals. As I arrived at the front door of Our Next Generation. I decided to check out the community. I took pictures of the surrounding community, and really compared these images to where I grew up as a child. A high school student that I interviewed attended the High school Connection program, this program really intrigued me. Adante was a tenth grader at Community High School/Juneau High School. He grew up in Tennessee and moved here when he was six years old. Adante lives near Our Next Generation and describes the surrounding community as “crazy”. I asked him what he meant by this, he described how he always hears police sirens, witnesses violence, and is scared to walk the streets by himself. The reason I am so thankful Our Next Generation is here, is because Adante specifically stated that “ being here keeps me out of trouble, especially doing drugs, and getting into fights”. He has met so many people here that help him throughout his life and this really is a joy to see. As I was taking pictures I was really trying to capture my exact adventure. I wanted to create a more “story line” of my documentation. I really enjoyed how I was able to use the photos and text in the slideshow to express my thoughts on each picture. I am extremely excited to continue on this journey and visit Our Next Generation numerous more times.