Picturing the Faces of Scarsdale

On September 30 we happened in on the celebration of a unique art show by Scarsdale High School Danielle Barro, titled “Scarsdale Through the Ages,” now on display at Scarsdale Library. The exhibit features photo portraits of 100 residents of Scarsdale, ages one to one hundred, and offers a wonderful display of the many faces of the community.

Below Barro explains they how and why of the project which you can see at the library, but also view online here.  Either way, you must take a look at her engaging work.

Barro explains:

What is the genesis of the idea to take these portraits?

This project was part of the Digital Photography II class I took last spring at Scarsdale High School with teacher Dina Hofstetter. The assignment was called “100 Ways.” For this project, we had to take 100 photos of the same category, such as 100 flowers or 100 mailboxes. I decided to take 100 photos of 100 residents of Scarsdale, one of every age from 1 to 100. I called my project “Scarsdale through the Ages.” The final project can be found here:

I chose to take these photos because I wanted to do a project that was meaningful to me. I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to get to know more about my hometown, which is also the town where both my mother and my grandfather grew up (like me, they both also went to SHS). Scarsdale is often known for being very homogenous, and I wanted my project to show that there is actually a lot of diversity in Scarsdale of all types – not only diversity of age, but also of race, cultural upbringing, spoken language at home, and interests and hobbies, among others.

How did you find the subjects - one at each age?Barro and mom Allison Weinberg

I created a Google document for people to sign up for their age via a link, and my mom posted the link on Scarsdale Buzz, which is the Facebook group for people living in Scarsdale. Many people signed up immediately. I was really shocked at how many people wanted to be in my project. Word of mouth also really helped, as people would reach out to me and my mom to ask if they could sign up to be in my project. As you might expect, some ages were really challenging to find. The hardest ages to find were people in their 20s and the 90s. For the most challenging ages, we kept asking around, and my mom kept posting the ages I still needed on Scarsdale Buzz. People in the community were really supportive and extremely helpful in suggesting people of certain ages who might want to be in my project. People would suggest a friend, a relative, a friend of a friend, or just about anyone, who might be the specific age(s) I was still looking for. At one point, someone suggested using Google to find the missing ages. If you google, “age 98 Scarsdale NY,” for example, you will get a list of people of that age with their home phone number. We did not know that until I had one person left, but that information would have been very helpful if I had known it sooner!

What are the challenges of taking a good portrait?

For this project, I decided not to take what some might call a traditional portrait. Initially, I was going to take a photo of everyone just smiling at the camera. But I quickly decided that I would rather show each person’s character, a glimpse into what makes them unique. So, I wound up deciding to take a photo of each person doing something they love, like a passion or hobby, or something they do every day, like cuddle their dog or read the newspaper. This allowed me to get to know each person in a more genuine way and to present each person’s authenticity and uniqueness to the viewer.

I took these photos between February and June of 2022, a time when many people were much more worried about COVID than they are now. So, I took many of the photos outside, some on very cold days. But, the benefit of being outside was that the natural lighting added a brighter and more special quality to each portrait.

Dani BarroTell us about yourself - what grade you are in, your interests etc.

I am a junior at Scarsdale High School. My favorite hobby is photography, a passion I have been pursuing since I was little. I have been taking art classes since I was two years old, and I love creating art of all types. In my free time, I enjoy tutoring younger kids in different subjects, particularly math. I have also been a student teacher at my temple for several years. In addition, I recently started a support group for children of divorced parents (my parents divorced when I was 7 years old). I live with my mom and my sister Julia (who is a freshman at The Masters School).