Viewing life through the lens pays off for South Adams Student

Authored by Jim Langham on Sep 1, 2010

South Adams senior Kylie Cisney loves looking at the world around her through a camera lens. This past summer, her talent in photography gave life a new focus as she was given a prestigious award from the Indiana University School of Journalism High School Institute.
Cisney was chosen as the recipient of the 2010 Randy Siddons Photo Award. As a result, she was awarded a check for $100 and a photojournalism book for the school library. The book, titled, “Through the Lens: National Geographic’s Greatest Photographs,” was received with gratefulness by librarian Karen Martin and high school principal Trent Lehman.
“”We are all very proud of her,” said Martin. “When one of your students puts further extra effort into education excellence like Kylie has, it is always something that we are proud of. We are excited for her.
“This is a wonderful book. It has beautiful pictures. It is a great addition to our library,” added Martin.
Cisney said that she had been introduced to the possibility of participating in the institute through a friend of her brother’s from Indiana University who is majoring in photography. It was also her first introduction to a personal interest in photojournalism.
“We were discussing how influential the media is in documenting history through pictures,” said Cisney. “It is an awesome thing. This is the first that I’ve realized that photojournalism could be an option for me.
“I met a lot of neat people from all walks of life,” continued Cisney. “I was excited about all of the talks I had with people. I learned a lot of different things.”
Cisney credited her mother, Kris Haines, for initial interest in taking pictures.
“She loves to take pictures. She does photo albums and scrapbooking,” Cisney said. “You don’t remember things unless you can document them with a picture. She loves to document our family activities with pictures.”
While she was at the institute, Cisney was using a Nikon D90 camera to take photographs of a press conference, photo stories and various other situations that she was assigned.
Her personal choice was to do a photo story of a salon in Bloomington.
“It was amazing,” said Cisney. “The lighting was beautiful.
“One of the reasons I love taking pictures is because I love to travel,” continued Cisney. “I want to travel. Photojournalism lets me have that freedom of taking pictures everywhere. I would love to take pictures for a travel magazine like, National Geographic. Eventually, I would like to settle down and work for a local newspaper.”
“We’re proud of her,” said Lehman. “This is a very big accomplishment. It is really neat that she had the opportunity to spend part of her summer in her desired career field. We’re proud of a South Adams student accomplishing something like this in a field she is so passionate about.”
Cisney said that knowing that she captured a moment in time is the greatest satisfaction she receives from her passion of photography.
“I love capturing moments in time, like the simple moments of kids in a park,” said Cisney. “I feel that every special moment needs to be documented. I love seeing all of these things through a camera lens.”

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