Bookstore Gallery Auctions Blog Editions VisualServer
 
BEST OF 2012
BEST OF 2011
BEST OF 2010
BEST OF 2009
BACK TO BLOG HOME f.a.q.mastheadinquiriesfeedbackadvertisenewsletter
back
back
Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League
view comments [5]
Reviewed by Charles Dee Mitchell, published on December 12th, 2008
Font Size: T T T | print | email
Jona Frank Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League
Photographs by Jona Frank, essays by Hanna Rosin and Colin Westerbeck.
Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2008. Hardbound. 128pp., 100 four-color illustrations. 11x9".
Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League Photographs by Jona Frank, essays by Hanna Rosin and Colin Westerbeck. published by Chronicle Books, 2008
Michael Farris, the constitutional lawyer who fought hard for the legislation that has allowed the homeschooling movement to flourish across America, founded Patrick Henry College in 2000. A story Farris tells incoming freshman goes like this: He imagines a future Academy Awards ceremony in which the man walking down the aisle to accept the award for Best Picture receives a cell phone call from the President of the United States. The two men were roommates at Patrick Henry College.

This anecdote gets repeated several times in Jona Frank's Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League. Essayist Colin Westerbeck refers to it as puerile. In one interview, a PHC student admits that it is unrealistic, but other students find it inspirational. They see in it a concrete example of how the school and its students can realize their founder's vision to change the culture of the United States and take back the country for Christ. PHC, which has been called "Harvard for homeschoolers" and the "Christian Ivy League," is in Purcellville, Virginia, a small town in a bucolic setting within striking distance of Washington, D.C., the destination to which much of its 300 member student body aspires.

Photographer Jona Frank worked with Patrick Henry students between 2006 and 2008, photographing them in their dorm rooms, at school functions, against the backdrop of the Virginia countryside, and in some cases at home with their families. In her previous book High School (2004) Frank depicted the stewpot of the American public school where teenagers create identities for themselves that range from skaters to preppies. These are kids who form themselves into groups, but hold self-expression and individuality as paramount values. Put side by side the kids in High School may look like they come from other planets rather than other streets in the same neighborhood.

What strikes viewers first about the kids in Right is their homogeneity. They have almost all been homeschooled by conservative Christian parents and they have the clean cut, well-scrubbed look of what are still often referred to in suburban communities as "the good kids." A guy's dorm room at PHC may be messy and have the requisite U2 posters on the wall, but these are young men who often wear a coat and tie to class -- not because it's the dress code, but because it just feels right. Freshmen tend to get the look wrong, but by the time they are upperclassmen they have it down. Some female students show up on campus wearing ill-fitting homemade dresses, but they too take on a more professional appearance over time. As they approach graduation, both men and women look increasingly like the Washington, D.C., interns many go on to become. These kids are smart and work hard. The focused, middle-distanced stare they bring to their portrait sessions appears as early as their pre-teen years, when Frank photographs them showing off their home school assignments at the kitchen table.

Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League by Jona Frank. Published by Chronicle Books, 2008.
In their interviews the PHC students are honest and forthcoming, sincere about their Christianity, open about the strengths and shortcomings of their homeschooled backgrounds, and willing to share both their enthusiasms and criticisms of campus life. A 2005 debate over academic freedom caused a 70% turnover in faculty, and the incident has both its critics and its supporters. But looking through the book, the overwhelming impression is that these young people are putting forth a unified front.

For this reason, Frank admits that she found them somewhat difficult to photograph. "[They] have waited to be out in the world," she writes, "waited to make friends beyond their siblings, and here they can. But, in a sense, they are still waiting... The space between, that waiting, is all about potential. It's what interests me when I make a portrait."

As with most photography books, the audience for Right is far removed from the world it describes. Half the customer reviews already posted on Amazon accuse Frank of doing a hatchet job on the college and the students, but this speaks to the insecurities of the reviewers rather than to the project itself. It is unlikely that Frank's book will ever be used as a recruitment tool for PHC, but readers will receive a worthwhile immersion into what Hanna Rosin describes in the introduction as a "corner of the culture that seems so strange and yet so central to the times." —Charles Dee Mitchell

purchase book
Charles Dee Mitchell is a freelance art writer based in Dallas, Texas. He is a regular contributor to the Dallas Morning News and Art in America.
comments
No one has commented on this review yet, be the first to add a comment.
ADD A COMMENT


NOTE: Comments will not appear until they have been approved by our editors. Read more about our policy regarding comments.

One of our chief goals with photo-eye Magazine is to create a space where intelligent dialog about photography books can flourish. As such, we are excited about engaging directly with our readers and the larger online photo-community through interactive content such as these article comments. However, to best acheive an interesting, ongoing discourse, all comments will be published only after they have been vetted by the editors.

We will not edit anything that is posted, nor reject any comment because we disagree with it, we simply reserve the right to reject comments that we feel do not make a contribution or are designed to offend. All we ask is that comments are thoughtful and substantive.

Thank you.
* indicates a required field

Your Name/Pseudonym: *
please enter a name

Your Email: *
please enter an valid email addressplease enter an email address
This is for contact / verification only, your email will not be displayed or given out under any circumstances.

Your website:
must be a vaild URL (ex. http://www.yourwebsite.com)

Your Comment: *

please enter a comment

To help prevent auto-spamming
Please enter the text and/or numbers below, in order, left to right:
enter text from the image below



← Return to the Magazine front page
← Return to reviews
© photo-eye Magazine. This article is printed from photo-eye Magazine (http://www.photoeye.com/magazine/) and is intended for personal use. Please contact us if you would like permission to reprint this article for commercial or educational use. Text © by the author, all images © their respective owners. All rights reserved.
© PHOTO-EYE, LLC, 2022. All Rights Reserved Copyrights-Trademarks Privacy Policy Returns Policy Staff/Hours/Location 505.988.5152 info@photoeye.com