[bio]
Originally from Washington, DC, Alexandra Silverthorne graduated in 2002 from Connecticut College with a major in Government and minors in Art and Philosophy. She is a traditional black & white photographer working with manual film cameras and printing her photographs in a traditional darkroom. Silverthorne's work is based heavily in the social documentary style.

Also an activist, she has recruited and organized volunteers for Election Day in DC, fundraised for national political parties, ran a summer program for Vietnamese-American youth, and spent three years working for an international environmental NGO. In 2003, Silverthorne founded Panorama Community Arts with the goal of providing art experiences to all residents of D.C. Through this she has taught workshops in photography, ceramics and mural painting to youth and elderly in Washington. She is currently a consultant working with artists, small businesses, and non-profits.

Silverthorne received a fellowship to travel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan for the 2004 World Conference Against A&H Bombs. She has also received numerous grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the John Wilson City Hall Building in Washington, DC and the Smithville Mansion Gallery in Eastampton, NJ.

[statement]
Walking down the street, something catches my eye – be it a woman praying at a memorial, a child playing in the park, the subtlety of architecture, or even the particular way a tree grows.  I am in Hiroshima, Japan, photographing the memory of one of man’s greatest disasters, or in Belfast, Northern Ireland, documenting how we continue living during conflict, or in Paris, France, capturing the poetic street scenes, or in Washington, D.C., portraying a city whose residents are often over-shadowed by politics and generalizations.  Wherever, I am, I lift my camera, focus the lens, and shoot.

I began seriously taking photographs in 1994 during my freshman year of high school.  After studying abroad in Northern Ireland in college, I began to use the camera to document what I saw, and to tell stories.  In 2005, through a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities’ Young Artist Program, I photographed eight public parks throughout the city, searching for the moments that happen when people come together.  I was delighted, saddened, and inspired by what I witnessed.  While there are certainly photographers and artists who have influenced my work – Harry Callahan, Robert Frank, André Kertész, and Gordon Parks – I am more deeply influenced by what I observe.

I fell in love with photography not just for its ability to show what Frank describes as “the humanity of the moment,” but also for the process: the necessary steps before you can release the shutter, the long hours working alone in a darkroom that allow time for reflection and re-consideration, and the many different ways in which you can print an image.  Friends often encourage me to try yoga.  I tell them I don’t have the patience, but I also realize that my hours alone in the darkroom are just as meditative as I am shaping my vision while repeating the same basic steps: expose, develop, stop, fix, examine, expose, develop, stop, fix, examine, and so on.   It is this process that keeps me committed to film and the traditional wet darkroom. 

[quotes]
"There’s so much to learn out there with a camera.
It gives us power for educating ourselves and for educating others."
-Donna Ferrato

"There is one thing the photograph must contain,
the humanity of the moment."
-Robert Frank