Life lessons from a photography teacher's darkroom

After Photo I, Wallach teaches a constantly changing succession of Advanced Photography courses. Because each is different, students may take a new class each semester as long as they're in school.

For many students who take several Wallach classes, the jury-rigged yet oddly sophisticated darkroom he built out of an old mechanical-drawing classroom becomes an emotional and academic hub, and sometimes also a refuge.

Here the students - to some degree - are in charge. They are allowed to listen to whatever music they choose and work largely autonomously.

Wallach is ever-present but sits amid a cluttered collection of posters and photographic equipment, keeping a sardonic eye on the students who swirl around him in a lively tangle of baggy jeans and T-shirts.

He is constantly being asked to dispense Band-Aids and bathroom passes, critique photos, answer darkroom questions, and sometimes just lend an ear to personal concerns that may begin with statements like, "Hey, I had to see a doctor yesterday," or "I'm worried about my other classes."

But Wallach also gives his students considerable freedom to work on their own, sometimes helping each other and, when necessary, learning from their own mistakes.

The darkroom is often open late, with Wallach still there, sometimes until midnight, to give students plenty of time for lab work and - along the way - emotional bonding.

"Once you [take a Wallach class] it's like you enter into a whole new world," says Joseph Rodriguez, a former Wallach student finishing up his first year at New York's esteemed School of Visual Arts.

"People I met in other classes were just acquaintances. This was my family."

The bulk of the work is hands-on photography. The students receive assignments like "Make photographs in which line disappears," or "Make photographs that make the unbeautiful beautiful." Or - quoting from Picasso - "Make a photograph/object/thing which 'represents the accumulated remembered experiences which constitute knowledge of a subject.' "

Whatever he does, it appears to work. "When I got to the photo classes in college, I was at the top of the game," says Shamara Minto, a former Wallach student who's now in her third year at the School of Visual Arts.

In fact, she says, it's been hard not to be restless. "[Wallach] was more hands-on as a teacher and his critiques were more powerful" than she experiences now.

What Wallach teaches "puts us far ahead of other kids," agrees Atif Ahmad, another former student who just finished his first year studying photography at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

The network of Wallach graduates is extensive. Some have gone on to work for major New York-based publications like Sports Illustrated, W, Newsweek, and Maxim. Others have set up their own studios or freelance businesses.

Wallach frequently asks his alumni to bring their expertise back to his program.

But his own reputation as a gifted teacher has also enabled him to attract some famed photographers - names like Richard Avedon, Mary Ellen Mark, Arnold Newman, and Jay Maisel - to visit his classes and work with students.

One of Wallach's former students will be teaching in his place next year. It's a big job, and only getting harder, Wallach says.

Proposed cuts in the vocational-education budget may threaten the program's funding and the current focus on standardized testing makes it tough for students to fit art classes into their already packed schedules.

Some have to give up lunch to make it work.

Wallach says he may now try to take his own pictures - something for which his work has left him little time. But that's not important, he insists.

"These students," he says proudly, gesturing toward the lively group of teens brushing past him as they study negatives and earnestly discuss lighting, "they are my real product."

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