Portraits of the homeless

For people struggling to scrape together enough money to afford a place to live, posing for family portraits can seem like a luxury. But at a homeless shelter in San Jose, Calif., people had the opportunity this fall to gather in front of the camera lens and flash their best smiles.

On the other side of the camera were students from a Santa Clara University photo class – who had been learning not only about lighting and shutter speeds but also about ethics and service and the power of images to tug on society's conscience.

"It was a moment, you know – it just brightened up our day," says Miguel Garcia, who posed with his wife, Christina, and their children, Rosa and Michael Ray. For the past month, the family has spent nights at the Community Homeless Alliance Ministry (CHAM) shelter in San Jose's First Christian Church. The Santa Clara students volunteered there and at other shelters, bonding with the children well before portrait day. "They had their heart in it; I could feel that," Mr. Garcia says.

Soon the students will deliver prints to the residents, who plan to send them off to relatives or tuck them away until they can hang the portraits on walls of their own. Starting in January, some portraits will be on display at the university's de Saisset Museum, which will also host a panel discussion about homelessness.

"It's a powerful tool for awareness-raising," says Diane Nilan, a longtime advocate for homeless children and author of "Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness." The camaraderie and mentoring that students and other volunteers offer to children at homeless shelters is "a gift that kids talk about years later," she says. "We all treasure being recognized. Kids in a homeless situation aren't any different, it's just that they don't get that recognition as often as they need it."

Courses that link academic work and community service are on the rise. Campus Compact (a coalition of more than 1,000 colleges and universities that embrace a civic mission) reports that 98 percent of member schools offer service-learning, up from 91 percent a few years ago. These campuses offer an average of 35 such courses each.

Photography instructor Renee Billingslea found her inspiration through the Sixth Street Photography Workshop in San Francisco, which teaches photography to homeless and low-income people and exhibits their work. She and the museum curator decided to bring Sixth Street's traveling exhibit to Santa Clara and complement it with a service-learning course.

The 14 students in her class studied the work of photographers such as Lewis Hine, who documented child labor in the early 1900s, and Dorothea Lange, who turned her lens on Depression-era families. "They're learning how the camera can be a very powerful tool," Ms. Billingslea says.

In the first few weeks of volunteering at the shelters, she asked the students not to bring cameras, but simply to provide services and to observe and listen. Students also turned in journal entries, allowing Billingslea to see their gradual shift from apprehension to empathy and understanding. For many in the class, this was their first exposure to homeless shelters.

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