A Thousand Words
Tomás Leal Tells Stories of Family, one Portrait at a Time
Tomás Leal did not always want to be a photographer. As a teenager in Crookston, MN in the 1990s, Leal spent his days hanging out with friends and getting into trouble because, he says, "there wasn't much for us to do." That changed one day around 1997 when Kris Sorenson, Executive Director of St. Paul, MN-based arts organization In Progress, came to Crookston to teach a photography workshop. Though the workshop was open to the public, "A lot of the Latino kids just kinda gravitated toward it," he says.
The first workshop did not go as planned. Tomás became enthralled with the cameras and begged Sorenson to let him use one. To his dismay, she explained he could only do so after he submitted his story ideas, in writing, so she could ensure that he had some direction. He refused and left. Only after seeing his friend's final video project, did he begin to reconsider his choice. "I was so amazed to see my friend on TV," he says, "I told myself, man I missed out! Luckily she came back the next year." He was willing to do whatever it took to get a camera in his hands.
"As a teenager I was involved in gangs and drugs and things like that. [Photography] was something new, something positive in my life. I took to it." His first video was a study of a poem he had written about light. "I was so astonished by the creativeness of the overall project. I said to myself, this is it. I like doing this stuff … it flourished from there." Photography gave him a new identity. "It helped me prove people wrong. That I'm not this monster, that I'm not this lazy Latino kid or whatnot. That I have something positive to give back. So me teaching it is in that same feeling of when it got introduced to me. It only makes sense for me to see other kid or adults that are in my position, to give them a different path they can take and still be who they want to be."
While teaching allows Leal to encourage others to channel their creativity into visual storytelling, his Family Portraits sessions give Minnesota families a chance to create artifacts that help document their own histories. The Family Portrait series' goal is to be able to provide studio-quality family portraits to community members aren't otherwise able to afford them. Students learn about portrait photography from Leal, then, under his supervision, put that learning into practice to create lasting family memories.
For Tomás, photography is a way to help students and community members tell their stories in an authentic way. Thinking back on his own family's immigration journey, Leal says, "In my family, [family history] wasn't a lot of what they talked about. They were too busy trying to live and survive. So to be able to share my journey with my kids, and then for my kids to be able to share my journey with their kids at some point, I think, will be beneficial to the identity of a person. And I think that's why it's important for us to share those family stories."