Joseph Poloncarz
CEPA Film Photographer & Teacher
Thanks to our partnership with CEPA, the Flutie Foundation was able to provide support for CEPA to hire Joseph as a teacher! We are proud to call Joseph a Flutie Fellow as he pursues his career in teaching and passion for photography.
Joseph Poloncarz first came to CEPA in 2012 for a photography program through Autism Services. He became quite interested in the darkroom and experimented with different films and developers over the years, continuing to visit CEPA’s darkroom. Having developed expertise, he was soon helping others. In 2018, he became an assistant teacher for our summer camps. Assisting Sabrina Marazzo (also a former CEPA student), he helped in the darkroom. In 2019, while interning at CEPA through City Honors, he taught his first photography class to young students from his alma mater, Autism Services. He created powerpoints and lesson plans and was thoughtful and encouraging to the students as they explored Main Street with digital cameras and experimented with Photoshop.
As a paid teacher, he also taught a class to a group of adults from Autism Services. A few remembered him from when he was a student and were thrilled to be in a learning environment with him again, but this time as a role model. CEPA is honored to have Joseph as one of our teaching artists! Joseph continued to use the CEPA darkroom throughout the pandemic, experimenting with developing slide films, including Kodachrome. He is excited for CEPA to reopen so he can welcome and teach more students.