Junior Lily Blouin has been uniting the Tabor community one photo at a time.
Blouin, an international student from Canada, is involved in a number of activities at Tabor, especially the photography program.
Over the summer, Blouin was inspired by Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York” project, one in which he approaches random people in the city, takes their photo, and talks to them. Stanton then posts the photo with a quote from the person. Each quote is unique to the person while some are comical, some are sad, and some are very deep and personal.
The concept of “Humans of New York,” which is extremely popular and published in books and on social media, is to demonstrate the diversity of people in the city and to show the variety of pleasures, struggles, and passions of each person.
As a follower of this project, Blouin said, “I always thought it was so interesting how Brandon Stanton was able to approach complete strangers and have them talk about their beliefs, hardships, and other subjects that most people wouldn’t normally share with strangers.” She admires mostly the outcome of such a project, which unites the community as well as a follower base of about 11.5 million people.
Blouin recently created a “Seawolves of Tabor” account to hopefully have the same effect on our smaller Tabor community.
“I wanted to create an Instagram account and share the stories of the Seawolves,” says Blouin of her idea. She created the account in September and began posting a month later. Blouin has interviewed and published eight community members since, varying in both interests and ages.
Although the account is based off of Stanton’s, Blouin sees it as different in some ways.
“I’m not approaching strangers, but instead, peers of mine who I know on a surface layer.”
Blouin has been getting the hang of her unique project; however, she still faces challenges.
“Trying to break down the barriers and getting people to talk is still a struggle that I have, and I’m working on improving my conversation skills to make it easier for people to share,” she says of the start of her account. Blouin also has found it difficult to post regularly, given her busy academic and extra-curricular schedule.
“My goal for the second half of the school year is to start posting more regularly, even if it’s just one or two more posts per week,” says Blouin looking toward the future of her account.
Overall, the community is very accepting of the project and everyone that Blouin has asked has said yes to being photographed and interviewed. The account currently has 257 followers and the popularity is growing quickly.
As far as deciding who to post and what questions to ask them, Blouin says, “A lot of the time, I think about people who I’ve talked to a few times and who I want to get to know better so I start thinking about what makes them interesting and normally continue with that course.” She continued, “However, I’m hoping to start making more impromptu posts and just walk up to anyone I see.”
Anyone can follow Blouin’s Instagram account at “seawolvesoftabor” to watch Blouin’s project develop and to get a glimpse into the minds of members of the Tabor community.
By Julia O’Rourke
