R. Thomas Berner Photography Gallery – Denise Demong

Bellefonte Kids, 1970

aBellefonte Kids, 1970a is a group of childrenas portraits created more than 50 years ago by a photographer who was then not a great deal older than her subjects.

Denise Demong first visited Bellefonte in 1967 when, as a Penn State freshman, she joined the ranks of young people who decided to aGet Clean for Genea and campaign door-to-door for anti-Vietnam War candidate Eugene McCarthy. During those visits she was stunned by the economic gap between affluent State College and Bellefonte, just 11 miles away.

Three years later, having gained access to Penn Stateas darkroom, Denise returned and made these portraits. At the time, she printed only three. But she always carried a clear memory of the frames she had captured, and in 2018, when she began scanning and printing her old negatives, she knew which she wanted to print first: her Bellefonte pictures.

Bellefonte–now a revitalized borough sometimes hailed as Pennsylvaniaas aVictorian Jewela–was a hardscrabble town in 1970, Denise notes. But when she began working with her old images, what struck her most was how well-tended the children are, in contrast to their neglected surroundings. aMore than that, they seem resilient,a she says. aI donat presume to know what these kidsa lives were like. But I love their forthright gazes, their self-possession, and the way they present themselves, unabashed, to the camera.a

She adds, aFor me, their stances and expressions seem timeless, even as this is a portrait of childhood in a very particular time, place, and circumstance.a