Silent auction part of closing reception for ‘The Photographer as Child’ exhibition

La Casita Cultural Center, 109 Otisco St., Syracuse, will host a closing reception and silent auction for “The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala,” an exhibition of the work of award-winning photographer Efrén López, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10. The celebration will also recognize the artwork of students from the Westside Academy at Blodgett. The event is free and open to the public.

The silent auction will feature López’s artwork that is included in the exhibition. Proceeds will benefit La Casita’s Young Photographers’ Fund. The fund will support programs at La Casita that provide opportunities for youth to express themselves through photography.

“The Photographer as Child” has been on exhibit at La Casita since January and features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. “My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966,” López writes. “It’s a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America.”

A student in the Military Photojournalism Program in Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, López worked with students in the Ford Driving Dreams Program at Blodgett School to teach them to document their lives in images and words. The students’ work has been display in the La Casita gallery since March 23. Ford Driving Dreams is a partnership among La Casita, the League of United Latin American Citizens, La Liga, University College and the Westside Academy at Blodgett and is funded by the Ford Motor Fund through a grant to LULAC.

Born in Guatemala, López is an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse’s Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book “Arizona 24/7,” and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.