Saturday night PieLab hosted the opening party of its first photography exhibition. It was our biggest turnout to anything yet which was a humbling thing to be a part of. It's so cool to think about how Main Street at night is empty but then there's one little store front with the lights on, cars out front, and community happening. The show consisted of photographs taken by Hale County youth through a Black Belt 100 Lenses project and was curated by one of the YouthBuild students. It was a great way to bring the community together and some Tuscaloosa people down to gather around art, food and music. It was a potluck with music by an incredibly fun and talented band, Sparrow and the Ghost. The photographs are a interesting viewpoint to pull you into the stories behind the photographers. Each student is given a camera and is asked to go into their community and take photographs. In the end, you have an array of photos taken that capture the spirit of a place by the youth that have grown up there. I found several to be strikingly beautiful and then to consider that they were taken by completely untrained photographers is even more astounding. Some seemed to have a natural sense of composition, balance, and contrast.