by Kelly Strickland
The Eye on Houston: High School Documentary Photography project calls for students from Houston public high schools to submit photographs for display at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH). The project prompts students to photograph the world around them and show their unique perspective for a chance to have their work displayed at the museum.
The project is a collaboration between the museum and the Houston Independent School District and has been running for 26 years.
The goal of the project is to document and celebrate “Houston’s diverse neighborhoods.”1 The project emphasizes diversity by partnering with schools from across the city. As Houston is a large, sprawling city, museum visitors are going to see parts of it that they have never seen before in these photographs.
Students are asked to document their daily lives, a prompt that allows a lot of 
freedom to interpret in their own way and show off aspects of their local area that speak most to the student. This year there were pictures of friends, family, nature, buildings and businesses. The student names the photograph and can choose to include a description. All of the photos are printed on an inkjet printed and framed in a uniform way.
The project itself is fairly easy and accessible for an average student to complete. Most high school students are going to at least have access to a cell phone with a camera, while others might have access to more traditional cameras. The project doesn’t require the students to be in a photography class or a have a background in photography. However, it is a way to give students who are interested in photography and taking those classes an avenue to compete and showcase their work.
The project is a great opportunity for students to be the artist and see their work hung alongside major works of art. The exhibit runs for almost a year which gives students and their families plenty of time to visit. It is then quickly replaced by the chosen photographs for the next year. By partnering with the public schools across the city, the museum reaches a population that might not be familiar with the museum. Given the large size of the city, it’s not always easy to travel to the museum, but the project gives students and their families more of a reason to do so.
The 2021 exhibit is displayed in two locations – the newly built Kinder 
Foundation Education Center Gallery and the MFAH Visitor Center. The Kinder Building is a recently completed eight-year project to expand the museum. Putting the exhibit inside this new building as well as its usual placement will give it more visibility. The original location in the Visitor Center is near the museum’s café, but is getting less foot traffic as the café is closed due to Covid-19.
The success of the project is shown in the number of submissions that the exhibit receives. In 2019 the museum received over 700 submissions with 93 chosen for showing.
1https://www.mfah.org/exhibitions/eye-on-houston-high-school-documentary-photography-2021/