The big picture

When interviewed separately, Angela Radulescu, CC ’11 and former Spectator photo editor, and Bennett Hong, CC ’11, would have no reason to give similar answers to personal questions. Yet the two students behind 99 Columbians—the suddenly ubiquitous photography project that explores and profiles the similarities and differences among Columbia students—are a surprisingly perfect match.

He’s from Bayside, Queens, and she’s from Romania and Maryland. Radulescu describes herself as adventurous, passionate, and analytical. Hong refers to himself as resourceful and conscientious, or at least, he said, that’s what it always said on his report cards. Their majors don’t even match up: Radulescu studies neuroscience while Hong is majoring in East Asian languages and cultures.

What they do have in common is a certain reservation, a certain calculation to their speech. “I’m trying to think of something smart to say,” Hong said. It’s almost as if they try to perfectly frame what they say because it only comes out once and is immortalized in a sound bite—or, more often than not, for them, as a photograph.

Even though the best advice Radulescu ever got was from a friend who told her, “Just press the shutter and go ‘Whee,’” students may know that photography is not quite as simple as that. Photography requires a setup. Where’s the light coming from? How does the photographer want to frame the shot? If it’s a human subject, there’s the debate between posing and capturing a candid, or maybe even posing the shot like it’s candid. Photography is all about crafting an image.

But it is precisely this self-control that demonstrates how well-suited Radulescu and Hong are for the job of documenting the diversity of the student body—after all, who can better represent students than students? Like many other students, they’re master craftsmen of their present and future images. They’re also always in motion and thinking all the time. Hong doesn’t have to leave home to brainstorm. His favorite place to think is his Claremont bathroom. Radulescu brainstorms best while in transit—she prefers to think when she’s walking, especially between boroughs.

They’re always thinking—and in Radulescu’s case, maybe even over-thinking, which she called her greatest vice. But all the thinking is paying off: 99 Columbians may be the most popular student-based art project in recent memory.

As they pitched the second part of their initiative to the Columbia College Student Council yesterday, Radulescu and Hong were crafting their own image as a responsible photography duo inspired by people on campus—Radulescu by strangers, and Hong by his friends—that wants more. They want a grant. They want co-sponsorship. They want to expand the project to include faculty. Radulescu and Hong’s plans are all tentative for now, but students would be naive to believe that they haven’t already thought out every step of the process.

To view the exhibit, visit www.99columbians.com