Photographer’s artistry receives increased exposure

From June 20 to Aug. 29, Jennifer Surgent’s work will be on display at the 20th annual University Student Exhibition at the Atlantic Center for the Arts Pabst Visitor Center and Gallery in New Smyrna Beach.

LAURA DODSON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Posted: 07.02.09

Photographer Jennifer Surgent captured this photo of Father Lemier Guillaume, parochial administrator of St. Jude Parish in Ocala, blessing a large group of fruit trees, before giving them away to members of the Mar Franc community in western Haiti.

JENNIFER SURGENT | FC
Photographer Jennifer Surgent captured this photo of Father Lemier Guillaume, parochial administrator of St. Jude Parish in Ocala, blessing a large group of fruit trees, before giving them away to members of the Mar Franc community in western Haiti.

DAYTONA BEACH | We frequently view the world around us in central Florida through the eyes and lens of freelance photographer Jennifer Surgent, and they often provide a glimpse of her heart.

“I want to tell stories that might not be told and sometimes that includes people who are in the margins,” Surgent said of her dreams.

Surgent recently completed an intensive two-week 2009 Fellowship for College Journalists program at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg – a renowned school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of journalism. There were 40 students in the program, selected from a field of 231 applicants. As part of the curriculum, Surgent was to complete a story and she chose to spend a day with a single mother living at the St. Petersburg Salvation Army homeless shelter with her 9-month old baby.

To see more of Jennifer Surgent's work, take a look at the slideshow, "Florida’s Own March For Life" from an assignment that Surgent completed for the Florida Catholic in January.

– Ed Foster Jr. | 07.02.09

“She was thrown out of her mother’s house when the baby was a week old and she is now attending vocational school,” Surgent explained. “We took four buses to get to school and it took two hours, and then reversed the trip to return ‘home.’ But, she doesn’t have a home – her very best wasn’t good enough. A car would make an unbelievable difference in her life.”

Surgent started the year with a showing of her photographs in January at the Harris House Gallery in New Smyrna Beach. In February, visitors to the school gallery at the University of Central Florida were treated to images of a shoe drive for prisoners she had taken when she visited Haiti in January 2008.

“My peers were really touched by my work,” she shared, “and they collected 40 pairs of shoes to donate.”

From June 20 to Aug. 29, Surgent’s work will be on display at the 20th annual University Student Exhibition at the Atlantic Center for the Arts Pabst Visitor Center and Gallery in New Smyrna Beach.

And in the fall, her photographs will be part of the inaugural exhibition for the Florida Museum of Women Artists in Deland.

“The Florida Catholic has given me my journalistic foundation. All of the assignments I’ve had have prepared me to be able to relate to situations and to ultimately create a really fantastic photo. I want to be a voice for people who might not otherwise be heard and the Florida Catholic is perfect!”

Surgent was born and raised in Texas, but has lived in Daytona Beach for the past nine years and attends Our Lady of Lourdes Parish there. Her husband, Jason Surgent, is a photojournalist and Jennifer Surgent credits his passion with inspiring her own.

“I ask God every day to use me, to use my skills to do his work here on earth,” she explained, and delighted added, “And I guess it’s working because look at me.”

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