Forest man’s Virginia Tech photos to be featured in exhibit

By Carrie Sidener
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: April 15, 2008

For more than six months, Jeff Reid didn’t look at the photographs he took in the days following the shootings at Virginia Tech.

He just saved the digital images and stored them until he heard that Tech was looking for images of the university community moving forward in the wake of tragedy.

Reid, a Forest resident, submitted several photographs — six of which will be featured in the “April 16: Remembrance, Recognition and Healing” exhibit at Virginia Tech.

The exhibit pulls together photographs from that day and its aftermath on the Tech community.

“The show seeks to honor the victims, recognize the support we received, and celebrate the strength and spirit of this community,” said Mary Tartaro, the show’s curator, in a news release.

The photos and other items are displayed in chronological order, beginning with the flag at Burruss Hall flying at half staff, then to the emergency vehicles and media trucks, and to the makeshift memorials set up on the Drillfield and around Blacksburg.

The convocation and candlelight vigil, and the dedication of the memorial stones on the Drillfield are also represented. The show then moves ahead to show how the Virginia Tech community moved forward together.

Reid was working as a photojournalist at the Smith Mountain Eagle and as a freelance photographer. He is now a student at Randolph College.

That day he received calls from several media outlets asking for him to head up to the Blacksburg campus.

He remembers driving toward Blacksburg that day, watching caravans of ambulances and police cruisers as they filed to and from Blacksburg.

The campus was not how he had ever seen it before. The Drillfield was empty except for journalists from all over the country. He said he watched those reporters “pounce” on any student or faculty member who ventured outside.

“I didn’t want to be a part of that,” he said. “I took a couple of pictures and just wandered around for a while. I felt very uncomfortable. I felt like such an intruder. People were in mourning.”

He walked over to Norris Hall and took a few photographs of the window that some students jumped from to escape the gunfire. He watched as one of the investigators walked outside and became visibly ill from what he saw inside.

That’s when Reid decided to go home.

On his way back to the car, Reid stopped at the chapel to say a prayer for the victims and their families. Cameras weren’t allowed inside, but he shot a few photos through the windows of several cadets inside. One is part of the show.

When Reid walked outside, he saw a young woman carrying a bouquet of carnations with her mother. He snapped a photograph without a flash to keep from intruding.

He decided to return several days later because he didn’t want those images to be the last ones he had to remember that day. He said he returned to a different scene — one of healing.

Those pictures, he said, tell the story of a town coming back to life. The Drillfield had come alive once again with students, some playing Frisbee or others enjoying a visit with family and friends.

That’s the day he saw a young woman down on her knees in front of the makeshift memorial, praying. That photo is also part of the exhibit.

“What I witnessed was a community that was beginning to heal,” Reid wrote in a caption to his photographs. “People from all walks of life were consoling complete strangers as though they had been friends for life.”

A few students walked around the campus with signs offering free hugs and that was one of the images captured that day.

“I’m glad I went back,” Reid said. “I saw a different side of people.”

Tartaro chose 40 images by more than 25 photographers.

She started working on the show in September, and at first, she thought that the show would be assembled from the university’s archives.

“Aesthetically, I didn’t see a lot that was appropriate,” Tartaro said. “I immediately got the idea of using photographs in the show. Since this tragedy is owned by the whole community, I wanted to open it up to the public.”

Other items in the show include the Virginia Tech flag that flew in the space shuttle, and letters and items sent in support from other schools that experienced shootings.

“I wanted to focus on moving forward,” she said.

If you’re going: The exhibit runs through April 20 at the Perspectives Gallery on the second floor of the Squires Student Center at Virginia Tech. The gallery is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 10 p.m.