Several weeks ago, flop-haired Logan Lockhart went out on a school assignment to photograph the soul of his community.

A lifelong resident of Sheraden, Logan, 17, has seen the good and the bad; the hope and the despair.

He did not know quite what he'd capture as he strolled through it all with his digital camera.

He soon discovered that, as a young, white teen with a camera, there were some parts of his community from which he was chased. On some streets, he became like a stranger in his own neighborhood.

He thought of photographing two young black girls playing hopscotch. Forget about it. "Their big brothers told me to get away from there or I might lose a hand," he said, recounting the experience one Saturday while showing off his images to fellow students.

He thought about capturing a game of pickup basketball at Sheraden Park. That was before he was chased away.

In Sheraden, he learned, there are still boundaries to cross. Some are racial, some are cultural, some are economic.

Uncovering the mysteries of these communities and others are exactly what Carol Moye, a photographer and teacher at City Charter High School, wanted for her students. Sure, she's interested in building technical know-how, but equally important, she wanted the students to develop the ability to look at the world and to think of it as a story.

Her model: Charles "Teenie" Harris, the late Pittsburgh Courier photojournalist who, for four decades, captured the soul and vibrancy of Pittsburgh's black community.

Mrs. Moye told her student-photographers to focus their lenses on where they live.

For lessons in technique, they had two Saturday sessions with professional and freelance photographers. Then they were told to go find their stories.

The images they brought back reveal volumes about where they live. But the story isn't just in the image, but how and why it was captured.

The students' photographs go on display beginning at 5:30 p.m. July 7 at the Future Tenant Gallery, 801 Liberty Ave., Downtown. The exhibit runs through July 28 and daily hours are from noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Nothing fancy here. No tricky techno-wizardry, just plain, simple life: kids on the corner, a child on a bike, a mother and daughter at the bus stop.

All are a reflection on the spirit that sweeps through any of the students' neighborhoods on any given day.

"I think I ran into a race-color thing," Logan said. "There are so many suspicions that all white men with a camera are cops. And then people are so suspicious of pedophiles. It was tough."

On the other side of town, in Highland Park, the project became a mission for Macy Lucas and Janique Davis to show that life blossoms and community flourishes in the East End.

This is what photography student Macy Lucas said about her picture, "The Kid Pyramid," taken in Highland Park: "When taking pictures of the corner store, Sandy's, I met this girl named Destiny [lower right]. I took her photo and she wanted to show me where the other kids were so I could take their picture, too. I tried to capture them playing their game, but they were so excited they kept running up to me, looking at the camera. Finally, the eldest [seated, middle] told everyone where to stand and what to do. All I had to do was stand back and take the photo." Click photo for larger image.

Macy, a junior at City High, seemed to cross racial barriers with ease.

She wanted to catch the spirit of life anonymously on Roxanna Way, a small hidden alley, which she called the center of her neighborhood.

No such doing. Her bright personality and streaked blond mane of hair made her highly conspicuous. As soon as kids spied the camera, they struck a pose.

Her images of young people at Sandy's store on Mellon Street show smiles and bravado, but they also reveal the not-so-hidden challenges of advertising that bombards inner-city youth with appeals to use alcohol and cigarettes.

There's so much going in her community, Macy wrote in an essay to be accepted in the photo project, "that there was never anything I wouldn't want to remember."

Janique, 17, a junior who hopes to be a pediatric therapist, always searches for the sunny side of life.

Though she lives in Highland Park, she's forever aiming her lenses at neighborhoods nearby: Larimer, Lincoln, Garfield.

In Homewood, she said, there is a new YMCA, peewee football and cheerleaders. There is good in the adolescent cotillion, where young black boys and girls dress in tuxedoes and gowns at Holy Rosary school.

"That's what I shoot," she said. "It's all there, mixed in with the monuments to people who have been killed, the balloons and flowers on every other corner."

Introduced to the work of Mr. Harris about a year ago, Janique was immediately impressed with the history of the Hill District, how much people seemed to be having fun. It was a world she never knew.

"When I went into the communities, I would get the same feeling of people living together and helping each other out. Not everybody from Homewood is crazy."

At times, the photography project offered windows into the souls of these children, as well. The photography has pulled them deeper into themselves, helping them realize that, at the end of this experience, the photograph might go on the wall, but the real work of art is probably behind the lenses.