In one picture, shoulder blades jut out, shadowing a little boy's back. In another, he hides his face, revealing the angles and lines of his arms.

This is the effect the artist/mother, Megan Schenk (senior-photography), is striving for.

Her exhibit, My Son, now on display in the Waring Commons Cultural Lounge, is a series of black-and-white photographs that began as a class project.

Originally Schenk said she was going to do a project on many children.

But as she photographed her 5-year-old son with other children, it became obvious to her and her class that the pictures of her son "were more intimate," she said.

"I was in his face taking the pictures," Schenk said, adding that she had him hold poses. "I would not be able to get another child to do that."

By displaying her work in a public setting, she is opening herself to praise and criticism from students.

"It looks fake because you can tell he's posing," said Rachel Peterson (junior-crime, law and justice) about the photographs. "It doesn't look like the natural pictures you take of your kids."

Schenk said this characteristic is one of the defining features between her work and the snapshots other mothers might have. She focuses on her son's body and often shoots him turning his head or facing away from the camera.

"A lot of what I was doing was looking at the shapes his body made," Schenk said, "not his character or personality."

The exhibit is artistic and personal.

"When I look back, I'll have these wonderful, different photographs of my son," Schenk said.

Schenk's exhibit is a part of the Art on the Move program and will be shown around campus for the next three years.

Ann Shields, gallery head at the HUB-Robeson Center, found Schenk's work "intimate and engaging."

"You don't have many mothers shooting photos of their sons," Shields said. "The fact that she focused on her son, I think, is unique."