Seventeen-year-old Los Angeles resident Olivia Suddleson’s photo, “Reconnecting with Each Other,” which was shot on film, was chosen in Amplifier and the Getty Museum’s teen photography open call. (photo by Olivia Suddleson)

The nonprofit design lab Amplifier and the J. Paul Getty Museum have announced the winners of “Reconnecting with_____ ,” a joint open call for photography from students ages 13-19.

The winning works were chosen for their thoughtful and creative responses and were picked from a pool of over 1,660 submissions from 49 states across the U.S. and over ten countries globally, including India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and the U.K.

The prompt was an invitation to consider, inspire and reflect on issues that matter to teens. It encouraged teens to reflect on their own lives, consider the state of the world and inspire others through their unique artistic expressions.

“It was moving to see the images created and submitted by young people,” said Elizabeth Escamilla, head of education at the Getty Museum. “The photographs capture a wide range of emotions – from joy, sorry, melancholy and excitement at reconnecting with friends, families and oneself during this unique time in our collective history. We are excited to share the images of these young photographers with the public at the museum and online. Each image invites us to reflect and reconsider how we are reconnecting with what matters to us.”

The winning submissions from the open call will be transformed into Amplifier-style artworks by some of Amplifier’s top artists such as Tracie Ching, Alex Albadree and Mer Young, and shown in a special Getty Museum exhibition, “Unshuttered: Reconnecting with ____” opening June 14.

For this project, Amplifier put together a multimedia lesson plan consisting of an original video and a three-part lesson plan that guides classrooms through a circle practice for brainstorming, application of knowledge through practice and presenting their submission-ready photographs to peers. Amplifier also released short videos from renowned photographers Josué Rivas, Hannah Reyes Morales and Chip Thomas, detailing best practices in portraiture.

These tools will be distributed to teachers of the one million students in the Education Amplifier network, which spans every state in the union.

“We were thrilled to see so many of the classrooms in our network using the lesson plan and engaging in this project,” Amplifier’s executive cirector Emily Goulding said. “And the submissions have taught us so much about how teens in the U.S. and abroad are experiencing this unique moment in time.”