What picture comes to your mind when you think of the word “pregnancy test”? What about “subservient”? Senior Sacramento State photography majors will be able to show what picture came to their minds when given a variety of subjects – tangible and intangible – in this semester’s senior photography exhibit.

The exhibit is called the “Secret Envelope,” with the unofficial theme being “Envelope Autopsy.”

Each semester, graduating photography students randomly receive an envelope with one subject – it can be a thing, an emotion or something more specific – written by the previous semester’s graduating students. It’s up to the seniors to bring that word in front of the camera lens, interpreting the subject into anything and any photo type preference. Photos are displayed in an exhibit, before the students write their own assignments for the next graduating seniors, creating a collaborative cycle.

The project started in the fall of 2006, when Nigel Poor, an assistant professor of photography, came up with the idea as a kind of portfolio for graduating senior photography majors.

Some students interpret the assignment they receive in a very different way. Poor recalls one student once getting “pregnancy test” as his assignment. The student bought a rabbit carcass – the kind meant for cooking – and then bought a stuffed animal rabbit, where he then photographed the carcass “giving birth” to the stuffed animal..

“It’s hard to forget something like that,” Poor said.

Others go for the more straightforward approach. Senior photography major Gabriel Teague’s envelope was slightly different. His assignment was to “photograph an item that means something to someone else.” The woman he interviewed said that she had a memory of a maple tree that was special to her. “I made a maple tree out of tape, paper and cardboard,” Teage said. “I actually photographed her standing next to it”

Besides beginning and facilitating Secret Envelope, Poor has little involvement in the actual project.

“The students are in charge of everything,” Poor said. “We’re just the facilitators and advisers.”

The exhibit will take place in Beatnik, a studio on 17th Street and Broadway. It will feature all the photographs from this year’s Secret Envelope and show what the student received as his or her assignment below each picture. The exhibit opens Thursday and runs through April 21.

Poor has never been worried with what students come up with.

“You’re only limited by your imagination,” she said.

Kyrie Eberhart can be reached at [email protected]