Alexanian 's company Walker Creek Media was created in 2006 and produces short documentary films for non-profit organizations . Nubar Alexanian was born in 1950 in Worcester , Massachusetts . He was the second of four children and was prized as the first son in an orthodox Armenian family . He was the grandson of survivors of the Armenian Genocide , and grew up speaking Armenian with his grandfather who lived in the apartment upstairs , only learning English upon entering elementary school . Alexanian was the first in his family to go to college . He attended Boston University for two years in the thick of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations , and it was then that he first began taking pictures in an effort to understand and describe what he saw . Alexanian explains , " a camera gives you the license to do almost anything . I picked up a camera as a way of getting closer to what was happening in Boston during that era . " He describes " the power of photography " as an act of witness : a way to observe the world up close , in a personal way . When describing himself as a student and a budding photographer in a competitive field , Alexanian credits growing up in a working-class family with giving him the motivation and work ethic to succeed as a photographer . After two years at BU , Alexanian took time off to attend and teach at the New England School of Photography . He then left photography school and later became a member of the first class in the University Without Walls program at the University of Massachusetts , where he got credit for teaching at the New England School of Photography from 1973-1974 . He graduated in 1974 with a BA in Liberal Arts
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Nubar Alexanian