When did you start doing photography?
I first called myself a "photographer" in middle school, though I was mostly just taking iPhone photos and editing them. However, I really got into photography, especially darkroom photography, when I came to Nightingale in 9th grade. Once I began to take black and white photographs, I saw photography less as the act of pointing the camera and clicking a button, but as seeing the contrast of light and dark in a given photo. My photography has definitely improved from middle school! Who/what is your inspiration? I really like this Russian photographer named Dmitry Kostyukov. He's not very well known but he has a really great eye and his stories are always really powerful and meaningful. On a more mainstream level, I recently saw the Stephen Shore show at the MoMA and I thought it was amazing! Finally, Berenice Abbott is a really great photographer and she did a project really similar to mine in the '30's called Changing New York. It depicted the social landscape of New York during the depression. |
What do you enjoy shooting the most?
It really depends! I like to take portraits in natural light, but I hate it when they look really staged. I would almost rather take a photo of someone mid-sneeze than a super staged, phony-looking portrait! Recently, I have been into taking photos on New York City and contrasting the different neighborhoods and people. It is really interesting to see how much the city has changed in the last 5, 10, 20 years. What is it about photography that makes want to you continue shooting?
I feel like there is never really a limit to what you can do in photography. You can always get the shot in another light, or change the angle, etc. In class, we talked about artists who purposely scratched their negatives or put vaseline on the lense to do something that was never done before. I also think photography is really important in a historical context. Photographs are a really great primary source so looking back 100 years from now on life in 2018, I want to capture as much as possible! |