Us

It has been a more challenging experience than I originally anticipated when I decided that photography was going to be my major. I somewhat innocently believed that being in classes that expected me to produce work would somehow lead exactly to that. The last couple of years have proved otherwise. I often had ideas or concepts in my mind that I found extremely difficult to translate into my work and even into words while attempting to present them in my classes. My last semester was spent studying in Italy and while it sounds cleche and really is, I feel like my time there led me to finding a way of joining photography with all of the other things in my life that inspire me. I have always had a strong interest in human interaction and the way that people experience their lives. This dynamic arises through relationships, perhaps isolation, and even mistreatment or misunderstanding from others.


Previous to my time abroad I felt a strong pull towards cultures and societies (customs, religions, stereotypes, gender issues etc.) . It fascinates me to connect the similarities and differences between towns, cities, and countries that are defined simply by lines that were created by the natural geography of the land or more likely by leaders with the power to draw them. Most recently, the focus of human rights and the feeling that my work should be a tool instead of something that feels too self-indulgent has really taken hold. I am not trying to convince myself that my photos can heal the world or any of that b.s. but I am passionate about giving some kind of voice to people who may otherwise be without one. Photography is biased in its truest nature. I am the one making the decision of how to present the people that I encounter but my goal is to try to show both the joy and sadness that everyone experiences in hopes that connections can be made between people that could support, learn from, or at least identify with one another. One of my first inspirations of this came from the "Human Rights Watch" which is published every year and documents crimes against humanity throughout the world. There are endless photo essays on many news websites (www.bbc.com, amnesty.org, and www.fiftycrows.org which is an offspring of Mother Jones) that could fall into the realm of what I want to do.