VCU Senior Year

Senior year was mostly photo business classes, mass communication classes and senior portfolio (your last college photo class where the whole year is spent working on your final project with a massive critique of your work and a student showcase). My process was very slow as my idea grew. I kind of knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea where to start. I think I grew the most this year. For my senior project I decided to tackle drugs and addiction (something that had affected me very personally in many ways). I wanted to show through my photos how different drugs affect people differently and create different types of addiction. While this was my original idea, it grew into something a little different. I ended up not having to explain my photos or idea at all because the photos seemed to affect people in such a way that they interpreted it themselves. My final piece covered more than just the drugs people know have major addictions and problems (like cocaine and marijuana) and spread into common drugs that people don’t even think of that can cause just as many issues (like caffeine and nicotine). It went into how our society accepts certain drugs and not others, and how strong denial can be. It caused such a debate that my critique went twice as long as most and got everyone involved. My teacher came to me and said it was my strongest project he has seen and that it was much more successful than he originally thought it would be. Some of my working images were weak, but when I got some strong ones and redid some of the other ones to match it slowly became stronger. While this is a very hard project to continue showing (because of the controversy and risks to my business), I still feel it is one of my best work to date.

Cigarettes. 

Cocaine.

Coffee.

Marijuana. 

Pills.

Shrooms.

THC.

VCU Junior Year

Junior year I was finishing up my required photography courses (which I was only allowed to take three of per semester) and decided to add a minor course of study to fill my final semesters credits. I chose Mass Communications (advertising) because at this point I really wanted to pursue advertising photography and work in big studios with models. I was very inspired by David LaChapelle (check his work out here http://www.davidlachapelle.com) and thought that this was the way to go in order to do work like him. Diane Arbus also got her start photographing famous people for articles and I wanted to be like them. I started trying to create “sets” for my photos and set up the scenes to show my vision. As it turns out, I was not very good at this. I think most of it was I did not have the space or funds to fully go all out and was unsure of how to do it on a budget. This led to me spending a lot of time in the studio playing with lighting and models to see what I could do. I played with filters and colors and worked on creating the idea of sets without a backdrop. I did some advertising type photos and a project on fear. I even got one of these photos published in the Photo Laureates Photography Anthology. The end of the semester was spent on a big project that inspired my senior project. I went around meeting people, talking to them, and having them write something in a notebook (anything they felt like). It stemmed from my project on fear to get out and meet people and learn about them. It was a huge semester for me. I also worked for a little while at The Picture People where I photographed families and kids, which I fell in love with. I loved posing people and bing in a studio and using props. This year I learned everything happens for a reason and these moments were just steps to me figuring out who I was. I had a lot of fun this year trying new things and exploring my photography and myself.

Fear Project.

Studio Work.

Still Life's.

Rally for Darfur.

Meeting People Project.

VCU Sophmore Year

Sophomore year was spent in a lot of classes learning about techniques, different types of film, and learning about other photographers in order to learn from them. The hardest thing to learn as an artist is “it’s all been done” (like the Barenaked Ladies song). I played with high-contrast film, which allowed me to explore and learn about silhouettes. and infrared film, with which I took some beautiful landscapes (before then I really had no interest in shooting them). I took some studio classes and had a lot of fun with lights and sets. I even took an extra course over two days on how to set up lights and equipment (an assistant photographer boot camp). Here I learned what it takes to break into the business. I did a few small projects playing with lighting (including flash photography) and spent a lot of time walking around photographing people and places. I did a series on bridges and met a lot of different types of people, including Native American’s at a Pow Wow. I also did a little part time work for a small local magazine trying to get off the ground. This was also the year I officially started my own photography business photographing events (I photographed a retirement party and took some modeling photos). At this point, I knew I wanted to photography people, but wasn’t exactly sure where my business was going to go.  I spent the year just learning, exploring and enjoying it.