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.