Biography

I am currently an undergraduate photography major at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. I am scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2010. My photographic career goals and my main interests in photography involve social documentary work. I am traveling to Uganda and Rwanda, Africa in the fall of 2009. There, I will be participating in a "Post-Conflict Transformation" study abroad program and Iplan on completing my senior thesis by documenting my experiences. Though I will not know my environment or the situation until there, I wish to document the resettlement process along with post-war issues. I would love to travel upon graduating from my home university, but I have also considered starting out with weddings. Over the summer I hope to gain experience in this field by job shadowing local wedding photographers.

The work I have on my website reflects many of the mini-projects I have completed as an undergraduate student, as well as a gallery with other miscellaneous photographs.

The black and white gallery shows various pieces I completed during two semesters of 35mm film and one semester of 4x5 film.
The "Magic Color" series was done on 35mm film and involved long shutter speeds of night scenes consisting multiple sources of lighting.
"Acrylics" was done in my first color film photography class. I photographed a number of people pretending to carry out certain actions, but without the actual prop that would be used. After the photograph was printed I used acrylics to paint in the objects I had imagined in my mind.
The "Foot Personas" work was completed in my first digital photography class. I wanted to show the different personalities or feelings associated with our feet while seen in different situations and positions.
The color work was completed over two semesters of using 35mm film and focuses on color relationships such as complementary or cool and warm, and also deals with using color as an overall subject of the photograph.
My digital pieces were completed in my second digital photography class and involve combining pieces from multiple photographs and also using a number of other digital tools in Adobe Photoshop.
The final category I chose to include are miscellaneous photographs I have taken throughout my three years as a photography major. I believe many of these images show a larger variety of my undergraduate work.

I truly enjoy many types of photography and love the number of possibilities and the versatility the medium has to offer. Even though I would be happy pursuing more than one career within the field, I strongly believe I have a chance to make a difference by using my passion with photography to document the injustice which is ignored in impoverished and war-torn areas. Please check back for documentary work related to this subject matter.