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Joseph’s job is in retail, and upon graduation this March he’ll be working toward an art director position with a major corporation, a position that he feels will allow him to showcase his photo talents and creative eye. “The fascination is to come up with a concept and then implement it, to express an idea in powerful imagery.”

George is a fine art major at FIU, taking advanced photography courses. He learned darkroom skills in a college-level photo course he took while still in high school, and today is most likely to be carrying the Mamiya RZ67 he got when he was 16.

His strongest influences are Garry Winogrand, Russell Lee, and William Eggleston. “Winogrand said that you’re basically putting four corners on a couple of facts [and] Eggleston’s work showed me a new way of looking at things,” George says. “I learned that everything can be photographed.”

Last year, as a freshman, Amanda Haycook found herself taking pictures of buildings. “It wasn’t a conscious decision at first,” she says, “it was just like my eye kept going there.” Not so with others on the streets: “Living in New York I noticed that people don’t look up, and I just started noticing things that people weren’t paying attention to.”

From the photos that Ben sent us prior to his graduation from Appalachian State with a degree in commercial photography, we were not surprised to learn that he grew up wanting to be a film director. “It was a big dream from the time I was a little kid,” he says. But when he got into photography, he found the still image had its own esthetic attractions, and practical advantages. “I can get my models to places I wouldn’t be able to get a film crew to,” Ben says, “and I’m able to create images that are visually more appealing than anything I can do on film right now.”

Adam Paine
The Art Institute Of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia

Changes

Although images were always a...

University Of North Florida
Jacksonville, Florida

Brooks Institute Of Photography
Santa Barbara, California