Rebecca Buonopane

What is your senior thesis?

My project is a reflection of my travels from the summer of 2009 up until now. I have been staying with family and friends mainly in the New England area, bouncing around from Boston to Lowell, MA, to Nashua, NH, Deer Isle, ME, Martha’s Vineyard, MA and Long Island, NY. This series depicts my transitory states, both my physical location and state of mind. In order to make an unfamiliar place feel like home, I look for the inconspicuous details of a place, a person, object, or even gesture that suggest an elusive history, yet invariably possess an essence of character. When I am “home,” my apartment in Boston, or my father’s house, I reexamine what I believe represents my identity. Without limiting my subject matter, I instinctually photograph what is around me, what emerges is not only evidence of where I’ve been and whom I’ve met but the phenomenon in which intuition and circumstance converge.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

I wanted to photograph more spontaneously. When I used a large format camera to photograph my twin sister and myself, everything was very scheduled. I get inspired by every place I go and every person I encounter, so I love having the freedom to shoot whenever the mood strikes.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I always shoot in color. Usually, I use medium format film, but sometimes I shoot with a digital camera as well. I print digitally whether I use film or not.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is a completely new project.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

My past two projects, photographing my grandmother’s house and self-portraits with my twin sister, have both been based on the passage of time. My grandmother’s house had been redecorated only once in 1952; I was amazed by how it never seemed to change. I started the portraiture project with my sister to explore the different dynamics of our relationship after we moved out of our parents’ house. Time is still a thread that runs through my art. My current work emphasizes the transience of life and appreciating the moment.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

My grandmother, Jane Ritchie, is the most influential artist in my life. She was a landscape painter based in Long Island, NY. Painters like Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and Mary Cassatt also inspire me. Photographers I have been looking at lately are Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Rinko Kawauchi, Marni Horwitz, and Helen Van Meene. Books also really influence my work. Right now, I am reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I’d like for people to spend some time looking at my photographs and let everything else melt away, to be fully present when they are standing in front of them. My work is about deeply seeing, so I hope that people can enter into my photographs and experience that.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

A gallery would be the best setting. I’d like my photographs to exist on a larger scale so the viewer can observe all the details of the image.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I have lots of new ideas but nothing fully developed right now.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

I want to go to grad school, but I plan on taking a few years off first. In the meantime, I’d like to travel and see where life takes me.

Kate Atkins

What is your senior thesis?

It’s still a struggle trying to articulate what I am doing- right now I am mostly focused on aesthetics rather than concept. Here’s the current artist statement, subject to change, transform, adapt, and become more solid:

To the centre of the city where all roads meet waiting for you...
To the centre of the city in the night, waiting for you...
-Joy Division, Shadowplay

Shadows render light. Ambience becomes
of the desolate street lit only by
a solitary streetlight. The city does
not sleep, it breathes. Echoes become
silence, the empty streets deny human
existence; for the hours to come.

The lurker, wanderer, drifter has
eyes on the prowl while
embracing the light that passes
through darkness.

In the shadows, I wait...
still.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

Ever since I had a night photography assignment sophomore year, I have always had an urge to return to it. First I start with a location in mind, sometimes with ideas of images I would like to capture, but mostly I rely on “educated” wandering and lurking about. I think I have exhausted Boston as it has become so familiar, but there are always surprises.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I choose to shoot in black and white- 35 mm for the grain and grit, in the traditional darkroom fashion. I will also use selenium to tone the prints.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

At its essence this project has the same feel I hope to capture within photography which involves atmospheres or moods. I have always been drawn to desolation when photographing, and its something I can’t really explain why.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

The eye always changes, being drawn to different aspects of a frame to make a composition. I perceive and manipulate the subject at hand a lot more thoughtfully, even when I shoot 35 mm.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

In terms of my current work, my major influence is Brassai. A lot of my inspirations are not related directly to night photography. Film is a great inspiration; the beauty and fragility of light playing into metaphors in Ingmar Bergman movies- his cinematography is unrivaled.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

The work is apolitical and without a real social context, I’m not forcing an idea or concept on the viewer. It is more an appreciation of beauty, being a pictorial photographer, a collector of alleyways, shadows and light. I want the viewer to sense the eeriness and be rattled by the strong contrast of the prints.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

I like the intimate qualities of a book, and I think that would be the most suitable for the work rather than being displayed on a wall. I would like the work to be held and dog-eared at the corners.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I intend to continue shooting and let the projects fall where they may. Maybe the project is just to continue. I’m actually having a rough time creating at present. I’m going to push myself next semester and try to delve into the human aspects of nightlife or photograph subcultures as well as shoot in color. I’ve been looking at a lot of more portraiture based work like that of Anton Corbijn and Glen E. Friedman; of course seeing that Bruce Davidson exhibit really provoked me. A couple of other ideas have come about in my head; it would be interesting to capture activists/anarchists/radicals/thinkers/philosophers, etc and interview them about the struggle between living within the system and living out/fighting for ideals. I hope logistically I can pull it off; it’ll require some research and networking (Noam Chomsky is a professor at MIT!). Ever since I held a camera, my work has been quiet, but I am ready to show that I am loud and start putting myself out there as an artist.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

The real world will strike, unfortunately. Hopefully, I will be able to find work with the recession. I don't intend on going to graduate school, but I really have been thinking about getting into the field of art therapy. I really just want to create and be around those that are also compelled to do so in whatever medium at this point in my life. Highest priority is to move away to cities conducive to creativity- places like Asheville, NC, Portland, OR, Montreal, QC and Athens, GA are ideal locations to relocate, but NYC is always exciting. I don’t know where I’ll end up.

Anthony Scrocca

What is your senior thesis?

My senior thesis consists of work that has me pointing my camera at people in their cars during rush hour traffic.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

My initial motivation to starting this project was the way the light cuts through the street, through traffic and finds itself in these peoples cars highlighting whatever they are or are not doing. Time of day, light, biking around the city and ultimately looking is what inspires me to do what I do.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I work in film, and I scan my work and make inkjet prints. The most important part of the process to me is being receptive to my surroundings and reacting to what is going on around me and then thinking about it all later when the pictures are developed and a print is in front of me. It would be nice if pictures existed in my head, but there is just clutter up there.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

I have been working on this project for around a year at this point.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

Maybe it is less about how the work has developed and more how I have developed along with this work. I guess just trusting what I am doing and knowing that feeling what you are doing goes a long way.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Alfred Hitchcock...

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I guess I would like for people to take a break for a second and actually look. These moments are fleeting and probably not considered by most people who encounter them daily. They are pictures now, and because of that we are given a few more seconds to look and think about these people and these spaces, maybe to see something more than what is noticed in haste.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

I see them working in both settings really. Up until recently, I was just thinking of these single moments that we look into one at a time on a wall. But, the possibilities for other narratives is there in book form and maybe with time that idea could be fleshed out.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

For me, actions go a lot further than ideas do.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

My only real plans consist of taking more pictures.

Kimberlie Sanders

What is your senior thesis?

Fire. It can be anything. The power that this element possesses is extraordinary. It holds the power to life, the power to take life away. I am fascinated with the endless ability it has to manipulate and destroy. I want to explore all aspects of the destruction that it can infer. I want to show the change from before fire touches an object to essentially and most literally the nothing and death that can be left by it. Most specifically I want to focus on the aftermath, the detail of the ash of an object that once was, and how it has been manipulated and changed.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

It is a project that I have always wanted to challenge myself to pursue. It is also so much different than all the work I have done prior to this.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I have been shooting a variety of film and digital for this project so far. The work at this point is a variety of medium and large format film that I scan, edit and print digitally, along with digitally shot prints.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is a completely new project for me.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

My work develops the more work I put into it. The more that I shoot the more that I learn about what I want to do differently or keep the same. This project is transforming as we speak, I believe, to be more about the aftermath and destruction of fire, rather than the act of burning itself.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

Whenever I am asked this question my mind goes blank for some reason even though I am constantly inspired and influenced by other artists work. I am inspired everyday by everything around me. Some favorites off the top of my head are: Susan Derges, Nigel Poor, Nina Katchadourian, Stefan Sagmeister, Erik Spiekermann, Marian Bantjes, M. C. Escher, Willem Bosoph

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I don’t necessarily want to evoke a particular response from viewers. I simply want them to evoke some kind of opinion and thought process in interest on a personal level. If nothing other than evoking some thought, that would be more than enough.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

I feel like I generally make my work to be displayed large, so a gallery setting might be ideal. Bookmaking/binding is a passion of mine as well, so I constantly see everything I do being transcribed in that form as well.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I constantly find new ideas for work to pursue, but it is either not the right time or not a developed enough plan. I cannot wait to have more time to pursue so many of these tangents simultaneously.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

I plan to travel as much as possible, for as long as possible, making as many pictures as possible along the way. I’m going to attempt to experience and see as much as I can until it is financially unrealistic. I’m going to continue making pictures, and I'll have so much more time to do so. I plan on working when I can whether it is in graphic design, photography, or what have you. At some point I might want to pursue graduate school but definitely not for a while.

Jeremy Powitz

What is your senior thesis?

I pay a lot of attention to the options for entering adulthood that my contemporaries have. There is no one clear way to become autonomous, no attainable right-of-passage that guarantees wisdom and livelihood. The culture around me only grants age with time; anything else is hard-won. With my camera, I illustrate a bit of what I observe and a bit of what I read.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

My own struggle with 'what next' comes to mind…

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I love the way I work with a large ground-glass. The economy and decisions that System and View Cameras demand suit me well, so I shoot film, but I do my post production and printing digitally.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is not too unrelated to my work from last term, but it's somewhat different.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

My work continues to develop as I learn more. It's usually something I can only identify after a few months, in retrospect, though.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

I'm very taken with The Door in the Floor right now (2004 Focus Features)

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

A country's youth of about 16 to 25 is perhaps its most useful resource. That's why militaries and the like are always comprised of this age group. I just find it interesting that that's sort of the abandoned age group in our current culture. We're expected to go from being children to adults overnight, but there doesn't seem to be a real job or place for us while we make that transformation. I hope to draw my viewers' interest to this.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

I think a book might suit these photos best.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

My plan is mainly just to keep shooting, for now.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

After graduation, eh? I find myself running into the scope of my own project in answering that. Maybe grad school… Probably a job.

Bryan Martello

What is your senior thesis?

My work is trying to describe a time and place, the late hours of night when things seem different. I am interested in the ineffable and the intangible. More than just a time and place, this work is about a state of mind associated with the evening.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

My previous work was less structured and less specific to a particular time of day. I really wanted to find a way to focus on one aspect, and I realized that it is innate for me to photograph at night.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I shoot 4x5 color film, and then scan/edit/print them digitally.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This work is definitely rooted in and inspired by my previous work, but it is its own project.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

I think my work has become more structured and self-reflective. It has also embraced time and place; my previous work was much more vague.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

I'm really inspired by Francis Alys, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rinko Kawauchi, Gabriel Orozco, Andrew Wyeth, and Kiki Smith. I also take a lot of influence from film and video, especially David Lynch films.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

My favorite part of art is when people bring their own references to their interpretations. I love hearing how different one person's interpretation of a piece can be from another's. I would like it for the viewer to at least get some overall sense of the bigger themes I am presenting, but really any personal experience with the work I think is important.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

The most ideal setting for my work is a gallery. I am very particular in the way I choose to install my work. I like books, but I don't like the linear constraints they have on my work.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I hope to work on this project for a while. I am interested in maybe incorporating video into the process, so I'd like to see where that will take this work.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

I plan on moving to New York City in the fall. I want to apply for as many things as I come across and see what happens. I think I have alot to figure out. I want to use these next few years as time to be experimental and open with my art.

Sarah Skwira

What is your senior thesis?

My work this semester is about my childhood and trying to hold onto the past. It’s about how my life and my family have changed since then and wanting to go back to a time when everything seemed to be perfect.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

My family and my childhood are topics that have come up a few times in past projects, but I have never completely invested in them. The previous ideas I had for projects this semester have ultimately led me back to this topic.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I shoot 4x5 color film and scan it to print digitally.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is a new project but it includes elements from my previous work.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

I started this semester wanting to photograph people in places where traumatic events happened. I had envisioned these people to be in natural environments and when this project didn’t work out, I decided to focus on people in nature. This led me to try to figure out what it was about nature that I liked, during which I realized that it reminded me of being home and being a child. Because this idea had come up a few times in my work before, I decided that this was a good time to fully commit to it.

What artists works of art have inspired or influenced you?

Some of my favorites are Justine Kurland, Katy Grannon, and Phillip-Lorca diCorcia. Also, as cheesy as it sounds, I am often inspired by my fellow classmates.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I hope that people can relate to my idea and appreciate my images.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

A gallery is the ideal setting but think it could also work in a book.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I don’t have an specific ideas for the future, but along with continuing to do more specific projects, landscape photography is something I will always be drawn to and enjoy doing.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

After graduation my plan is to move to New York City to continue making art and hopefully become a productive member of society.

Xareni Penichet

What is your senior thesis?

My senior thesis is based on the subconscious. But these images where based on patterns in nature.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

I found my motivation in the mathematical aspects that are found in nature.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I work on film and in the darkroom.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is my project form last semester.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

My work has developed into experimental work where I try to mix other elements besides photography, such as sculpture.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

I am very interested in films, especially from the avant-garde period.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I would like my viewers to feel a little agitated, but still be able to enjoy the natural landscape.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

This work can work in both, but ideally, I would picture it in a gallery.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I would like to continue with the subconscious work and see where that takes me.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

I’m not sure, maybe grad school.