Elizabeth Hayes

What is your Senior Thesis?

“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.”
Dukes County is a series of photographs shot on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. These images are meant to take the viewer to an unfamiliar world, one driven by the feeling of immeasurable time. By providing an evasion from reality and a fantastical journey, this body of work calls attention to the idea that there is more to life than what we may see.

French Saying. Translation: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

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

My passion is photographing the landscape and I really wanted to have the opportunity to combine this passion with something else I love: my home. To be able to return to a land that is very much still untouched by the hand of man, yet also a place I find enchanting, is on the level of winning the lottery. I’m inspired by much of what is around me and my memories of the way the water splashes on rocks out in the sea, birds flying, the trees as they move in the wind, colors, and natural occurrences.

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

I work with a 4x5 shooting film. With color I scan the film and print digitally, but my black and white is done traditionally in the darkroom. Sometimes I use a pinhole camera, though most often I just try to make imperfections happen using my little Linhof.

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

The style and subject matter is very much rooted in how I typically work, though this project is new as I am basing it on location I haven’t yet worked.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

For one, I used to only photograph people, but I began exploring and realizing that there is more than people out there to be photographed.

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

Diving Bell and the Butterfly (movie), Mark Rothko (painter), Uta Barth (photographer), Sally Mann (photographer), A Short History of the Shadow by Charles Wright (poetry). So much more…

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?

“…to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty.”
– Rebecca Solnit
I would hope the viewer becomes immersed into this imaginative reality I have created and capable of joining me on this journey. And I suppose it would be nice for people to like the images as well.

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

I believe my work is best suited in a gallery setting. The book is too singular and compacted, there needs to be a physical immersion between the viewer and the photographs that the book is just not capable of establishing.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

Oh sure. I’ve been thinking a lot about color theory and imperfections and getting excited to shoot for my final semester. Expect there to be an 8x10 camera involved.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

Exploring life and having those little sour neon gummi worms that I enjoy oh so much.