So tell me about your senior project. 

I'm still kind of working out the kinks with it. I don't know if this is going to be what I stick with right now. I'm really just trying to focus on the comfort and memories within traveling in a car and in regards to how comfort is supposed to be perceived. [...] I'm trying to communicate the aspect of my car as a safe space and a space away from the anxieties of everything else. 

That's really interesting, I really like that. 

I'm struggling with it right now, just because I'm looking at it in too much of a personal aspect versus trying to also make it relatable to the viewer. 

What's some of the ways that you're portraying that? 

I'm really just trying to show how I am when I'm in my car through self portraits. I've started messing with nighttime long exposures from the backseat, and I'm also gonna mess a bit more with like close up shots. It's a hot mess right now, in all honesty. I've been open to feedback and all my crits and I'm hoping to within the next week, get access to some of my childhood photos that will possibly help further my point so that I can make the project overall more effective than it currently is. 

Since this has a lot to do with a specific space, what does your studio look like right now to you? 

Fun fact, photo students don't have a senior studio since the buildings moved. 

Yeah, I did hear about that. 

We have open access to use the studio space, but we do not have an actual studio space. And in regards to my room, [I have] a lot of motivational stuff. I have actually right behind my laptop, a weekly whiteboard that I use to organize when I go out, when I shoot, when I edit, when I print. Time management.

Time management, very important. So you're working mostly out of your room? 

Yeah. For the most part. 

I think that's pretty universal right now with everything. 

Especially with scheduling studio times, everyone's just more comfortable either working during class or in their room. 

Yeah. For you, you talked a little bit about making your work more than just something about you, but have it also communicate with the world. How do you see that connection being made? 

I mean, for the most part, artistically speaking, I want my work to just really be relatable. I know I'm not the only one that feels like this and that's something I've always struggled with was finding someone else who feels like I feel and understands where I am and what I'm going through. And so it's more a matter of artistically, I want people to realize that they aren't alone in whatever they're doing, because there's always going to be someone else who understands. 

That's really beautiful. So what do you want to do outside of college, after you graduate? 

People are going to crucify me for this one, but that's okay. I actually want to go into commercial work, you know? I'm a photographer and I know it's kind of stereotypical, but I really enjoy working with people and doing portrait events, photography. I like connecting with people. I like socializing. 

Can't relate. 

I know.

But it's good to have artists who are extroverted as well. I think that that's really important. 

I'm an ambivert, let's be honest, but I still want to continue with my artistic practice, but I really do want to focus on creating my own business, having my own studio. 

So you don’t see the commercial end as just a way to fund your own particular projects but it's still part of your passion to work commercially? 

Yeah. It's actually been my goal since I started, I've always wanted to do commercial work. I absolutely, like I said, love making that connection with people. Cause there's just something different about taking a portrait of someone for artistic purposes versus taking it to capture a moment for them that they'll always have. I mean, think about portraits for high school seniors. It's a significant mile marker for them.

Yeah, definitely. So this has always been a goal of yours. How would you characterize your journey from when you started to now? 

Honestly I think one of the biggest struggles I had going into it that really pushed me was just my family perceiving me as a struggling artist and saying they support me, but not really supporting me. I know most of us get that. So that's really been a part of my drive and you know, freshman year after my first semester, I really kind of felt like I wanted to drop out. I was stressed. I didn't know if I was going to make it. They all just kind of started getting to me. But as I've continued I’ve found a love for doing self portraits and I've been able to have opportunities like going to summer camps and teaching photography or being the camp photographer. I’ve photographed bat mitzvahs, baptisms, I just did a wedding this past summer actually. 

Wow. That's so great. 
You know, it was very interesting to photograph a wedding during COVID definitely. 

Was it like a small wedding party? 

Yeah, I think in total there were maybe 20 people, so it wasn't too bad. And it was all immediate family for them, but it was really pleasant. I'm probably never going to have clients that nice again, but that's okay. One good experience is all it takes to push me. And last week I actually was a photo assistant for someone who's been working commercially for 20 plus years. So I've gotten to push myself more into the professional world. 

Yeah. That's, that's really amazing. And are you like, so are you doing some of these gigs as paid?

Yeah everything outside of what I do for my family has been paid. 

So you're already broken into the professional world in a big way. 

Yeah. It may not be much, but anything is better than nothing. 

Yeah, definitely. 

You know, even having something like the senior show for students that do want to focus on the fine arts world, that's a start because it's an exhibition you can put on your CV, you know? 

Yeah, yeah. Building that up is always really important. It's good that you already have experience though. How did you go about getting that type of experience as a college student? 

With the first summer camp I worked at, that was actually my internship credits. They were desperate to hire someone to be the photographer and I was in school for it. They were like, okay, you're hired. With the most recent one, the school portraits where I was the assistant [I found that through] last summer I worked at this camp in Hampstead, New Hampshire. And I had met this guy, David Leifer, wicked sweetheart, but he's been doing commercial work for 20 plus years. And lately he's been one of the biggest helps outside of Lindsay and Yoav. Um, he's actually made it clear to me that he's willing to help me, even after I graduate so I can get my foot in the door in an actual studio.

It's great to have a contact like that. That's really amazing. 

You know, it really is all about connections and that's again where it comes in handy to like making connections with people. 

Yeah. So you said that you wanted to own a studio. What would your studio look like? 

Honestly, I want to do portraits both environmentally and in the studio. And in regards to the studio [itself], it would be like, what photos already had set up with the lighting studio, the backdrops, and I'd be open to family portraits, children, newborn photos. Again, I know it sounds cliche. I know people are going to crucify me for this and that's okay. 

I don't think it's bad to go into commercial art.

A lot of people are highly against it around here, especially in Photo. You get used to it though. 

Well it's just as valid as working artistically, like in the gallery world.

You can still work artistically when doing that. And that's part of why I enjoy it. Cause I can, you know, go into the middle of nowhere and still make a beautiful photo of someone.

So with your senior project you're expressing these ideas of comfort and it's a very personal thing. Is that a common theme in your work, or what types of themes do you usually go through? 

Honestly, a lot of my work since the end of my first semester has really been focused in a way on self-reflection in my personal life. In the fall of 2018, yeah, your freshman year, I did a project about body positivity in a way, but it was me reclaiming myself from all the years of blackmail that I had gone through with adult men asking me for these photos when I was, you know, 13, 14, it's something that I've always coped with. Um, in View Camera last year I did a project on exploring the people that I've met through my significant other and just how I've connected with them. And now I have this. I've always been about self exploration in my work. 

Do you think that's something that you're going to try to carry into your commercial work? Even if it's not like your self expression, but like in portraiture, try to find ways to get the clients to have their own self expression. 

Yeah. I think it's really important to kind of understand yourself as a person. And it's taken me a while to accept that personally, but it's really important to take the time to look and reflect and try and understand who you're becoming and who you were. 

Do you have any artists that you would say sort of inspire you in that way or in another way in any of your work? 

It's actually a difficult question because I've looked into a lot of artists and I have a lot of artists who I enjoy their work. I think one artist that I keep going back to is Francesca Woodman, she was a photographer in the eighties. She went to RISD. Do you know Jim Roland?

I don't believe so. The name isn't familiar. 

He was a faculty or a staff member here. I don't know if he is still teaching. He actually went to RISD at the same time Francesca did, but she spent a lot of time doing self portraits and being experimental with it, with motion blur. And both of her parents were artists as well. Sadly she did jump out a window at the age of 22, just out of stress of finances is what's presumed to be the reasoning, but she's definitely one that I often think of when I'm doing self portraits, just because of how experimental she'd been with it. And especially with how my senior project is starting to go. 

We are doing some stuff in Ayris, just sort of about the idea of community, so what would you say that you value about IAD and the community that we're in. 

Honestly, I feel that even though it's always been a small community, even before the merger [...] and it's like being in high school, really on this campus. But I have to say one thing that drives me is the passion that the teachers have for us in supporting our work and pushing us to do it. It really just builds a sense of comfort and it really starts to make you feel like family. 

Yeah. I definitely get that. And I get that sense even from outside certain departments, that they really are like families. 

Yeah. I will say Photo’s definitely one of them. People are always really accepting. You really feel like you get to know people by walking past the work in the hallways. It's just nice. There's really no better way for me to put it. I always struggle with finding where I belong and I've found that I'm really comfortable here. 

Yeah. That's, that’s really beautiful. And I think that's something that a lot of people here relate to, the nature of the small community lends itself to feeling like a family and just feeling like it's where you belong. 

Yeah. I think that's part of why a lot of the upperclassmen were scared of the merger. So many more people were coming in. I don't mind it, don't get me wrong. Cause I've met a few people from that, but at the same time, you know, it's scary to be halfway through your education and all of a sudden everything's changing. 

Well, I think that's all I had for my questions. Would you want to add anything? 

I really think the only thing I have to add is just some basic advice for people who are struggling. You know all of us, including the faculty, know what it's like to struggle. To push through a project, a class, through four years of school. Me, especially cause like I said, I wanted to drop out in the spring semester of my freshman year. I don't think I've gone a single year without thinking about dropping out. Honestly it does get to be a lot, but you really can't let it deter you if this is what you want to do. You've got to push through, even if it means having a meltdown during a crit once or twice, because at the end of the day, having a degree looks good. No matter what it's in but like I said, if this is what you're passionate about, you shouldn't hold back.