interview with fellow BA student Jessica Marin.

1. What was it that got you hooked on photography? What inspires you to take photographs?

- Taking photos of my family as portraiture inspired me toward photography. My mother grew on a passion for me to always take pictures and as time went on, it became my interest. In my first semester at Rutgers, one of my floor mates would ask me to take model pictures of him. When I presented them to my professor, he was amazed at how a beginner student took a good portraiture photograph. Now these days, I am experimenting with color and its effects on how to enhance the mind in losing itself through the spectrum.

2. What content is your favorite to photograph?... Why?

- I have a special interest in black and white portraiture. Sometimes expressed through sensuality. I have also drifted into the understanding of composition, lines, and structures within a square format.

4. Do you shoot in digital or 35mm, why do you prefer that style of photography over the other?

- I like shooting in 35 mm and recently in digital. My preference with 35 mm is to black and white film. I have a fascination for working in the dark room and developing my own film. With digital, it is more with quick works, ideas that burst in the moment and need to be recorded. I also use it when I take on journeys of places I need to remember. It becomes very useful when studying the galleries artwork as a reminder of things that were noticed, looked up close by zooming in.

6. What do you plan to do as a photographer and where do you hope it takes you?

- I have thought of going to grad school to study art therapy. Because of my minor in psychology, a pass-time to analyze people, and making art, it works towards an opportunity to do everything all at once. I would also like to intern in as a photographer’s assistant. Due to transportation difficulties, it has been hard to meet with other photographers. As an artist, I also have to put in the effort in showing my work at exhibitions. I am planning on showing some of my work on the upcoming BA/BFA Open Show.

8. If you couldn't be doing photography what would you be doing?

- If I didn’t do photography, I would have tried to go for graphic design. Adapt it toward Publicity and Marketing would be the additional step. In these present days, selling products through the World Wide Web becomes the new business. If that wasn’t the case, it would have been accounting or physical therapy. I like to be organized in respect to numbers, and like human anatomy. As an athlete, injuries have become my daily life. Learning more about it and being able to understand how the body works to a finer detail inspires to excel in my own workouts.