VCU Intro Photo: Heather West: Inspiration and what I see in my photography.

After looking through all of my contact sheets and negatives, I find it interesting to see a timeline of myself and what I find interesting. The different people I use in my rolls show the different relationships I've developed throughout this year, and different places show what I've discovered in Richmond. The main trend I find is that I've gotten really interested in different textures, especially sharp ones. Most of my images started with soft flow objects and I've started to come back to sharp, hard objects. I've also noticed that when it comes to people, I do not photograph the faces often. Usually I look at the areas that people may not see a lot. The texture of a flowing hair or the way her tight shirt hangs on her collarbone. It's all about seeing the lights play on textures. Kind of like drawing, when it comes straight down to it you don't really need lines at all. You just look at the shades and that forms the object by it's self. I guess what I'm trying to say is that looking through all my prints, my contact sheets and just thinking about what I look for every time I look through a view finder, it's not the objects but the parts of the objects. How it interacts with the lights around it, the idea of how your fingers tingle with the texture it might make if you were to really touch it. The details. That's what I've become interested in through this journey and I think that's a trend that shows up a lot in my photos.
I'm a little indecisive when it comes to a final project. For a part of me, I want to be able to photograph faces but in a way that makes them more then a face you see on the street. Maybe ask about the hardships of their life or tell them to trust me with their secret. I want to figure out how I can see people's faces and not get board of them. I want to make myself stronger in photographing people emotionally, which I think is an important part of portraiture. Another project I was thinking of maybe doing is something with the human skin. I finally have my hands on a macro lens and I want to use it to capture different textures of skin. I find skin to be such an amazing organ of the human body. Not only in the way is stretches, but in the way how you can sometimes see right through it. Blood pumping through the veins of the neck, rib bones poking through your chest, bruises swirling grey and purple. I find it so beautiful and interesting that I would love to capture it.

Three Photos I look for inspiration :