mhatts.

1. What motivates you to make photographs? When the motivation is internal, how do you benefit from your photography? If the motivation is external, what results do you hope for?

After 4 years of darkroom photography, I realized that photography was a way for me to understand everything around me. ( I also found it was a way for me to manipulate things I don't like)... in the darkroom sense, of course.

I am a hopeless wanderer, I travel a lot. I was always taught  to appreciate various cultures.........I guess thats why I want to volunteer or sell my soul to the IRC one day. My photography is mostly for documenting my travels, and capturing key moments. I do have a lot of the typical touristy photos, but I also have the ones of things people overlook all the time. *I'm really into graffiti. Also, I like having photos of the experiences I have. I went scuba diving back in middle school- so I used a disposable camera with waterproof housing and I took photos from under water. I've always traveled with a camera of some sort, dangerous or not. I even dropped my SLR on a railroad platform and had a fun, yet dangerous adventure of retrieving the lens from the tracks...
I guess in short, I benefit from my photography because It helps me to remember all the amazing things that I have done in my life.


2. What interests and inspires you as an artist in your broader life? For you, what connections are there between what inspires you and your photography?

I'm inspired by people... >I am so sorry I am such a creep<

I guess the connection is that I feel that everything in this whole universe is alive. I really admire and hate the way that people interact with the environment, natural or not. Like I said in my huge clump of words above, I'm a traveler and I volunteer quite a bit. Most of the photos that I take are people being their natural selves. I feel like I'm being so vague, but It is so confusing for me to describe.

Let me try to summarize, I'm really inspired by people and their personalities, I like to see them interact with the environment and capture their natural selves.