JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

HIROSHI CLARK: The quest for money I guess.

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

HC: I tend to look at established artists such as Danny Lyon or the films of Akira Kurosawa. As for emerging artists, I really love this Turkish guy’s worked named Yusuf Sevincli. I try and not pull inspiration only from photographers. I really love the music of Fransisco the Man and the videos of Jaron Albertin. I’ve been assisting since graduating and that’s how I met Spencer Lowell. He is super talented.

JC: What is your current project all about?

HC: Currently, I have been going with my father to work. He is a wood finisher and has been all my life. I worked with him nearly all my life. I have been photographing my father and his employees. I am interested in the irony of my father beautiying the homes of others when he himself lost his home a couple of years ago. 

JC: What equipment are you currently using?

HC: Equipment huh? Well, I shoot film as much as possible. I have a Yashica T-4 that I keep with me everyday that fits into my pocket. When i shoot medium format, I shoot with a Mamiya RZ67. 

JC:  How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

HC: I haven’t shot too much commercial work. I will let you know when I find out.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

HC: I am a recent photography graduate. My advice is, watch for street sweeping signs. 

JC: Favourite tree?

HC: My favorite tree is the Japanese Cherry Blossom. I am half Japanese and grew up in Southern California. I have never seen them Blossom in Japan but my mother tells me it’s beautiful. I am hoping to see it soon.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

LUKE POWNALL: I’ve just gone back to school to study photography full time. I love waking up knowing I’ll get to learn more about it every day.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

LP: There are so many that if I got asked this question once a week I’d give different answers every time. Some people inspiring me lately are Andrew Bibby, Row Taylor and Dayv Mattt. Also my pal Adrian Morris is a constant inspiration because he lives to travel and his photos are a reminder that I’ve been in the same place for far too long. 

JC: What is your current project all about?

LP: I have an exhibition planned for mid year here in Melbourne with good friends Mick Thomas, Tim Regard and Damien Melchiori. It’s in the early stages yet but these guys all have such different styles and I’m excited to see it all come together.

JC: What equipment are you currently using?

LP: My Mamiya 645e is what I love to shoot with, but medium format is inconvenient when you’re not setting up shots which I hardly tend to do, so a Pentax ME Super is my every day. That, and a whole lot of T-Max. I started out with an old 35mm SLR and decided to stick with it. I don’t need expensive lenses to have fun, and I’m not much of a gear nerd, yet.

JC: What initially drew you to photography?

LP: I’ve loved photography for as long as I can remember, there was no defining moment but I imagine it started when flipping through skate magazines as a kid and looking up to people like Ed Templeton and Sem Rubio. I was always too impatient and too damn lazy for it though. I regret not showing up to half of my photography classes in high school, to think about it I probably failed that subject. 

JC: Favourite tree?

LP: A palm tree. They’re in all the good classic 80’s movies when the music starts you know. Like in Beverly Hills Cop or weekend At Bernies. Just a good vibes party tree.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

STEPHANIE MILL: I grew up with an avid interest in movies and it sort of branched into photography from there, naturally. My dad gave me his old Pentax SLR during a family vacation when I was 14 or so and I still use it to this day. I took photo classes in high school where I started working in the darkroom, so I never really got into that digital craze either. Shooting everything around me and seeing surprises in the rolls of film kept me interested, I really don’t think I’d be as into photography if I favoured digital. It bores me. 

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

SM: I find it hard to determine what ‘emerging’ means, since ‘making it’ can mean something different to every artist. However, some cool people I’ve been looking at and been inspired by recently are Daniel Shea, Olivia Locher, Van Robinson, Mark Peckmezian, and the good dudes in Blood of the Young (Reilly & Dimitri, respectively) make me want to DIY until I die. 

JC: What’s your current project all about?

SM: My main one that I’m working on is mostly for school, but pretty personal to me too. It’s about the duality of relationships - specifically focusing on mine with my boyfriend - and the strange combination of strength and tenderness within a romantic relationship. It’s a collaborative work, since he’s a photographer too, and it will be coming together soon enough.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

SM: I live in Toronto and I’ve been here for almost three years. I come from what I would describe as the epitome of the suburbs, so it’s exciting to be in a place that’s constantly moving… but I can’t stay here forever. It’s a small version of the big cities that people dream of living in, so for the time being I’m quite content in it, but I need somewhere where I will never run out of places to explore or discover. (i.e. Paris)

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

SM: Finishing up my last semester before my thesis year in art school, working on a zine with my pal Jared Gaustad from LA, probably one of my own too, a small trip to Chicago in April, a big trip to Iceland in June, and hopefully a show or two if I can swing it. 

JC: Favourite tree?

SM: Any climbable one.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

PAOLO MORALES: My alarm clock or my body telling me I’ve slept enough hours to have energy for the day ahead.

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

PM: Inconclusively, among my friends, peers at school and work I see in general: Elle Perez, Emily Holzknecht, Saul Robbins, Kate Hutchinson, Tim O’Connell, Jake Biernat, Claudio Nolasco, Curran Hatleberg. I recently saw Mark Steinmetz speak however I don’t think he can be quantified as an emerging artist.

JC: What is your current project all about?

PM: I am photographing interactions between two or more people where the relationship between the people pictured is unclear. One is typically in a dominant role and the other in a submissive role. The photographs are shot from a distance to give the viewer the role as an observer rather than participant. Lately I’ve been thinking of the work as unrequited moments because the relationships and roles aren’t resolved.

JC: What draws you to portraiture?

PM: I’m certainly not the first person to claim that photography is a way to legitimize oneself to gain access to a particular person or situation. I like photographing people because I am interested in knowing them, be it a stranger, family member or friend. For me, a portrait is the product a relationship forged by the camera.

JC: What equipment are you currently using?

PM: I use two cameras: a Mamiya 7 with a 65mm or a 80mm lens and a Contax G1 with a 28mm lens. The negatives are processed at a lab and scanned on an Epson V700 and edited in Photoshop.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

PM: I can’t answer this question entirely because I haven’t done very much commercial work. So to answer your question - there is no juggling. The amount of personal work I’ve made in the artificial environment of school is disproportionately larger in quantity than any commercial work I’ve done. I will say that in the few portraits I have been commissioned to do is that people hire you to essentially repeat images you’ve made before.

JC: Favourite tree?

PM: Willow trees because they are both beautiful and sad.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

TERESA LOJACONA: That is the hardest part of my day. I could lie in my bed for days on end. These days I have to force myself up otherwise it will lead to an unproductive, banal day. The sun definitely helps; purposefully opening my curtains is a good incentive.  

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

TL: I am always looking for inspiration and find it in and outside the realm of photography. Recently I have been intrigued by the work of Ahndraya Parlato, Michelle Leedy and Simon Vahala.  

JC: What is your current project all about?

TL: While still focusing on the self and working through issues of my past and present, I recently began research for a project involving mainly sculptural elements. It is in the beginning stages but a few words I would use to describe it are, psychologically charged materials in connection with a divided past. 

In the midst of that, thanks to my amazing mother, I have acquired love letters from her and my father written in the 70’s before they were married. I have craved for the opportunity to work with these letters for quite sometime now. Ideas are running wild in my mind on what I want to do with them and how to appropriate their content into a piece. It’s just a matter of working through it.

JC: What equipment are you currently using?

TL: I was taught photography in a traditionalist fashion, learning the art in the silence of the dark room. So, analogue will forever be close to my heart and my practice. I often switch between Mamiya 7, Hasselblad, and Canon EOS 630, shooting on Kodak Portra. It was only recently, when I moved to New York for graduate school, that I began shooting digitally. On those occasions, G10 and 5D are my cameras of choice. I do all my editing in Photoshop and scan negatives with an Imacon X5.    

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

TL: Never loosing sight of my own vision and time management. Personally, I find it’s important when doing a commercial job to shoot what the client wants, but also shoot images for you. Because chances are the client will love the work you shot on the side and end up running those images. And if not, at least you are making them aware of your personal vision. I try to create work for myself as much as possible, even if it’s just a snap shot a day. Developing a system to keep track of all my thoughts and ideas, and making an effort to put one in motion whenever it deems possible. Even if I don’t have the exact resources or means to produce precisely what I want putting whatever I can in motion and working through it is my main goal.  

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

TL: The same advice I give myself, since I will be graduating early next year, relax and don’t stress out! Keeping making art and don’t stop. Even if it’s the beginning of a thought or a mediocre idea, work through it for you never know what it may lead to.  As artists and professionals we have already accomplished so much in our practice, and no matter what path you choose may it be, commercial, fine art, teaching, or criticism, hold onto the passion that made you want to be an artist. It will keep you moving forward.   

JC: Favourite tree?

TL: When I was a little girl there was weeping willow tree in our backyard, it was my secret hide away. Eucalyptus are another favorite, they smell amazing!

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

ROXANA AZAR: Sometimes the light of the sun.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

RA: Mikaylah Bowman and Rosanna Webster, definitely. There are so many artists who inspire me. I try to find something new everyday. I spent a lot of time looking at the Women in Photography archives and I love almost everyone’s work there, particularly Brea Souders and Carson Fisk-Vittori.

JC: What is your current project all about?

RA: I keep a visual diary for myself. For the most part, I’m drawn to awkwardness and out-of-placeness in daily settings. I used to focus on nuances in spaces I was familiar with. Now I’m playing around with flash with some of my newer work because I like the idea of the criminalization of objects and isolation. I like using film because it’s more satisfyingly surprising and that process adds to the work for me. Other than that, I’ve been taking self-portraits as I imagine my subconscious/lucid-dreaming self, but those have been difficult so far. Video-making is another thing I’m doing. There’s so much to do!

JC: What initially drew you to photography?

RA: I’ve always liked art. My mom gave me her 35mm SLR when I was around twelve or thirteen, so I started playing with it. Then I took my first darkroom class in high schooI. I wasn’t athletic or popular and I had an awful sense of humor, so I didn’t have many friends — so I spent most of my free time there working or sleeping.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

RA: I feel like it must be hard to put your creative self into work for someone else. I shot a wedding once and it wasn’t really my thing because I like to take staged rather than candid portraits. For my personal work, I use a medium format camera most of the time with twelve exposures on average, so I feel like I consider those images more. It’s very different from taking hundreds of photos for someone else, but I think you have to be flexible as an artist anyway.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

RA: I haven’t graduated yet. Just keep shooting and seek out critique when you can. It’s good to step back from your work and get other people’s perspectives. Also, I think, you know, you’re getting a degree in something you’re passionate about. I don’t think people who go to school for accounting or whatever can say that. Point is, you’re winning.

JC: Favourite tree?

RA: My favorite tree is a burning bush. During autumn months, the leaves turn this beautiful, rich magenta. Once the leaves fall, they start to turn pale pink to white. It’s an awesome way to go dormant.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

BEN FRANKE: Multiple alarms and a cup of coffee.

JC: Are there any emerging photographers inspiring you at the moment?

BF: Luceo for sure. They are doing amazing work. They make me want to step up my game. Ben Norman is a great photographer. These aren’t emerging but Jake Stangel, Will Steacy, Emily Shur, Martin Schoeller, Chris Buck, Platon, Eugene Richards, August Sander. Also my friend Jonathan Goldberg inspires me to keep going and doing personal work. 

JC: Where do you live and how is it shaping you?

BF: I live in Park Slope Brooklyn right now a.k.a stroller country. I’ve been in New York for over 5 years now and the city continues to inspire me. There is an energy that you can feed off of living here. Everyone is doing something interesting and creative and it makes you want to hone your craft and create more and better work.

JC: Tell us more about your project in Serbia?

BF: My work from Serbia is a way for me to explore the ideas of home, nationality and how history effects our day to day lives. All the people I photographed were either too young to really know what was going on during the Breakup of Yugoslavia or were people who could have fled to Western Europe but chose to stay instead. I plan on going back there in the future to photograph people from the rest of the region. It is still very much a work in progress that I hope to keep working on for the next few years. 

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

BF: Lately it has been hard for me. I’ve been spending so much time focused on commercial assignments that I have let my personal work slide a bit. I’m just now trying to focus more on personal work and am in the process of planning a new project that I will be shooting in New York in the coming weeks.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

BF: I still consider myself a recent graduate but I would say focus on your vision and shoot as much as you can. Also don’t necessarily plan on making all your money from shooting in the first few years. I think its good to find alternative ways to support yourself while you are starting out.

JC: Favourite tree?

BF: Maple tree cause I love maple syrup.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

BRIAN FINKE: When I was like 12 years old, I discovered the photos of W. Eugene Smith, some pretty intense stuff for a little guy but the spark was lit and I wanted to be a documentary photographer.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

BF: I’ve been following Collin Lafleche since seeing an image from his Right After series in a group show entitled Kids Behaving Badly in 2009. Beautiful stuff, I wanted to be there making those images.

JC: What is Atlantic Challenge all about?

BF: Atlantic Challenge is an ocean rowing race, starting in the Canary Islands and ending in Barbados, 17 teams row over 2,550 mile across the ocean. The first team finished mid January in 41 days and some are still out at sea, finishing in up to 3 months. I photographed the prep and start of the race and then the finish. I’ve been called a sports photographer and get a ton of related assignments, but clients ask me to capture more of the emotion and behind the scenes, instead of the physical  activity of the sport. This was a dream gig, there was tones of crying and celebrating with the teams being gone for so long and with having their families there to send them off and celebrate they’re arrival. I’ve worked a bunch with the agency Kesselskramer in Amsterdam and was thrilled to be brought on board to shoot the project.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

BF: Happily in Brooklyn. Not sure what to say, amazing food, great friends and good times all around. I’m very happy here.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

BF: Excited to share the news that my 3rd book entitled Construction is being published by DECODE Books for release in September with coinciding exhibition at ClampArt, NYC.

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

BF: Always keep making personal work, through all the ups and downs of working commercially, it’s great to have the grounding.

JC: Favourite tree?

BF: Maple and apple, cause’ they make the best wood chips for smokn’ BBQ baby back ribs.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

KENNY HURTADO: My friends are putting me up in a live/work space in downtown LA. They start showing up around 9am to work I make sure to be up and going before they walk in or else I’d feel like a total slob. 

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

KH: Yeah I frequently view Andres Gonzalez’s work, Ed Panar, Nicholas Meyer and Torbjorn Rodland especially his books I Want To Live Innocent and White Planet Black Heart. 

JC: What is your current project all about?

KH: My current project Day Passing was done in Tennessee, it came together after I picked up and left California on a whim. I got on I-40 and drove East landing in Memphis, Tn. Never thought Id live in the south or anywhere in middle America. I wasn’t looking to do a project on the South per se. Was more interested in the way I connected personally and emotionally without the idea of the South as place to be the basis of the work.      

JC: What equipment are you currently using?

KH: I mostly use a 4x5 SpeedGraphic and Mamiya 7. As of recently Iv been using a 5D. When I have film to scan I use an Epson V700 and Photoshop to spot and color correct nothing to fancy.  

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

KH: I finished school in 2010. Since then I’ve been working odd jobs to pay for personal work and haven’t been too focused on trying to pick up commercial jobs, but starting to get to that point like why the hell not.  

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

KH: I’d recommend not going straight into full time photo assisting or some 9-5 right out of school. Keep your schedule open as possible. It’s best to spend a few years or more focusing on personal work beating yourself into the ground financially, giving yourself time to develop outside of the academic environment.     

JC: Favourite tree?

KH: I’d probably say a Red Wood Pine, but really I don’t have one. I tend to photograph trees a lot, no particular reason. Whenever I’m driving around making work I almost always turn off where I see the densest trees.  

JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

WESLEY HAM: Someone put a camera in my hand after I had been in college for about two years (a Canon AE-1) and it came very natural to me, but I never thought it would be something I would do everyday, or something you could do for a living. Where I went to school growing up there was no artistic influence, I didn’t even know what an artist was. Two years later I finally took a basic photography class in college and I just took off from there. After a few months I realized that I was always a photographer / image-maker from the day I was born. I realized I had been making photographs with my eyes and mind, creating photographic memories since I could remember. I always have seen the world photographically…  but it took a while to realize and embrace this. 

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

WH: Well, I teach photography at the International Center of Photography and New York City College of Technology and I come across dozens of emerging photographers who are doing great work. But mostly I am inspired by the teenage students I teach. They are so full of hope about the world and open to knew things. They haven’t learned the bad habits of shackling themselves to one thing, their minds are open. I steal their ideas all the time… Also, with the blogosphere I see so much great imagery it’s hard to pinpoint specifics, but right now I’m really into the work of Michael Schmelling (most specifically his Atlanta book).

JC: Whats your current project all about?

WH: Like everybody else I have too many projects going on in my head at one time… I have an ongoing project that is a series of composited images from collected photography and my own imagery about the South.

But in terms of more “straight” photography, I recently started a new project documenting the landscape and people of South Louisiana, where I grew up. I travel home often and turn my camera on friends and family that still live there, as well as on people that I come across. The landscapes I photograph vary from having a direct connection to my early life, and scenes that I find… I’m interested in how the landscape shapes people and how in turn people define themselves by the place they exist in, physically and culturally. South Louisiana is such a unique place, that it took running away from it to realize how different it is, and how much the place had a hand in shaping me.

I see it eventually being a book…

I work in video as well. In tandem with my Louisiana project, I am working on a documentary film about a musician I met living under a bridge in Baton Rouge named Terry Lang. He’s known as Baton Rouge Bucketman. He plays plastic buckets as drums, harmonica and keyboard. His music is great and he is an individual full of hope…

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

WH: I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 

I think New York City is shaping me in a way that it has helped me see my early life through a better perspective. Greenpoint specifically is a great neighborhood, full of nice people, and it’s quiet which is good. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time teaching since I got out of school in New York, which has had positive and negative effects on my own photographic art practice. Being a good teacher takes a lot of creative energy, and you sometimes exhaust your own creative energy for the sake of someone else… Also, New York is shaping me into being poor… it’s fucking expensive here…

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

WH: Go to Mexico, or somewhere cheap where you can decompress from school. Seriously, take some time to reflect on what was bullshit and what was real from what you learned in school. Then, get busy. Do whatever it takes to learn as much as possible as fast as possible. Make a 5 year plan, visualize yourself in the future and come up with a real plan to make it there. Also, try to work for free as little as possible. People will exploit free labor. If your not learning something in an internship or assistantship, bounce. If you are teaching your boss, bounce. Also, fight for the time to make your own work. Don’t spend your life helping other people make their work…

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

WH: Just continuing to teach and work towards my project in South Louisiana. Also, I’m trying to start a company with my long-time friend doing video docu-branding for small businesses and companies… We’re in the beginning phases so we’ll see how it goes… But in general, 2012 is the year of getting paid.

JC: Favourite tree?

WH: Magnolia, the state tree of Louisiana… definitely. Growing up these were the easiest trees to climb. And they smell amazing.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

TYSON MILLAR: Falling into the gen-y (just) clan doesn’t help… It was the digi-revolution of cameras that got me into chasing light and shadows. I dipped my toes into the photography-pond with a Nikon D70. I began shooting my cousin who is a professional vert skater from Melbourne, although I shot him in my home town of Perth, at an X-Games event. It was a good event to join him at the coping of the ramp. I soon realised I was having no fun with post-processing and moved rapidly in to the deep end by purchasing a med-format Twin Len Reflex Yashica for $180 Aussie dollars on Ebay and it all spawned from there. I don’t like to talk about studying photography as I don’t feel it gave me much inspiration or drive to pursue long term desires in my passion.

I now exclusively shoot film running through anywhere between 2-10 rolls a week, developing and scanning it myself at home. Life’s good.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the mo?

TM: There’s so much to trawl through these days with web-hosting and blog sites being built for exploiting your images, it’ rad. But I really get impressed by those who live and die by the sword, you know, those film camera kids who lug their equipment everywhere. And anyone who can emulate that nostalgic, vivid feel of film. Artist’s like William Broadhurst & Karla Read, google them if you have to, but for me these guys have got life dialed.

I have a strong passion for music and I see great prospects from bands like Two Wounded Birds and The Vincent Gallows as well as solo artists; Joe McKee and Andy Citawarman.

JC: Whats your current project all about?

TM: I still consider my stuff as foot-finding, and I am not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with one set project but I am concerntrating on emulating the 60/70’s film era of music and bands. I spend a lot of time sifting through gig-guides and reviews trying to find the the emerging artists who usually prove elusive or difficult to shoot in low light situations. It’s an ongoing portion of work that is a perpetually concurrent passion for me.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

TM: I am living in London, UK and have been here for a little over a year now (since moving from Brisbane, Australia). Every eye-popping walk through Liverpool Street, every homeless man, every corporate banker riding to work with his hem tucked into his socks has shaped me since moving on from a difficult time in my life last year. The capital city is so fast paced especilly when you hail from the most isolated capital city in Australia. But it’s the contrasts of the city that grip you - the scum is awe inspiring and beautiful is simple and alluring.

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

TM: I think I am better at giving my solemn views and opinions than giving anyone photography advice so I will say that the more the camera is in your hands firing that shutter the more you will grow as photographer. For me, I don’t try to think about the shots I take, instead I believe I capture what I think about.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

TM: Nothing big, but my plan is to shoot and develop more rolls than I did last year, but I am not going to count them out. I know I will already surpass it. I also know that it will shape me more in terms of personal progression and experience.

I will hang photos in a gallery also, but when and where is really up to those who would want my work cluttering their wall.

JC: Favourite tree?

TM: The tree I shot on my 13th Jan Tumblr post. It’s evil and beautiful in the same breath. I love all tress though, they’re a little harder to come by in a place like London.

MULL IT OVER is proud to recommend Matt Nager this February! Matt has an extensive portfolio of personal and commercial work. He has good eyes.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What gets you up in the morning?

MATT NAGER: Usually coffee! Actually, I am not a morning person, so my day usually begins slowly around 9am. On a deeper level though, I look at each day as an opportunity to discover something new, whether that be new inspiration for a photo project, meeting a new person on an assigned photo shoot, or having a great day in the mountains. 

JC: Are there any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

MN: Although they are already pretty experienced my favorite two photographers at the moment are Michael Christopher Brown and Carolyn Drake. They do amazing work. Mostly documentary in nature, their photography is both journalistic and art.

JC: What is your current project all about?

MN: At the moment I am between projects. I have several projects in the research phase, but nothing that I am shooting right now. I recently finished filming and photographing my first documentary looking into the rise in health issues in Southern Italy due to toxic waste disposal in the region. Check out the website for that film here and the photos here. 

JC: What draws you to portraiture?

MN: I love people and I love telling stories. I originally went to journalism school with the idea of working for a newspaper. Unfortunately, that industry has seen quite a rough few years. When I started freelancing in Dallas a few years ago portraits were what I was hired to do. As I developed my skills shooting portraits, I really grew to enjoy meeting people, talking with them, and photographing them… in their environment. I still enjoy longer term documentary projects which enable me to spend months with a person or an idea a photograph it in a variety of ways, but there is something magical about capturing a person, or a place for that matter, in a ingle portrait.

JC: What equipment are you currently using? (cameras, software, hardware)

MN: I currently shoot on Nikon digital equipment. The Nikon D700 to be exact. I also shoot film and love my Mamiya 6 medium format camera.

JC: How do you find juggling personal & commercial work?

MN: It is not a struggle at all. I find time to do both personal work and commercial work because my personal projects tend to be long term and require a lot of research before the project begins. I take that time to earn money through commercial work which will allow me to photograph my personal projects. I also always try to think of projects that I can potentially sell when researching potential personal work. That way, I often make my money back after I am done working.

JC: Any advice to recent photography graduates?

MN: It takes time, but think about what you like to shoot and focus on those subjects. If you want to make money or be successful in photography, you need to find your corner and become the master of that corner. If you like shooting portraits focus on finding your style as a portrait photographer. Also, don’t loose motivation to shoot how you want simply because of how others shoot. Follow what you enjoy and the work will come.

JC: Favourite tree?

MN: Currently… the Maple Tree.