Grand Illusions

Grand Illusions

  • 2013
  • Gladys Marcus Library
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Selected student work from Prof. Stedroy Cleghorne's class PH406: Digital Special Effects and Photographic Retouching
Photography by Collins Nai

Photography by Collins Nai

  • 2016
  • Gladys Marcus Library
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Works by Collins Nai, BFA Photography 2017
30 Collective

30 Collective

  • 2015
  • Gladys Marcus Library
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Photography department AAS and BFA student works
In & Out: Interiors and Exteriors

In & Out: Interiors and Exteriors

  • 2013
  • Gladys Marcus Library
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Photography department AAS and BFA student works 2013
Photography and Related Media Thesis Exhibition 2023: Before I Leave

Photography and Related Media Thesis Exhibition 2023: Before I Leave

  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Annuals (exhibitions)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Program/Degree: Photography and Related Media BFA
Thrifting Throughout NYC

Thrifting Throughout NYC

Blake Frase
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
For this project Blake wanted to create staged realities of objects that do not technically go together, but they look like they do. Her idea was to go to 3 different stores throughout New York City. When she first goes into a thrift store she looks around at the objects and sees what she can find. Seeing if something sparks interest or ideas to create a scene. Once she thinks of something, she starts collecting the items and looking for materials. This might be like fabrics, scarfs, gloves, anything that seems like it would enhance the scene. This process takes a while to get the exact scene Blake desires. She finds this interesting because none of the objects would typically go together unless she bought them and used them all together. You will also notice that each frame has been thrifted from a different store where the objects were collected.
More Than Just Clothes

More Than Just Clothes

Isabella Picicci
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
Fashion has always been a part of my life, whether it’s creating and adding to my own personal style or photographing other people’s fashion. I didn’t always know I wanted to use my photography to capture fashion and people, but once I knew, it’s all I have wanted to focus on.
Little Steph finding Big Steph

Little Steph finding Big Steph

Stephanie Flores-Avina
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
My work is about “finding myself”. No matter the amount of goals reached, the feeling of unfulfillment is still there. In moments of realization that I’m living the life I imagined myself to be when I was younger, I start to wonder when will I feel fulfilled? In my ongoing project, Little Steph Finding Big Steph, each photograph consists of multiple shots creating a composition that brings the viewers into a made up world in which I am the main subject. Using my photoshop skills allows me to recreate the thoughts in my head. These photographs show the exploration between my younger self and who I am today. I’m highly influenced by my Chicano culture which I incorporate in my work, whether it’s very prominent or just small details. My bright compositions resemble the vivid colors that the Chicano culture consists of, from freshly painted lowriders to traditional Mexican clothing. Growing up in a small town in New Jersey was difficult for me, where I wasn’t considered “Mexican enough” and I wasn’t “white enough”. I was fortunate enough to spend my summers with my family in California, where I was exposed to a different culture. As I got older I recognized the comfort and the feeling of belonging while I was out there. Eventually realizing that this is my culture, the Chicano culture. From that moment on, I began to feel more powerful and confident in who I am and where I came from. Being a Chicano or Chicana is to be an American of Mexican descent. My work is to share my experience of finding myself as an individual in hopes of inspiring others who share common struggles.
LoMonaco

LoMonaco

Will Pippin
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
Program/Degree: Photography and Related Media BFA
Let's Play

Let's Play

Sara Wright
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
This project focuses on American politics in the year 2022-2023. Using toys and clay, I have created an atmosphere that embodies the reality of how radically dysfunctional society is today. This project focuses on various topics, from gun control to trash waste management, to evoke discussion and change.
Politics and the discussion of morality in recent years have been on my mind. I have never really thought of myself as an “activist” mainly because I never knew how to present my voice in a way that was different from what people were already doing. In the past year, so much in America has been up for debate, uncertainty flows throughout the country as republicans and democrats scramble to see who will gain more seats in the Senate and in the House of representatives. Politics today has become very divided as extremist party figures from both sides are becoming more bold, such as showcasing white-supremacy to mainstream media.
This project focuses on the issues pertaining to left leaning ideals, focusing on topics that relate to equality, community, and social responsibility. The comparison of politics between the aspect of using children's toys is to relate policy decisions to how they will affect future generations. Not only is the current political climate very psychologically damaging to children, current discussion of laws and policies regard the conversation of children, whether that be abortion, gun control, immigration, capitalism, and so on. The juxtaposition of children and politics is to emphasize their relationship pertaining to innocence and violence.
Those Who Never Leave

Those Who Never Leave

Alexa Acevedo
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
About this work: Those Who Never Leave is a dedication and a visual diary into my life surrounded by my family and friends. It’s about these incredible people who have helped and watched me grow as a person and photographer.
Self Portraits with Strangers

Self Portraits with Strangers

Danikah Chartier
  • 2023
  • Photography and Related Media
To overcome her social anxiety, Danikah Chartier makes intimate self-portraits with strangers in Central Park. She looks for people who appear to be truly present and are practicing creativity in some way. She will propose the project to them and if they enthusiastically consent Danikah will get to know them through conversation while she sets up her camera and backdrop. To begin, the partners will stare into each other's eyes for a few moments to create a synergy. They will then collaborate in an activity to further emotionally bind them and to pose for the camera. Examples of activities that Danikah and her partners have experienced together include hair braiding, bird watching, reading, hugging, meditating, etc. Self Portraits with Strangers is a celebration of equality, safety, and consent as Danikah’s participants will be the ones to trigger the camera with a pressure release cable when they feel that the moment is right. This makes them just as much the photographer as they are the muse and makes Danikah just as much the muse as she is the photographer.
Into the Glass Box

Into the Glass Box

  • 2018
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
  • Photographs
Dates: Fall 2018
Photography and Related Media Thesis Exhibition 2022: Where the Light Catches

Photography and Related Media Thesis Exhibition 2022: Where the Light Catches

  • 2022
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
  • Exhibitions (events)
  • Annuals (exhibitions)
  • Exhibition installation photographs
Program/Degree: Photography and Related Media BFA
Brown Paper Bag Test

Brown Paper Bag Test

Maiya Wright
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
Society perceives lighter skin tones as better in terms of beauty, worth and power. Young people in the Black community have perpetuated this idea. My project addresses colorism within the Black community and the effects it has on this and future generations. Asking various questions about complexion will start the conversation among those who experience or contribute to colorism. Questions like, "Do you know what colorism is, do you think colorism is real and do you know what the paper bag test is? " will bring personal awareness to others. Exploring what impact the brown paper bag test has among Black people will educate those who are not aware of its affect. As the next generation, we have the power to change society for the better, to be less racist and less bigoted. I may not stop colorism alone, but I want to be part of the solution to fix it.
New Beginnings

New Beginnings

Kimberly Vo
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
My thesis project visually explores the transformation of my relationship with my mother. When I was 7 years old my parents divorced. My mother was having an affair, and because of that, there was a falling-out between us and I developed resentment towards her. I lost respect and trust for her, which led me to believe that our relationship could not be healed. Silence filled our home and we were never the same. After a few years, my mother began to date another man, which changed her perspective on life and pushed her to make amends with me. The COVID-19 lockdown opened up an opportunity for us to talk and take the first steps to move forward. The act of photography allowed me to heal old wounds, which helped me reconnect my relationship with my mother.
We Live Here, We Love Here

We Live Here, We Love Here

Kayden Strauss
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
I have found that, throughout my life, my art is very personal to me and continues to be a form of processing my surrounding thoughts. Every image is influenced by my identity, exploring and memorializing what makes me who I am. When working, my methods are executed deliberately, focusing on agency and consent. Through my use of texture, color, and phrasing, I portray an image of a feeling. My current project, "We Live Here, We Love Here," is a series of identity portraitures that document trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Inspired by the collective loss felt throughout history, each person is meant to be frozen in time. While influenced by the past, it also visualizes the future. I want to celebrate and uplift the community that has welcomed me so kindly, while still preserving it from outside forces. No matter what may happen, their stories are preserved and told.
Under Inner Core

Under Inner Core

Toni Smalls
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Video
  • Image
"Under Inner Core" is a visual poetry EP. It is a short film comprising five varying vignettes, each paired with five poems — turned into one long film. I've used this project as an exploration of my emotional landscape. I have always hidden under a faux vulnerability — I pretend that I am being honest about my emotions to keep others at bay. In reality, the feelings of being "alone in my own home" overwhelm me daily, relentlessly. The isolation weighs, feeling like a fog surrounding whatever space I occupy. In order to explore that friction, I intentionally clash the two realities by bringing household items into nature, and working with models who were Black, Indigenous or people of color as stand-ins for myself. I worked with BIPOC fashion designers to style the models in designs with emotional pull. The film is written, directed, shot, set-designed, and produced by me.
The City of Strangers

The City of Strangers

Elizabeth Scott
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
I am a mixed-media visual artist who likes to focus on abstract and surrealist work. In "The City of Strangers" series, I enjoy photographing New York and its people, but I also heavily manipulate the images by placing multiple layers, different shapes, and saturated colors over the composition. These manipulations are of natural and man-made abstractions that have grabbed my attention ever since I was a child. These abstractions are typically left unseen in our fast-paced adult lives, but their rediscovery reminds me of my childhood, when one finds beauty and magic in everything around, no matter how minuscule it may be, whether in a dream or in reality. There is a conflict in us to grow up and to retain our innocence in how we interact with the world — the difference between what we call a documentary, and what we call fantasy.
From A Past Life

From A Past Life

Anthony Santos
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
"From A Past Life" explores the arrangements of mundane objects. By constructing sculptures from various materials, such as metal, glass, wood, and wire, I create a series of still lives which explores contrasts and the transitions between objective and abstract appearance. This essentially creates a new formal and conceptual language by actively using open and negative space. The use of lines and shapes will work to modify and reinvent the formal language of minimalism, producing new relationships between the viewer and the surrounding environment.
The New Dystopia: Perceptions from an Alienated Society

The New Dystopia: Perceptions from an Alienated Society

Noah Sachs
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
My senior thesis project, entitled "The New Dystopia: Perceptions from an Alienated Society," focuses on this new era we are all living through by using a filtered perspective that serves chaos and fear. The first four series of components or "chapters," travel through my mental space prior to and during the pandemic and ultimately lead to the final series, called "Revival." "Revival" serves as the final point of the project that transforms all of the negative energy into something influential. The intended larger message that "TND: PFAAS" wants to convey is that everyone is being alienated by something in society, and that is the new dystopia. This work has been important for me to create because it has allowed me to create from my own personal struggles while at the same time utilizing what goes on in the world collectively.
All That Remains

All That Remains

James Rubesh
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
"All That Remains" is a historical, artistic approach to the abandoned remains of the buildings at Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital, and a look at the forgotten information that lies beneath the rubble. The project is ongoing and aims to gather the viewers' attention, give them the history of what went on in the early days of mental institutions, and provide imagery to go along with it, though not depicting any malpractice or treatment of the patients. There is a deep sense of the forgotten individuals and the lives that remain as memories within the walls. My love for the history of these places has brought me to this research and image-taking, and I aim to create the best images possible to capture the feeling of the space as well as to provoke the thought of what happened.
Close to Home

Close to Home

Laura Rodriguez
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
"Close to Home" is a photographic series of suburban and industrial landscapes taken at dusk, in my hometown of Oceanside, New York. Despite growing up in this town, I have always felt disconnected from the environment. Oceanside is like any other suburban town, and just like any other city, it has its defining characteristics and oddities that I've always questioned. For instance, a mysterious landfill that no one knows anything about, chemical-filled canals that are threaded throughout the town, and a small sector of factories given the title "Oil City." Although the connection I have to the locations is detached and cold, I also find beauty in the places I photograph. The images are eerie, atmospheric, and dark, evoking the same emotions of uncertainty and tension that I feel while taking them. These classic suburban landscapes are empty and vacant of people, once inhabited spaces but now filled with suspense.
Vanha-Maahi

Vanha-Maahi

Tyler Roarty
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
"Vanha-Maahi" centers around the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland that is based around folklore and mythology. I use the long-established American practice of quilt-making, which developed as a communicative tool, to pass down generational stories. I use vernacular images of my family to connect to my Finnish roots, relating members of my family to characters in the Kalevala. In the quilt, each photographic fabric block corresponds to one of the runes in the national epic. Select images on the quilt have accompanying audio read by my family, reciting a few lines from each selected story. This audio is played over a common Finnish lullaby, Nuku Nuku. Parts of the background are naturally dyed blue with indigo to reference the Finnish flag and its spiritual symbolism. I connect with my FinnishAmerican heritage by merging traditional values from each to transcend the feeling of domesticity, nostalgia, and time.
The Land Before Time

The Land Before Time

Nell Pittman
  • 2021
  • Photography and Related Media
  • Image
The summer following my father's unexpected death, my mom, sister, and I traveled aimlessly across North America spreading his ashes. On these trips we found solace in bathing in streams, on long stretches of road touching flowering deserts, and in just seeing that the world was bigger than daddy dying. My memories of uninhabited land and the grief we poured into it are the inspiration behind my current photographic series. The collection consists of self-portraits alongside my family, evoking a once-familiar, yet now otherworldly utopia. There are no signs of modern life; the photographs are taken in tucked-away parts of nature that have not been directly altered by humans. The landscapes I chose to photograph are specific to my memories: a dried-up lake we used to canoe across, the wooded path where my parents got married, and landscapes reminiscent of those we traveled through while spreading his ashes.