Brianna Marie Collins was born on July 21 in 1991, in the small village of Hamlin, Pennsylvania. She joined a band in 2005, which allowed her to travel outside Hamlin to larger cities, and then she made the choice to move to Philadelphia in 2009. She always knew that she wanted to live in a bigger city: “There was definitely a small town mentality that I did not feel like I could relate to.” Tyler School of Art became her choice school because it was far enough away from Hamlin, but not far enough that she couldn’t go visit friends and family every once in a while. When she bought her first DSLR, Brianna used her photographs mostly for painting visual references. When she applied to Tyler, she had every intention on majoring in painting, soon to realize that some painting instructors did not appreciate Brianna’s style of painting. She took a darkroom photography class in high school, and decided that the photography department at Tyler was the best fit for her. Brianna is currently majoring in Photography with a concentration in Art Education.
Q: Where do you see yourself as an artist? Ultimate goals? Dreams/Ambitions?
A: My dream would to be successful as an artist. I don’t see myself necessarily represented by a gallery, but I want people to enjoy my work and also buy my work. I would define success as me making enough money to live while still doing what I love. I am also pursing an Art Education certification. I would love to be a high school photography teacher or an elementary art schoolteacher, while still maintaining a studio practice. I am also thinking about going to grad school and then teaching at a collegiate level.
Q: Do you shoot digital or analog or both?
A: I prefer to shoot analog, although I do enjoy the combination of analog and digital practices, such as scanning in film and printing digitally. I love alternative processes and ways that a photograph can be represented in ways other than a digital print. I think that I just shoot better on analog than digital, whether it’s 35mm or 4x5.
Q: What are some of your influences, both personal and cultural?
A: My personal influences derive from the selfishness of being a 21 year old. I am interested in what is immediate and interesting to me, such as my friends or what we do with our time. Joyce Tenneson revealed in her lecture the other day that she was doing the same thing, photographing young women, but it took her a while to realize that she was actually depicting herself in the ways that she represented these young women. This made me think of the way that I shoot. I find myself drawn to photographing my friends, particularly my friends who remind me of myself in certain ways. I am interested in the portrait and how it is a visual display of information about a particular person.
Q: What are the overarching themes of your work?
A: In my previous work the obvious theme was women. I prefer photographing women to men, and I think that’s because I have an idea of how I like to be photographed, and I project this idea onto the way that I photograph another woman. This also has to do with the relation to my own identity. I did a series titled Recontre Entre Individus, which was a visual exploration on the beauty of aging in women, and how I would photograph women that I did not know versus women that I did know.
Another recurring element in my 35mm color work is a snapshot aesthetic. Most of my 35mm images are capturing a moment or an event of something that I find important to describe about my friends and myself.
The latest thematic exploration that I am delving in is the area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. From railroad tracks to warehouses, there are remnants of the early 20th century that define the history and feeling of the area. My current work explores time, reference to the history of photography in the way that I choose to shoot these images (4x5 camera), and my own personal relation to these areas with portraits of myself, and also a portrait of the person who opened my eyes to a lot of these areas.
Review by Mindy Karper
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