Mindy Karper

Mindy is currently developing a body of work that documents people, their occupations, and the psychology behind whether people are working to live or living to work. Karper states,  “I am from a working family, and now that I am on my own, putting myself through collage, with two jobs, I find the concept fascinating. We live our lives to work from day to day, for what? To have enough money to some day not work anymore? … Why do we work? Why does society make us work? Our culture is a “get rich quick” and the “American dream”- none of either actually exist anymore.”

With a clear goal in mind, Mindy has created imagery based on this concept in multiple ways. In 2011 she documented her own job at the supermarket Giant as it was closing, photographing portraits of her coworkers in their environment. Photographed using an analog camera and printed in the darkroom, these images are clearly influenced by Lewis Hine and his environmental portraits of factory workers in the early 1900s. Mindy’s work has progressed from analog to digital, and with this shift has come clarity of concept in her images. Photographing digitally in color, Mindy’s most recent work includes portraits of American workers in their work environments, similar to her work at Giant, but simplified. The photographs include enough visual clues to give context that the persons being photographed are doing a specific job, without revealing too much of their workspace. By photographing the subject closely, the photograph is more about the personality of the person in conjunction with their role as a worker, rather than talking about the job itself.

Mindy’s has a compelling concept, to document the modern day American worker and the psychology behind why we work. As Mindy progresses through investigations of different ways to shoot these workers, she has become more successful with each attempt. Her choice to move from analog to digital, black and white to color, and adding in attention to the lighting of the subject has brought a clarity and conciseness to her images. She is on the road to her goal to be known as a social documentary photographer.

Written by: Brianna Collins