For Christina Smith, a fourth-year studio art student, and Julia Bennett, a third-year marine science student, winning the Pop-Up Show meant more than an award. It meant furthering their passions for photography.
“[The experience] was new for a lot of us,” said Smith, the first place winner.
Meg Griffins, a photography professor at USC, said students came together and decided to put on the Pop-Up Show and frame all of their own photographs. Griffins helped students organize the event.
In conjunction with the USC Photography Festival, the Pop-Up Show featured 26 pieces of student artwork. Dennis Kiel took on the task of judging the photographs and chose the first-, second- and third-place winners.
“It wasn’t easy to narrow it down; it was some great work,” Kiel said.
Bennett, who won second place, said that upon arriving at the university, she didn’t know that the photography department existed and now calls her professors her mentors.
“This program really inspired me a lot,” Bennett said. “I fell in love with the photography department, and photography is one of the only things that I know how to communicate with.”
Visiting Columbia College Chicago professor and photographer Myra Greene said she would like to reach out more to students and the community with her work. She described her work as conceptually based and said the ideas she comes up with drive her pictures.
“I felt that coming here was a nice opportunity to see what students are doing,” Greene said in her keynote address.
Greene asked the audience about what people see when they look at photographs, saying that her goal is always to recognize the different layers involved.
Jessica Christine Owen, a graduate student photographer, hosted her own show entitled “Amour Propre” at McMaster Gallery.
“This project is about the difference between where love lies and self-obsession,” Owen said.
This project was a side project of her thesis that dealt with the early Western civilization’s standards of beauty and how they have changed over the past five centuries.
“The idea of the current beauty standards has constantly been a driving factor [in my work] with society’s idea of this is what you have to be; it’s pushed on us in the media,” Owen said.
Over time, Owen was able to open up more about her work’s meaning, and she credited her adviser, who helped her to “cross some lines” and allowed her to “be confident in her own skin.”
“I want to get out to a larger audience and find myself in academic roles, so I can start showing my knowledge and giving it back to the community,” Owen said.