Article by Brendan Flanagan | Owl Staff
For more than four decades, HCC’s photography department has been giving students the opportunity and resources to express their artistic minds in new and creative ways.
Stephen McFillin, one of Owl Media’s photographers, wanted to get a behind-the-scenes look into the department and ask students and staff about photography and what learning about it has done for them.
“I generally was always interested in photography,” explains McFillin. “I wanted to take an elective for my Mass Comm major, and I saw photography and thought ‘hey, that’s cool!'”
“I always liked photography, I enjoyed black & white much more than digital.” says Clarissa Desaleo, an Engineering major. “I learned how to take pictures and how to map them and cut mat boards, which is oddly hard!”
When asked what tips she would give to those getting into the field, Photography major Megan Marie had this to say.
“Think outside of the box. There are moments where I was very hesitant to do self portraiture” states Marie. “Once someone convinced me to do it because they said ‘maybe you’ll end up liking it.’ I actually did end up liking it, and now I do them more often whenever I’m short on models or a model bails at the last minute, I have myself!”
McFillin also asked Associate Professor of Art + Design/Photography Coordinator Jeffrey Rollinger for insight on his role teaching photography.
“I wanted to teach photography from a very early age.” says Rollinger. “I worked commercially for a couple years and almost immediately got burned out.”
“Everybody pulls out their smartphone and takes photographs,” explains Rollinger. “It’s a skill that, there’s not a person on planet earth that couldn’t benefit from learning a bit more of.”