This semester, the nine students in Associate Professor of Art Michael Kolster‘s photography seminar pursued independent projects based on the concept of exploring with their cameras. The final projects, which the students recently presented to the public, displayed a range of ideas and objects. Yet they all shared a common theme — photography’s power to allow us to see the world anew.

The students present their work Pecha Kucha style, which allows speakers 20 seconds to show each of 20 images. Each project incorporated layers of stories and angles. Sophomore Garrett English created panoramas of cars along Maine Street in Brunswick, which at first glance seem to display a single moment in time. But looking at them carefully, viewers realize that the bodies of cars do not match up, showing a manipulation of space and time.

Alana Menendez ’15 spent her semester making re-photographed constructions. She initially focused on the aesthetics of lines, creating quiet and organized photographs, and later began to cut forms within images. Menendez is currently taking a GIS course, and her engagement with maps and geology played distinctive roles in her project. She pointed out that maps are similar to photographs in that they are interpretations of spaces we hold to be true.

Junior Sarah Haimes’ early works focused on black and white images that were controlled, abstract and confusing. She said she was interested in the idea of ridding the models of their identity, and instead using lines and contours of the bodies to create sculptural forms — blurring the line between familiarity and strangeness. Through her project she also challenged the concept of beauty, snapping pictures of the process of a woman getting ready for a night out.