Alyssa Flores

When I started learning about photography in high school, I took photographs on a whim. I only used automatic settings and photographed anything and everything around campus for the yearbook staff. I fell in love with the darkroom but struggled with muddy prints from underexposed negatives. I finally understood camera settings and proper exposure when I started taking photography classes in college. I slowly became more confident shooting on manual settings and focusing more on composition and concepts in my work. Most of my black-and-white images are class assignments printed on Ilford fiber-based paper that I developed and printed in the art school darkroom. My color images were taken with the small Nikon P5000 or Canon Rebel XSi. I have been fortunate to travel throughout the U.S., Mexico, and around Western Europe. My best work has come from spontaneous shooting with the least amount of preparation. The blue bottles in Santa Fe, or the reflecting bridge in Dublin took little effort as opposed to the premeditated decisions made for work with film. I learned it best from two of my favorite photographers that we do not need to take multiple shots of one thing. Especially with film, if I do not have it the first time, then I was probably not meant to have it.