Jennifer Y. Collins

“I have a Chinese middle name.”

- Fun Fact about Jennifer

Artist statement

I am interested in the ways photography can be used to portray nature in a fictional way. Nature has always been a way to escape my problems, I see it as an imaginative refuge. However, as I’ve gotten older it’s become more difficult to escape the problems around me. 

With this project I want to portray a dreamscape that’s both full of illuminating colors and beautiful scenery, but also of confusion, foreboding and curiosity. This project explores the space between dreaming and reality, light and dark, and life and death. It shows another way in which we are connected to nature.

My main location for photographing is the Arnold Arboretum. It's a landscape that has been meticulously laid out and with my images I disrupt it. It’s a space that’s both natural and unnatural and I try to heighten that sense by introducing artificial colors. My practice is very intuitive. I walk around until trees and other elements line up in a way that catches my eye. I work with LED lights which allow me to use colors that feel artificial within a space.

I’ve taken inspiration from ​​Cig Harvey, Jitka Hanzlová and Barbara Bosworth. Cig Harvey’s works with vibrant colors. She creates hyper focused and controlled images, removing or adding objects as necessary to create a specific visual effect. Jitka Hanzlová’s Forest series also speaks to me. She captures the forest in a very intimate way, creating  both familiarity, darkness and change within her images. Barbara Bosworth also captures the relationship between humans and nature but with less artifice, using an 8x10 view camera. Within her images, you can see her genuine love and curiosity for nature.

My work is also heavily influenced by children’s movies and literature and there is something illustrative and imaginative to the arboretum that conveys these.

Biography

Boylston, MA (Born in Changsha, China)

Jennifer Y. Collins is an emerging artist currently a senior at Massachusetts College of Art and Design majoring in photography. Her work tells stories about the natural world through light, landscapes and abstracted forms. She interned for Barbara Bosworth and the art department at North Hill. She’s been published in Humana Obscura and Simmon’s University Magazine. She’s exhibited at ArtsWorcester, Boomer Gallery in London, UK, Float Magazine, Lenscratch, and numerous exhibitions held within her school.

Interview

Nick - I recently was fortunate enough to talk with Jennifer Collins, a soon to be BFA holder at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design studying photography. We spoke about Jennifer's current Project from her senior thesis looking at her wonderment and curiosity with dream-like nightscapes and the safety of the natural environment. We talked about practice, influence and what is to come. Jennifer states that her “work depicts nature ranging from vast landscapes to intimate images of flowers while exploring themes of fiction converging with reality and the different ways nature can activate one's imagination.” Jennifer has been recently exhibited in the Inner World at Boomer Gallery in London, Distant Dialogue for Float Magazine and The Favorite Photo You took in 2023 for Lenscratch.

Nick - Name and age

Jennifer - My name is Jennifer Collins and I'm 22 years old

Nick - What initially got you interested in the medium? Were there other mediums that came before photography like painting or drawing.

Jennifer - No. I never was very serious in any art forms besides photography. I did do some drawing and painting lessons when I was in fourth grade to 5th grade, but that only lasted the year. I wasn't really enthusiastic about it, I’m not really sure why I started it. But basically it was when I was around 11 or 12ish when I got instagram and a lot of photographers were showing up in my feed and in my suggestions and it was mostly a lot of floral photography and stuff like that. I really liked how they were capturing these little instances in life and highlighting them and wanted to do the same. I first started out photographing on some version of an iPhone, I think it was like an iPhone 4 and that was my main camera until about a year and half later/2 years. Then I asked my mom if I could get an actual camera and she told me that we had an old Canon Rebel XTI in the closet for some reason – and it worked, so then I used that. I only had the small standard zoom lens and then a small telephoto lens and then I got the trusty Canon 50mm 1.8 lens. And that's sort of what I started with.

Nick - You sort of answered my second question but What was really at the start, your interest? You mentioned a lot of floral photography inspiring you and that sort of stuff... was that sort of your go to?

Jennifer - Yeah– It was definitely my go to. Like that's what really caught my eye usually and what I found a lot of inspiration in and so I sort of just stuck with that. I did take senior portraits in highschool but that was more to make money. I sort of have been doing that up until now [Floral/botanical work] and then since being in the city, there aren't really any flowers. I ended up doing landscapes.

Nick - So kind of leading up to Thesis now, what sort of work have you been making before the thesis that has sort of informed this deeper study. (Like earlier projects Junior Year and stuff Like that)

Jennifer - Honestly I feel like I'm really inspired by my imagination. I think my project last spring kind of is what started it all I guess. I mean I guess I haven't really ever done night photography before besides like a few shots of trying to get the stars but that was years ago. And then it wasn't really until last semester during Amani’s [Amani Willet] class where I got the idea of bringing lights at night, where I did one photoshoot doing that and then I think definitely the seasons contributed to that. But I found I haven't really been inspired to take photos during the day, so I think just introducing these colorful lights at night has really excited me and started this new interest.

Nick - What are you thinking about that's being materialized in the work now? Are you writing things, are you reading things? If so, what? What's going on in your brain to sort of feed this?

Jennifer - A lot of instagram– there's an artist Taysa Jorge that I found within the past year. But they have really helped me and influenced me in these night scenes. There is this other photographer Summer Wagner, she does more spiritual and social things and portraits, that are very Gregory Crewdson-esque that are very scaled down and they definitely have influenced me. But definitely a lot of instagram. I haven't really read anything, at least not for this project but I do listen to music. But other than that, that’s kind of been what's fueling my inspirations and motivations for this project.

Nick - Do you feel like music at all has any sort of play in maybe how you go about making the work?

Jennifer - I mean I think there's a specific genre of music that I listen to that gets me inspired and sort of gets the creative juices flowing so I am able to be more apt to the things that are around me/pictures that can be formed. I dont think it's just this specific project but more in general.

Nick - In the small blurb that you had written to me, you wrote: a lot of photographs are location specific to the arboretum. What initially brought you there?

Jennifer - It was the sophomore class where they brought us to the arboretum and I had never really been there before and thats kind of the introduction to there for me. And for some reason for the past 3 years Ive been finding myself going back. I think it’s just a nice oasis from the city, into this space that I'm really used to photographing anyways. I also something about the arboretum too that compared to going on hikes on walking trails, the arboretum is laid out and plants are planted where there are certain instances that catch my eye and allows me to create these scenes that I would can see and then “Boom, I need to take a picture of that”.

Nick - You also sort of spoke to this being an oasis, which I really like a lot, but what allows for youto feel safer there than anywhere else in the city? Is it more a feeling you get or is it because it's a physical bubble?

Jennifer - I think it’s a little bit of both. I think it's just the people that go there, for me in myhead, that feels safer than anywhere. I think too that it does feel and because it is so closed off for me it feels like a safe bubble. I’m not really 100% why I feel safer in that space. Maybe I just feel safer in nature and that just the place in the city that is nature.

Nick - I know you have talked about this a bit but did you spend a lot of time hiking when you were younger, especially when you were taking this sort of first photos? I know you were taking a lot of floral images but was hiking and being outside a big part of that?

Jennifer - Honestly my family weren't big hikers but we didn't really ever climb a mountain, like Wachusett mountain– we never really did that. We did some walking trails but we weren't really outdoorsy people.

Nick - When you get to a location, what's your working process like? Are you conceptualizing compositions before you get there? Are images determined when you arrive? Are you walking around a lot?

Jennifer - It's very spontaneous. I never usually have a set idea of what I want to photograph. It's very much just walking around, seeing what interests me and composing that way. I do a lot of versions of the same scene and move a certain way and usually that's how it goes. There's not really a formula or method that I use every time.

Nick - I know we briefly talked about this earlier but who are you looking at? Is it mainly photographers? Are you referencing anyone else?

Jennifer - I think it’s mainly photographers. I feel like I have said this this whole semester, this whole year even but Alice in Wonderland– the Disney animated one. That was a really helpful movie in my way to form how I look at the world. But mostly just photographers.

Nick - Have you rewatched Alice in Wonderland recently?

Jennifer - I have. Whenever I am sick I rewatch it.

Nick - What most excites about the medium and its capabilities? Where do you feel like you stand within it? WHere do you think you would position yourself as a photographer amongst everything else?

Jennifer - I think there's this way of making everyday scenes special and sort of seem surreal is what is most exciting about photography. And kind of putting this new spin on how to look at things. I mean I just sort of want my name to be out there. I don't really care if Im well well known but I just want people to see what I'm seeing.

Nick - Is it you want people to see and you want them to connect or be transported?

Jennifer - I definitely want people to be transported. I think that that's the big part of my work, to be able to take the viewer into this different world. And that's what I have sort of noticed over the past three years is like what I'm really attracted to and drawn to.

Nick - For your most current body of work [thesis], what do you see it in as its final form? Is it something you see it in as a book or its own exhibition in a gallery, and how would you envision it in either or?

Jennifer - That is a good question– I definitely can see it as a book. I think that the project would go well as a book. I feel like it would also– I don't really know if I'd make it this an exhibition but I could see it as an exhibition. I feel like its a bit personal, I don't really see this selling in a way, but as for the book and exhibition how i would go about it at least with sequencing– i think the hardest part about photography is the sequencing, like during my last crit Roma mentioned (and during last semester), it sort of seems like I'm chasing something, or the viewer [looking at the images] is chasing something they don't know and they are curious about through this landscape. I really liked that idea and reading of the work and I would go with that. And at least with the lights, it seems like this unknown, mysterious force in the landscape and I think I want to sequence the book and exhibition like that.

Nick - I know too in the blurb, the little summary you mentioned that it's something we're chasing after that we cant see and are not allowed to see– I think that's a really great concept cause I can see that too. What's one thing you would have told your younger self at the beginning, knowing what you know now?

Jennifer - Definitely, definitely don't compare yourself to others. I think that I definitely knew this when I was younger but take as many photographs as you can cause the more you take the better intuitively you'll get better with the way you take them. I think that also can be said for editing as well. I know I was really frustrated cause I never understood photoshop and the color curves and lightroom and then also watched more YouTube videos cause I’d always get frustrated watching youtube videos cause I never understood it, but just keep going with it. Id also say that when i was starting I was really big on equipment but i was never really satisfied with the camera that I had and would always be on instagram trying to figure out what camera, what lens they were using and like in my mind getting a new camera and a new lens would always fix the problems Id be having with photography in the moment but IT DOESN'T. Try to just get to know your equipment. Build a relationship with the equipment cause then you'll be able to make really great images/images you want to make. That sort of the 3 main ones.

Nick - One final question: Do you have a working title?

Jennifer - I hate titles and I hate naming images. I can never seem to name projects or title images. I do not have a working title but I'm trying to figure that out. As you know I am a big fan of Barbara Bosworth and I love the title of her new book, One Star in a Dark Voyage and I want it to be like that. I just need to figure out what mine will be. But that's my inspiration, that's my goal to have a very lyrical, moody title, but I'm not quite sure.