I'm Zoe Jay, a high school student hopefully on track to an art degree with a focus on animation. I love art and everything having to do with it!

I find photoshopping really fun, but I don't like the look of heavily photoshopped images. I prefer photography that reflects real life, and uses basic editing like color and lighting edits to enhance the feeling of an image. This is mostly what I did in my photo essay on teenage life at my school. Most of what you'll see here is pictures that I've tried give some natural emotions and realities of life!

One of the main reasons I take pictures is to gain a better understanding of what the world around me actually looks like - I love to draw, and I use my photographs as references. That's another reason I don't like a lot of photoshopping. You can't learn to draw from images that don't display real life.

I do think that photoshop is an important tool to learn, though! When I am trying to use an photograph to represent a concept rather than an aspect of life, photoshop is a tool unparalleled in its usefulness. Two pictures that come to mind are my picture entitled ~Love~ and my picture entitled Heaven and Earth, which are both more conceptual shots that use heavy layer masking.

I also like bright, bold colors, so you'll get plenty of that here too!

All of my studio shooting is done using Ellinchrom D500 studio lights. On-location lighting is done with various reflectors and the occasional speed light. The camera I use is a Nikon 3100, supplied by the school.