Grand Valley State University’s seven-member senior photography thesis class is showcasing their final projects with an exhibition opening tonight in the Art Gallery located inside the Performing Arts Center on the Allendale
Campus.

The reception, beginning at 5 p.m., gives viewers a chance to talk with the photographers about their individual, unique pieces.

And each has a personal connection to the students, not just because it’s their final senior project, but because they chose pieces that they were passionate about.

Kelly Trisch’s piece, “Nature Deficit,” focuses on research she found about the problems children face when they don’t spend enough time outside. Her six images bring children and nature together to fill the missing connection, she said.

“I was raised in a small town, my house is in the middle of a field and I spent most of my free time outside,” Trisch said. “Currently living in a subdivision is something new to me, and I feel that I can’t really connect with nature the way I used to.”

Because it’s an issue that strikes her, she was able to create something that she hopes will bring awareness to people about how much time children spend inside with technology and how beautiful nature is in her photographs.

For Jared Talcott, his original idea wasn’t working and he realized it was because he wasn’t passionate about it.

“I was taking great photographs, but I didn’t really have any passion behind them,” Talcott said. “Had this idea where I wanted to destroy negatives and eventually it turned into a mystery. It was a bit last minute, but still something I would be able to do and have meaning behind it.”

His installation piece took on a darker effect, and makes viewers look at it for a mystery in a detective-like way. Because he’s burning the negatives, using photographs of his friends over the past few summers was “creepy and a little bit odd,” he said, but gave him a stronger personal connection.

Rachel Herbert also used personal photographs, some of which she is in. Hers is also an installation piece that features photographs from the last four years of her life, suspended inside mason jars.

She didn’t take any new photographs for her piece, but chose old ones to draw out personal memories — and although the pictures are of her friends and family, she wants viewers to be able to see themselves in them.

“I wanted to kind of display the idea of preserving a memory because memory is something that is very dear to us and a memory is very kind of scattered, there’s no organization to it,” Herbert said. “That’s where the mason jar came into play, when I thought of preserving this, you know keeping it from fading away, or keeping my memories from being forgotten, and putting them in jars and hanging them from the structure.”

She said it’s the unorganized clutter of a memory that inspired her, and creating the project has helped her face good and bad memories from the past for years at GVSU.

The exhibition is a showcase of the skills that the students learned during their college careers and how they can translate them into professional work with personal connections.

For Misha Grubbs, the exhibition not only showcases her piece Rays of Cal City, which features photographs of abandoned buildings in her hometown Chicago, but also shows how much she has grown as a photographer.

“I have doubted myself many of times, thinking that [photography] is something I can’t do, but seeing my work on the wall of a gallery and seeing people look at my work is proof that I have a bright future in this career and motivates me to do bigger and better things,” Grubbs said.

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