top of page
AMY SHELTON PHOTOGRAPHY
Work Studies (2015)
For this project I intended to shoot photographs of student workers. Many of these students work hard in class, work hard at their minimum wage jobs, and also work deal with multiple other stressors in life. Many of these student artists work hard for a variety of reasons. In my research, I looked for brave photographers who battled the problem of using photography as a tool for social reform during some very depressing times in American history. Many of these photographers approached the medium in a very methodical way. They found something that was bothering them, they were brave and they photographed moments of pure sadness in beautiful ways. Their methods often included searching for years to find iconic moments. Other photographers used their personal everyday lives to make political statements. By looking into themselves, they found other people suffering from the same issue that were willing to speak about it.
For this project I chose people that I know to be hard workers. They seem to try their best to stay positive despite the people that disrespect them for working a minimum wage job. I learned a lot from simply observing people under working conditions. But it was difficult for me to observe the people who who didn’t take the time to simply be polite, understanding, or kind to student workers. I would like my viewers to recognize that these people are more than one dimensional. The people who work with customer service are brothers, sisters, cousins, lovers, broken souls, students.
bottom of page