Written by: Alexandra Long
Imagine walking into a spacious gallery filled with impressive and creative photographs from all over the world. These photographs can’t be found at the Akron Art Museum; rather, you can see them in the student gallery of The University of Akron’s own Folk Hall.
These photographs weren’t taken by professionals, or by the faculty of Folk Hall. They were taken by members of the Folk Photography Association, a brand new UA student organization.
The Folk Photography Association is open to the entire UA community. Photography majors, photography minors, and just about anybody who loves photography are all encouraged to join.
“A small group of us saw that the dynamics among the photographers at Folk Hall was really lacking, so we wanted to do something to get people excited about photography, and share their passion and interest with others,” said the president of the FPA, Marissa McClellan.
The FPA was formed in order to gather a community of photographers and to, in the words of treasurer Sam Solan, “get our names and work out to the public.”
“It can get kind of stressful in class, with teachers critiquing your work,” Solan said. “What we try to do here is to create lectures and talk about our
photography.”
Besides displaying photographs in the student gallery, the FPA also holds group photography exhibitions, fundraisers, museum visits and guest lectures.
The lectures are one of the most important aspects of the FPA. Marissa hopes that holding lectures will help bring new ideas to the photographers, since many subjects are being repeatedly photographed.
“It will also give us an idea about how important it is to work hard to be a photographer,” Marissa said.
The FPA hopes to invite a handful of graduate students from the Cranbrook Academy of Art to speak about their work and about how they have grown artistically.
The FPA is currently holding an exhibition in the Folk Hall student gallery, which is located right across from the Emily Davis Gallery. The exhibit features a handful of photographs taken by current members of the Folk Photography Association. These photographs comprise many different compositions, from photographs of daily life to close-ups of animals, and even to expansive scenery.
Some of the photos were taken here in Ohio; others were taken in places as distant as Makino and Hirakata, Japan. With the many diverse shooting locations, the gallery offers a wide variety of creative photographs.
The FPA is on OrgSync and also on Facebook, under “Folk Photography Association,” where you can find posts about upcoming events and meetings.
