Self-Portrait © Andrea Bartley

Andrea Bartley is a junior studying photography and writing at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Her habits include a wide range of activities, from sitting at home curled up with a good book to hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. She is kept company by her sassy calico and a bake-savvy roommate on the East Side in Milwaukee.

Her interest in photography began when her stepfather lent her an old Nikon 35mm camera. He was about to sell this gem on Craigslist when Andrea intervened and asked to experiment with it. She was fifteen and her love for the medium blossomed into a career-forming habit.

From her piquant youth, she has developed into a strong-willed independent photographer ready to take on the changing world of media consumption.

self portrait ©Olivia Obluck-Zager

All I used to think about was the different ways to blow up my kitchen or the Chem Lab till I took a photo class in high school. The darkroom became my new laboratory. I love the city. I was born in Milwaukee, though I moved to Mukwonago as a child. I don't regret not living in the city while growing up. The woods became my haven and my Nikon N55 my therapy.

Now a Junior at MIAD, I still use my camera as a way to escape. When I started at MIAD I embarked on the journey of shooting digitally as opposed to film. At first I felt I had lost my connection with my work, but soon gained an appreciation for the digital photograph.

I still continue to search out the places that help to silence my thoughts, but also have been looking at the not so quiet side photography.

self portrait. © robert kjendlie

Robert Kjendlie, the oldest of 3 plus 2, grew up in Janesville, WI. Being mechanically inclinded, Robert spent much of his time fiddling with various objects in hopes of deciphering how they worked. He first touched a camera and a mac on the same day in ’92. He then spent time as a dj in Madison and on a day not eleven years and 13 days ago he boarded a Greyhound and headed west towards California. The experience was life changing. Robert spent the next ten years learning floral design and event planning from the best in San Francisco while at the same time was pursuing electronic music and culture. Photography found Robert again in 2003 while working an event in New York. However it was a trip to the Philippines in 2006 that really sparked something inside him and in 2008 he began attending the Academy of Art University to study photography. Currently, he is in Milwaukee, WI studying photography and communication design at MIAD while working as a freelance photographer.

Self Portrait; Green Glitter ©Kaitlynn Scannell

Pisces, optimistic, go-getter, self- proclaimed nerd and a Mac n cheeseaholic. I was born on the South Side of Chicago. I was not alone. On this faithful day another girl was born 20 minutes before me. This is the girl who introduced me to photography. My work started out in black and white film and over the past 6 years has transitioned to digital. My favorite color is green and I love glitter. As I try to find my voice I constantly hear my mothers. I enjoy exploration through my lens with a side of oddities. I enjoy long walks on the beach but I probably won't photograph them. Print is so retro but nothing beats a good book.

Self Portrait © Jennifer Romero

I am currently a photography student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. I grew up in the surrounding suburbs of Chicago IL and fell in love with photography at the age of 15. Since then I have lived by absorbing all I can from the little details to the largest life changing experiences. These experiences mold into ideas that I incorporate into my work, utilizing them to express my thoughts and artistic intent. I am highly motivated by surrealist-like thoughts and ideas that involve pushing ones self to look beyond what is here and physical. With my work I bring the viewer into my vision of an alternate world where the everyday and the norm are questioned. With this I strive to stimulate understanding and growth within the viewer as well as within myself.

Self Portrait, © Keely Weiland

At the beginning, I photographed simply because I had a camera. I received it for my tenth birthday and as a child, just decided that I should be a photographer. I didn't just collect memories. I remember posing people and having specific ideas for imagery. As I grew, I began to see differently and wanted to learn and push myself both technically and conceptually. As a student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, I found that I could do that, and still am.

I was born in northern Michigan and lived there until attending MIAD. It was here that I found my interest in abstraction, minimalism, and color based imagery. The bulk of my photographing includes these ideas, while still allowing me to explore others.

Self-Portrait; And She Saw © Paige Rice

I have been curious about life since my first words as a child. Since those first words I have grown into a responsible hard-working young woman. At times I feel that I may take life too seriously, but I enjoy every minute of the journey.

My goal in life is that no matter what happens to make the best of it and to be happy with what I’ve got. Thus, I usually try to stay optimistic in any situations that present themselves.

I tend to be mainly inspired by books and people. My love in my life belongs to my Adam, family, friends, and my pets. In addition, I timidly admit that I have a love for not only my photography, also reading, sleeping, and my TV shows.

My work, photography or design, are completely different, yet represent my individual ties to the world and my personal curiosity within things.

Self Portrait © Megan Ramminger


"To me, photography is an art of observation. It is about finding something interesting in an ordinary place...I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." -Elliot Erwitt

Megan Ramminger is a student at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She is majoring in photography and has a minor in Industrial Design. As a little girl it was her mother that put the camera into her hand. Megan's mother used photography has a hobby and growing up, Megan did as well. Megan was always creative and in High School took up drawing. She was accepted into MIAD where she decided to major in Industrial Design. 3 years into her major she realized that Fine Arts was missing from her life and decided to return to her childhood love of photography. Megan photographs abstractions of the world around her and she also enjoys documentary photography. She has a self published book on blurb titled "Angie's Boy". Megan works professionally with digital and still enjoys using disposable film cameras for her own personal enjoyment.

Self Portrait © Zachary Seib

Zachary Seib is an award winning photographer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His work has been published in both My Midwest and Wisconsin Trails magazines. Currently, Zachary is working on his bachelors of fine arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He is majoring in photography and minoring in communication design.

Zachary works with both digital cameras and traditional large format equipment. His photographs are representations of the surrounding world. Through his photographs he brings attention to the small details which have a tendency to be overlooked.

Self Portrait © Marta Shumylo


I was born and grew up in Ukraine. I feel very foreign living in the US but I have lived here long enough so that when i go back to Ukraine, I am foreign there too. I guess i was born to feel strange.
Art is the medicine I prescribe myself. I came up with a formula that keeps me going and makes sense most of the time:
see-->feel-->photograph-->think-->understand-->grow-->photograph.
It is a never-ending cycle that is helping me become the person I know I can be, giving birth to images that should be born.

Self Portrait © Julia Kozerski

My name is Julia Kozerski. I am a 26 year old, flip-flop wearing, iPhone addicted, wife, homeowner, and adoptive mother to a 14 year ols American Pit Bull Terrier. Within the last year I have lost over 115 pounds, I am obsessed with leopard print, my flower of choice is the Orchid, and I love the scent of vanilla. Oh. . . my favorite color? Black, of course.

After high school, I held many job titles: retail sales associate, auto-body repair technician, assistant manager, even warehouse worker. In 2007, I quit my stable, corporate, and very boring (but well-paying) position as an office manager working for a well-known, major insurance carrier and began my college education at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD.)

Currently I am a junior level student majoring in Photography and minoring in Art History. Although I am attending a Fine Art based program, and continue to work in the genre, I have also developed a deep and abounding love for editorial work through my Photography Internship with the Milwaukee-based, weekly publication, the Shepherd Express.

Have questions? Just ask.

Untitled Self Portrait N. 5 © Emily E. Johnson

Born in a town

whose name

no one can

pronounce-

Oconomowoc, WI.

First

picked up

a camera

with artistic

intent in

her sixteenth year.

Moved on to

The Good Land,

(Milwaukee, WI)

and started making

more than just

pretty pictures

fresh out of High School.

Can't put the

camera down.

Has fidgety fingers.

Is a science nerd.

Has an eye for

the ephemeral,

the moon,

the stars,

acts of living,

human emotion.

All in color.

Self-Portrait © Lauren Howie Laur

Howie Laur, two last names no hyphen /rhymes with cauliflower/ Lauren Kathryn named after my great grandmother. I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Mequon, WI. I am an only child of my mother and one of five of my father. Contrary to popular belief I am not a spoiled brat. My mother is a psychotherapist and my father is sort of a jack of all trades. My family and I have the United States covered in each direction, my older sister in California, my older brother in Texas and my younger twin brother and sister in Massachusetts. I travel, as much as possible and anywhere I am able to go. I am blessed to have a large, loving and at times a little wild family. Okay, a little is an understatement, who else has wrapping paper fights every Christmas. As a little girl I enjoyed being in front of the camera /too much/ but today I am usually only behind it. My home flooded in 2008 /we live on the Milwaukee River/ and have no basement. This was my jumping off point to begin documenting my life. I didn't always know what I wanted to do when I grew up, but nothing has felt more fitting then photographing the world that created who I am now. At the moment I am 20 /almost 21/ going on 30, single for the time being and looking forward to life after 22 years of schooling. My favorite food is mashed potatoes, color is red and camera is a Holga. I have had the opportunity to have my work displayed twice /coming up on the third/ during Milwaukee's Gallery Night at Tulip Restaurant. My style is still in development, but am currently focused on place and determining if where we are is who we are.

Self Portrait © Kelsey Lorenzen

I am a Concordia student full time and a part time Co-op student with MIAD. I realize my photographic voice is still learning how to speak so in the mean time I have kept myself busy by photographing an array of styles. Black and white, still life, portraits, weddings, landscapes, you name it I’ve poked my camera lens at it. After trudging through multiple genres I have learned there are things I love to photograph.

Color is extremely captivating to me and I have been more recently drawn to photograph different lighting situations. Growing up on a farm in rural Minnesota, you could say I’ve come to enjoy the more simple things in life. A sunset on the lake, shadows on a building, children playing. These are the things I am also drawn to in my photograph and hope to expand more and learn more about my preferences and abilities in the future.

self portrait © Alec Schuppel

My name is Alec, which I feel uniquely gives a definition to what I may be like. I try to stay aware of my reactions to experiences as often as I can. I often pay attention to my feelings and the feelings I involve others in which I believe is directly related to my purposes of photographing. My biggest motivator is my father who passed away when I was seven. Almost my entire life has been spent trying to understand what my father was like and his way of handling life. Through genetics, if I were to stop trying to understand my father’s way of seeing life, I don't believe I would feel any purpose in photographing. He is the root of the beautiful happenings that I witness, experience, and photograph. It is his feelings via experience that shine through me, and that is what I try to capture.

Self Portrait © Joshua Ballew

My name is Joshua Ballew and I am a photography student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Consciously influenced by the imagery seen in skateboard magazines, subconsciously by the cluttered photo albums of my mother, photography is my attempt of collecting, inspecting, and organizing things I cannot control. This is not to say that through photography I have honed my ability to control or change anything. The truth is, almost none of the finished work I produce directly resembles ideas from the ever-changing list they derive from. My intention for the images may have started there on the clumsily written page but they most certainly won't end there. With regard to my photography the only thing I can say with any level of certainty is the results of the creative endeavor will undoubtedly change and be influenced by people, places, and items outside of the preconceived intent.

Self portrait © Emily Porter

I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and still reside there to this day while attending Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. My everyday life inspires me to take photographs as well as literature and random thoughts that just pop in my head.

Film is a favorite, yet digital is often used. I enjoy time with my cats, Willow and Icabod, while reading british literature and sipping a cup of tea. In addition I take pleasure in browsing for antiques and dwelling in local coffee houses, while seeking out moments to photograph.