Positive Magazine starts a news series of interviews with young photographers we found on our flickr group page.
Today we interviewed Christina Stoever. She is a 19 year old photographer living in Detroit, Michigan and she shoots with 35mm film and strives to capture life in its most candid and natural states. Her inspiration is stimulated by emotionally charged events in her life. When people look at her work, she hopes that it can spark emotion or longing of some sort. The retention of memories is crucial to her and she aims to capture certain feelings that pertained to a specific time in her life. She craves to open the eyes of others with the work she creates, whether it be emotional to one’s internal monologue or an impact on society as a whole.
When did you start to think about photography?
Back in middle school I used to bring disposable cameras to school and I almost always had a camera on me despite the fact that I was 11. Getting film photographs developed of my childhood friends at the time didn’t seem like anything more than a hobby to me until I turned 15 and I realized it was something that I enjoyed on a deeper and more serious level.
What does photography mean to you? and which kind of photography do you like more?
To me, photography is capturing a moment in its rawest, most pure state and being able to tell a story with that one image alone… so a form of documentation basically. I tend to avoid the question of what my favorite kind of photography is, mostly because I don’t think I can limit it down to just one category, there are just so many and they’re all awesome haha….portraits are a lot of fun though.
When you take a portrait, what is important for you?
I want my subjects to be in their most natural states of being. I don’t tell my subjects how to pose, instead I tell them to have a conversation about something random or interact with their surroundings in a certain way so that I can photograph them in their most honest and true forms.
Do you think it’s important to follow a school to learn how to shoot?
Of course, but to a certain extent. You can know all of the science and techniques behind photography but still take a crummy image. I think that one’s personal drive, inspiration, and their past experiences are most influential toward how they look through a lens.
What’s the photo you want to take and you never did?
For years I’ve been wanting to take a picture of my closest friends just running in the middle of a road in an isolated town at midnight. I’ll get around to that soon maybe.
What’s your photo-mission?
I want to be able to follow all of my creative impulses in a way that allows me to challenge my comfort levels basically just have a ton of fun doing it.
