My name is Austin Bowers. I am 21 years old.

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I am currently enrolled at University of Arkansas Little Rock - UALR

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I am majoring in Illustration, and minoring in Graphic Design, and Photography with a Photography certificate.

 

Artist Statement

I create surrealistic worlds with self portrait photography. I am well versed in the use of both digital and film techniques. Each image conveys an emotion from my own experiences and thoughts. Whether that be generalized stress or thoughts from a dream.

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When creating a photograph, I tend to mainly focus on design and composition, next to that is lighting and color. Stylistically, I have always gravitated to surrealism. This goes for any artwork I make.

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I like the thought of making the unreal, reality. I do this by making as little edits in Photoshop as possible. I try to do my editing in camera so to speak. Once you use Photoshop, your image is tainted, and becomes fake. Using techniques such as long shutter speeds and flashes, I create images that all the elements already belong in the space you see in the photo. This isn't to say that I don't use Photoshop or Lightroom for photo editing. I use it all the time to touch up colors, lighting, exposure, etc. I just don't make extreme edits to make it something it's not.

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A good example of this are my pinhole photos. All of those are extremely long exposures. Anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour max. Each instance of me that you see was really there in the space, just at different times. To create this, I had to hold the desired pose for around 10 minutes, depending on how sharp I wanted it to become. Extensive planning had to happen so I would get the image I wanted.