About
Homepage
My name is Mya Hernandez, a black and white digital and film photographer currently attending the School of Visual Arts. My focus has recently been on my family; documenting our relationship with each other, understanding our family dynamics, and how it personally affects me. I incorporate my own journal prompts, archival photographs, audio, and vhs tapes. I have previously created a photo diary using drawings, flowers, paint, and other creative materials discussing my personal mental obstacles. Creating bodies of work about myself and my family has helped me practice vulnerability and using the power of photography to say what I verbally can’t express.
To kick off this interview, can you tell us about your initial introduction to photography?
I actually was introduced to photography on my own. I was 12 years young and I remember getting ready to walk to school. It had been raining that day and I stood outside admiring the droplets of rain on the flower bush in front of my house. It was so pretty that I decided to take a close up photo of the flowers on my phone. After taking that simple photograph and seeing how pretty it looked, I immediately knew that I wanted to continue to see what else I could capture around my neighborhood.
I would take photos of my friends at the park, of sunsets, of more flowers, and even landscape photographs. I didn’t know the proper term or skills for taking photographs, I just knew I loved shooting anything that caught my eye. This love for photography led me to realize that I wanted to pursue this love of a hobby as a career and attend art school.
That's a heartwarming story, especially at such a young age. Moving on, I'd love to know more about your relationship with analog photography.
Analog photography as of now is more of a hobby that I want to incorporate back into my work. I love being in the darkroom, but developing film is my least favorite part which is why I stick to digital. I go to LTI to develop my film but I do want to get back into doing the entire process of developing and making darkroom prints myself again. The smell of the chemicals is always so pleasing, but I get impatient waiting for my film to be dry.
Luckily, I have been following you this year, witnessing your progress with your new project documenting your family, and I admire how it has grown. Would you mind describing to others what you have been working on?
I visually speak on themes of memory, past experiences, familial relationships, and grief within my body of work. By capturing unposed, documentary photographs in black and white and color film, I portrayed my family in a raw manner and documented the evolution of our ever-changing relationships. As my project progressed, I began to discuss the real reason behind the apparent separation; the grievous passing of my grandmother. Shedding light on her death encouraged me to broaden my approaches to my project and shy away from the camera.
Applying installational pieces, text, video, physical objects, audio, and archival family photographs allowed me to explore new, inviting ways to display my work. By integrating my grandmother's archived objects, I transformed her pieces into my own and recreated childhood memories. I experimented with cyanotypes to present a stronger approach targeting the fading memories with her, each paired with written text. Throughout my project, I intend to tell the evolving story of my familial connections and practice vulnerability to create an intimate connection with my audience.
I find your approach very intimate, and I appreciate the way you delve into this topic from various angles, which is quite compelling. Would you mind discussing your creative process next?
The idea is a priority for me; without it I can’t create anything. With that in mind, I visualize how and where I want my photographs to be shot. I love to write and incorporating that into my creative process has helped me with what I want to communicate to my audience, the connection I’m creating, and how I want to present my work.
Tell us about the equipment you use. Where did it come from, and what does the camera you use represent to you?
I continue to use my digital camera, a Canon Rebel T6, that my father gifted me for my birthday my senior year of high school. The thought of getting a new body and lens does come to mind, but I can not part ways with my T6 just yet, especially since it was from my father. Without his gift, I wouldn’t be able to photograph. My photos wouldn’t exist without my camera, and the gratitude I hold is inexpresable. I’m extremely thankful for my father for believing in me. I hold my camera close to my heart and in a way have become attached to it.
How do you engage with the film development or enlargement process? If you work in another type of printing, please share details about it.
Starting my digital printing process I edit my chosen photos and then go straight to printing. Whenever I begin printing, I have the urge to watch the print being made both on the small and large Epson printers. Seeing the ink create my photograph is very satisfying to me. I won't lie I hover over the printer because I get impatient to see my print. But, watching my photograph become a handheld, beautiful black and white image is the best result on my printing days. I feel so much excitement when I'm able to hold my work physically and begin placing them on the table in the light or on the walls.
In closing, are there any artists, regardless of their field, who have profoundly influenced your life and work?
There are a couple of photographers who inspire me to create and have fun with my process, but two have truthfully impacted my work heavily. Latoya Ruby Frazier and Carrie Mae Weems have both left a mark in my entire creative process, from taking the photograph to printing and my presentation layouts. I've felt as though it was a bit rare for me to discover POC artists and once I did during my visual literacy class, I was over the moon with joy. Being a young Afro-Latina woman, I wanted to find artists who looked like me and created meaningful work like mine, and both of these remarkably talented women caught my eye and have inspired me to believe in myself and my work; to create complex, emotionally moving photographs regardless of the norms.
We appreciate you joining us for this interview, Mya. For more of her work, check out her Instagram at @camya.hernandez.