Tech student builds reputation for photographs
Monica Crowe, Reporter
04-28-2008
On the day the Olympic Torch passed through Paris, Andy Bloxham, graduate photography student at Louisiana Tech University, was positioned at the base of the Eiffel Tower capturing the events. Subsequently, those photos were used on CNN’s Web page and were televised along with photography professor Frank Hamrick, in a half hour international CNN iReport. Bloxham was in Paris with the School of Art French Quarter, and he learned of the torch running the night before it occurred. Thinking it would be a good thing to take photos of, he said he arrived at the Eiffel Tower two hours early and watched the crowd grow. At the conclusion of the event, he said he went back to his hotel room, and wondered if the photos could somehow be used. He went to CNN’s Web page and submitted the photos.
About five minutes later, Bloxham said he received word from CNN in Atlanta that they would like to use his photos. Later that day as he watched the news, he said his name was announced with his photos splashed across the television screen.
Bloxham, who has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, said he is interested in how the mind works. When it came time to choose his master’s studies, he said it was either creative writing or photography. Since he was a child, Bloxham has been writing plays, and he said his conceptual ideas are like filmstrips in his mind.
“I’m interested in fiction,” he said. “How can you tell a story — how can you entertain people through fiction?”
Bloxham describes his art as story telling, and while he interprets the images one way, he likes viewers to come to their own conclusions. To get the image he has in mind, he directs his subjects. Unlike movies, he said, which have countless photo frames in which to tell a story, a photo must condense a story into one image.
Some of his photographs’ subject matter has come from vivid dreams he began having when he wore a nicotine patch to quit smoking. While his camera is a Canon XTI, Bloxham said he also likes to take Polaroids, as he is a self confessed fan of instant gratification.
His list of credits include many awards, participation in exhibitions and press. Recently, he won first place in the 1078 Gallery Juried Show 2008 in Chico, Calif. The result of the achievement will be an upcoming solo exhibition at the gallery. Also, this summer, Bloxham will work as a teaching assistant at Maine Media Workshop, and in the future, he hopes to make a career at either teaching photography or working in commercial advertising.
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