40 Something, With Cats is a series of photographs that explore my feelings about being a single woman with a weight problem approaching fifty and how I think society at large sees woman like me in general.
Currently pursuing her Bachelors of Fine Art in photography, Erin McGuire merges her love of the desert and film photography with the training she is receiving at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco to create distinctly unique landscape images. Born in Orange County, California in March, 1965, she became interested in photography at an early age and at eighteen, began to actively pursue photography after receiving her first SLR camera, a Pentax ME Super. Life had other plans and it would be more than twenty-five years before she would use a camera again.
Eager to catch up on so many lost years, she moved quickly from using a digital point and shoot camera to trying many different types of film cameras where she discovered a simple, plastic camera that opened a whole new world of photographic possibilities. The Holga camera, with its square format, sweet spot center focus and dark, blurry corners was the perfect tool for expressing her vision of the desert landscape.
Erin has extensive experience shooting with antique film cameras, including medium format press cameras and Polaroid instant cameras that she uses to shoot Impossible Project and Fuji instant films. With a love for all things photographic, she hasn’t left the digital world behind and is currently using her knowledge of Adobe Photoshop to create image compositions that merge Holga film base images with components of digital captures to create the lonely, moody photographs that make up her latest series, On the Surface.
Erin’s work has been exhibited nationally in many group exhibition’s and is held in many private collections around the globe.
Awards Academy of Art University, Spring Show, 2nd Place Undergraduate Fine Art category
Emerging Focus Top 20 Finalist (2012)
Plates to Pixels, Enchantment, 2 Individual Honorable Mentions (2012)
APA National, The APA Awards 2012 Photo Competition, 1st Place Student Category (2012)
Lucie Foundation, International Photography Awards, Honorable Mention (2012)
Photographers Forum, 32nd Annual Spring Photography Contest, Finalist (2012)
Lucie Foundation, International Photography Awards, Honorable Mention (2011)
Randy Smith, Spring Holga Hike, Grand Prize Winner (2011)
Photographers Forum, 30th Annual Spring Photography Contest, Finalist (2010)
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Finalist (2010)
Lucie Foundation, International Photography Awards, Honorable Mention (2009)
