CASSANDRA YOUNG
CASSANDRA YOUNG
Mendocino, California
Winner, Int'l Photography Awards, 2021 Oneshot, HR in Four Categories
Winner, APA LA, "Off The Clock" 2020, juried by David Fahey
Winner, Photo District News, Faces 2019
“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.”
— Elliott Erwitt
I create images non-traditionally, that connect to the humanity of the person being photographed.
Making photos is at the core of who I am. I learned to make pictures before I learned to drive. As a child, armed with my grandfathers Rollei, the first portrait I remember making was of my mother, who agreed to jump into a large bush of flowers and peek out at me. It was weird, and I was hooked. In college, studying with one of Ansel Adam's former assistants, I was obsessed with creating stark nudes in the studio and doing things with darkroom chemistry that is definitely not recommended. It got even weirder, and I loved it. As a starving artist in San Francisco, printing for Jock Sturges, I would ride around on buses at all hours of the night capturing the degradation of the city on a Hasselblad. The irony wasn't lost on me, and I knew I needed to shake things up.
I deviated from my passion, and delved into a decade long career in graphic design and art direction. I designed one-sheets in LA, and art directed advertising campaigns in NYC. It was only after art directing the first HD Film Festival in Manhattan, and working with incredibly impassioned directors, that I knew I had to get back to my life's work, photography.
In 2006 I opened my studio in Mendocino, CA, diving headlong into creative portraiture, and haven't looked back. After a workshop with Frank Ockenfels 3 I came to the realization, I have no fear of failure, but of not trying.