Salt Institute invites photographer for semester

by Colin Herzog, '07

Everyone knows a picture is worth a thousand words, but enough of the right pictures will get you 15 credits.

This truth is well-known to Ashley Bailey, a junior Photography major and Journalism minor who has been accepted into the widely-respected Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Maine.

Students at the Salt Institute are required to create two or three bodies of work during a semester, at least one of these being a writer/photographer collaboration. Ashley, who is leaning toward the documentary side of photography, is excited at the prospect of telling stories that need to be told.

“This is a highly-competitive, interdisciplinary program,” Visual Arts and New Media Department Chairperson Elizabeth Lee said. “It will engage her in another form of education, in this case, field research in documentary expression.”

Ashley’s sense of artistry is elicited by raw scenes depicting the environment and human nature in their most honest forms, which she is quick to capture in her lens. Long country roads edged with cakey snow banks, the bustle of a subway platform, the wrinkled leather of an old man’s arm sporting a “Buffalo Bill” tattoo.

“I like to people-watch a lot,” she said. Her work reflects this as well her history as a former Conservation major at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.

“I woke up thinking about photography every day,” she said, also confessing that she has been toting a camera with her everywhere since a photography class she took in high school.

A Cassadaga native, she made the switch to SUNY Fredonia and dove head first into the photography department.

“It has been really great to watch her grow,” said Steve Komp, a professor of photography at Fredonia who has taught several classes with Ashley since she arrived. “She has gained a level of maturity that is rarely seen from students at that level.”

Ashley will continue her growing process in Maine during the Spring 2007 semester starting this January.

In the meantime, you can find her with camera in hand anywhere a story needs to be seen.