Strawberry Fields by Hannah Humphreys

This selection will also be found in our Literary Arts Journal, Beneath the Surface.

Photography has become a big part of my life and one of my biggest passions. Photography allows me to see things from a different perspective and capture memories in a photograph. This year’s Artist in Residence, Clare Johnson, provided us with questions to base our art around, so that we would be able to have freedom to express ourselves. I have always loved music and felt as though, like photography, it allows me to escape reality. At first, when brainstorming ideas I thought about Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles as a song option due to the fact it gave me a clear vision on how to represent it through photography. I ultimately chose to base my project around that song. I originally thought about it in a more literal sense where I was intending to shoot one of my friends in a field with strawberries. However, a global pandemic occurred causing me to not be able to see any of my friends nor go outside. I talked to Clare about this and I decided to go about it in a more experimental way. This song helped turn my room into a world of its own. Photography allowed me to feel as though I was outside though I was not. This project helped me cope with being inside all the time by creating a world in which there were strawberry fields around me.