30 INNOVATION & TECH TODAY | SUMMER 2019
PRESENTED BYreally wanted to be a fashion photographer.
Once I dove into that and worked with a lot of
the fashion kids, I realized, “Wow, these aren’t
my peeps.”
My project was a way of integrating these
dreams I had as a kid into what is valuable to me
now. And through that, I feel like, being on the
trail, I was finally who I was, who I always
wanted to be.
I feel like the trail turned me into the adult I
daydreamed I would be as a kid. I was finally
feeling like my most authentic self, which also
made me feel like my work was the most
authentic it’s ever been. It was just very real and
I was shooting what made me happy, doing
something that made me so happy, and that wasso challenging.
I think, though, that I really realized this is
what art is. Art is how you translate your life into
what you’re passionate about.
I&T Today: How do you decide how to pose
your subjects? Was it the surroundings that
inspired the pose or the person you were
photographing?
TC: I pose people depending on how I think
they will look the best. Because what I’ve
learned about my work, especially in the last
couple of years, is I don’t want people just to like
a photo of themselves. I want them to look at a
photo of themselves and be like, “Wow.”
Not just, “I look beautiful in that photo,” but,“I felt beautiful.” That’s really important to me.
And it’s so funny that some of these hikers
would tell me that, yet we’re in the middle of the
woods and we all smell like s*** and we haven’t
showered for weeks at a time, sometimes.Yet we all feel so good about ourselves. It’s
funny how thru-hiking turns you into this really
vulnerable person, where you’re your most
authentic self. And it’s really valuable to me to
have someone feel beautiful from a photograph
I’ve taken of them.I&T Today: When I think of vulnerability, I
think of feeling open to threats or feeling
unsafe. How do you see vulnerability as
something to aspire to?High-Fashion Hiking